Girls Just Wanna Have Fu-un

Joy and I exit the plane and stand around the baggage carousel chomping at the proverbial bit. With every passing moment that we spend listening to tattooed mullet man bellow on his phone and wait for our luggage to emerge from the bowels of the airport, we are missing precious moments of what we are sure is a ripping good happy hour at our resort villa. And we still have a car to rent and ground to cover. And it is rush hour.

And so after much weaving through traffic and avoiding rush hour fender benders and pulling in and out of dark and even darker places trying to see what dimly-lit place we’d happened upon while searching for the also dimly lit resort, we finally arrived at the villa and the games could officially begin.

Already having claimed beds were Kate, who secures the villa with her amazing feats of business accomplishment each year, her sister Priscilla, who joins us as often as possible, and Jackie, whose husband is running in some insane athletic event later that weekend and who is here to support him, but is getting in a little girl time in the bargain too.

And then there are two gals I’ve not met before. Sisters that Kate and Priscilla know from some past career that they’ve all moved on from but with whom they’ve kept up a friendship despite years past and miles in between. Candy and Taffy Krotchfelt.

I arrive, and am immediately handed a Margarita, which I accept graciously from Priscilla. Kate emerges from the loft and hugs Joy and me. Jackie calls from the bathroom where she is flat ironing. And then one after the other, Taffy and Candy come out of their bedroom to introduce themselves. Joy and I are greeted warming with hugs. The girls have come out to say hello and are wearing naught but bras and panties and a little jewelry.

It is like a slumber party in full swing. Clothes emerging from suitcases and being shared and tried on and modeled for sisterly opinion.

Cocktails are poured and pictures snapped.

Jewelry is affixed to earlobes and necks and wrists and exchanged until all is just right.

Candy shows us all a trick for positioning our boobs in our bras for the most positive gravity defying effect. (I am stunned that this is precisely the maneuver I noticed Estelle subscribed to for years when we lived under the same roof…I try to drink the thought out of my head.)

Eventually, we all decide we are reasonably pleased with how we’ve turned out, down the last remaining mouthfuls of rummy frozen concoctions and head out the door.

Over the years we’ve gotten to know some locals and we are off to a place they’ve suggested. We pile like a bunch of high schoolers at a drive-in into one car. With zero visibility over the heads and torsos of 5 ladies in the backseat, I promptly back the car into a cactus.

But not to worry, we are all on vacation and all in rare form. Off to the races we go.