me and my sentry

There was one day during mom’s visit when I was free and the kids were in school. The last time we had managed to find a minute to spend alone together just you and me against the world, we were across the globe in Rome. This time we thought we’d keep it simple and explore a more local locale.

We decided to visit the lovely island peninsula of Coronado. Perfectly coiffed and situated, Coronado is the land of lovely landscaped lusciousness. I think I would live quite happily there, should the need arise. For the time being, I’ll find pleasure in the visits that I can afford. And with my mom? This visit was sure to be priceless.

                

We drove over in the late morning, and headed straight to the Del for a good start to our meandering. I made like George Costanza in gloating over the parking space I happened upon, like 3 steps from that inimitable red roof. We walked along windswept dunes and breezy palms to the hotel, and made our way out to the sun deck just as the blustery day began to warm up. We ordered up a drink and some snackie poos, why on earth wouldn’t we? It was gorgeous out there.

We grabbed a seat in one of the corner booths, chatting and catching up and soaking up rays and enjoying the moment. 

 We talked about what we might like to do with this wide open afternoon, and eventually started to prepare ourselves to leave our happy little nest. 

 

Then mom, in her infinite genius and wisdom, suggested that we could just hang out and read….and I positively leapt on board that notion. To sit and read? In the little sunny corner? On a couch? With drinks? Oh, were we ever smug. 

We didn’t stay all day, just until our cups were tragically empty and the sky was starting to spit. We walked through the hotel a bit before heading back to retrieve my car from its righteous parking space. We drove around for a while, I showed mom the silver strand and some of the Coronado neighborhoods that I so love and covet. I didn’t much track our location, it’s an island peninsula after all, there’s not too far you can go without bumping up against an obstacle of some sort and taking a moment to recalculate the route to make your way toward the big blue bridge.  Mom and I just moseyed along, gabbing and gawking and generally moving forward. I had the bridge in sight and headed that way, the gates ahead must be the entry.

Um.

OR.

Those gates were the sentry.

(sĕn'trē)
A guard, especially a soldier posted at a given spot to prevent the passage of unauthorized persons.

Mom suggested that I flip a quick Uturn and get the hell out of naval station dodge… but something deep down inside of me.. something that my MOTHER probably instilled a tender age… told me not to turn back on a one way street to avoid confronting the armed military guard with the enormity of my clueless assholery.

I approached the sentry.

Yup. I approached the motherfucking sentry.

I giggled like I might when unintentionally pulling into a parking garage, I was all: “oops! I didn’t know this was a pay lot! Where’s the turnaround?”

The sentry asked for my license. He walked away with it. Then he pulled out some orange cones and said into his radio: “stop traffic.”

I shit you not.  

Many things run through your head at a moment like this. Things like:  I just made a wrong turn, calm your shit down, soldier! God I’m such a stupidstupidstupid jerk, I’m like freaking Roya with my nice face and evil intentions. But wait, my intentions are so not evil! I’m pure as the driven snow, let me GO!

Turns out he stopped traffic to let me drive out of there, and he realized almost right away that he still had my license.

We finally headed for the blue bridge for realsies, my thoughts firmly rooted in the moment. I definitely did NOT get so engrossed in mom’s reading of our past Rome itinerary that I stayed on 5N all the way to La Jolla.

That would be troubling.

Send help.