A New Golden Boys Adventure

My plane landed in Fort Myers, Fla. at about 7:45. As I came down the escalator I saw a vaguely familiar looking man holding a sign with my last name. He was obviously not a chauffeur as he was dressed more appropriately for golf. I approached him and said that I was who he was here to pick up. He replied, “What’s the password?” I didn’t have a password and was completely unaware that one was needed. Then from behind a black bag was pulled over my head and I was dragged into a waiting car.

Ok, the last sentence isn’t true, but that’s what would happen in a movie right? He did ask for the password, so I called my wife who had set up this awesome mystery weekend. She didn’t know anything about a password either. That wasn’t part of the plan. She said, “He must not be your ride.” That’s when I felt the cold, steel muzzle of a small handgun pressed against my ribs and my would be chauffeur said, “Wrong answer. You’re coming with me. If you keep quiet we’ll keep your nice shirt from getting a hole in it.” Ok, made that last sentence up too. As I was on the phone asking the wonderful Mrs. Phil about the password Golden Boys Cliff and Gooby came up behind me, of course filming me.

We grabbed some pizza, hit a couple bars and ended up at Tim’s house on the beach. Nothing too exciting but it was a fun, relaxing night. The next morning we took a walk on the beach and did a little sand sculpting. It’s a hobby of mine.

Ok, maybe I didn’t do that, but someone made this and left it there. There were plans afoot but I didn’t know what they were. Every step of the weekend was being kept secret from me, which was just what I wanted. About noon I found myself on a pontoon boat with my friends and a half a dozen strangers, cruising the bay until we stopped near a sand bar, dropped anchor and spent the afternoon standing in the surf with a drink in my hand making new friends.

As we enjoyed our afternoon several ominous storm clouds could be seen in the distance conspiring against us. We got back on the boat and tried to outrun the storm. Unfortunately it was faster than our little boat. It looked like our three hour tour was going to go the way that Gilligan’s did.  While we were on the boat everyone put their phones in a waterproof bag. Unbeknownst to me however, my friends took my phone out, took a bunch of pictures and posted a lot to Facebook.

Then we saw an opening and our opportunity to take shelter, in a river side bar. Drinks were bought and strangers sang happy birthday to me. Then I bought myself this purple t-shirt to make me smile when I put it on and remember this day.

  
We eventually got back to Tim’s place and stood in the surf enjoying a glass of wine.

All in all its been a pretty awesome weekend and I’m lucky and thankful to have a great wife and friends who did all this for me.