Back With a Tan and a Couple of Outlaws

I’m back from a week in Cuba! You might be wondering “how was it?”

I don’t know what it is, but I find “how was your vacation” one of the hardest questions to answer. Especially one built around relaxing. “It was fine/good/great” does not satisfy, so I move to the checklist of topics to cover: weather; food; the resort; general niceness.

The other thing is the diminishing return of answering the same questions. In this case, Eleanor (who you may have met working the Blind Ferret booth at GenCon last year) happened to be the first person to message me about my trip. She got an earful. Then my parents, when they came over the Saturday we returned from the trip. My brother the next day. By the time I was back to work Monday, I was “how was Cuba”d out.

However, today I remembered a story from our trip down that is worth sharing. I was about to call it a fun story but, you’ll see.

We passed through security at 5:00am for our 6:30am flight. At the metal detector, my youngest daughter, two-and-a-half year old Abigail, wanted me to pick her up. This is allowed, so I did and we went through the metal detector together.

You know how you have to take your shoes off when going through airport security? That’s a US airspace thing. Canadians flying directly to Cuba don’t have to take their shoes off.

Abby’s shoes didn’t have bombs in them, but, like most kids shoes these days (and the shoes 80s kids dreamed of), they had lights in them. That takes metal. Metal detectors hate metal.

So the alarm goes off and a security agent with a metal detection wand informs me that he’ll have to scan me and Abby separately.

The normally chatty Abby stood there stoic and Baby Yoda-esq. Her arms were up and her legs were apart in the frisk pose. It was scary but also adorable in that “a kid in diapers is doing an adult thing” way. My wife confirmed she felt the same way when she got through and told me “Poor Abby. But if I had my phone, I’d have taken a picture.”

A four hour flight later, we passed through the Cuban metal detectors (Abby now shoeless). I’m putting my belt on and I see that my older daughter, Scarlett, is getting scanned by the wand. Ends up, she’d been harbouring jealousy towards Abby since Montreal about the whole security incident and asked the Cuba security agent to scan her. The amused agent complied.

Story aside, we’re all fine. Cuba was fun, the weather was a warm but breezy 30 degrees, the food was fresh and plentiful, and the resort was accommodating. Generally, it was nice.