Number 127 on my Bucket List is Vacation Alone. Now, preferably, that would take place in Paris, my favorite European city. I could go there every year if the economy would only allow it.That being said, I'm terrified to travel to a foreign country alone. What if someone kidnaps me and holds me for ransom? (Good luck getting a dime out of Sarge, buddy!) Or what if I'm sold into the sex trade? (Don't laugh; someone might want a fifty-some-odd year old woman with a bad back and a trick knee!)
Despite the dangers both real and imagined, foreign and domestic, I am still game. But I think maybe I should practice first. So I pack my bag and tell sarge Hasta la vista, baby, and I get in my car and drive. A dry run, so to speak, although I never travel without a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in my luggage. A girl's gotta have a cocktail no matter where she ends up.
Two hours and one hundred twenty miles later, I'm in beautiful downtown Palm Springs. Alone. I feel so bold, so daring, so..........so alone without Sarge! But I'll get over it. I stop at Stater Brothers to get snacks for later. I pull into the garage of the home I'll be staying at, and two men working in the yard next door stop and stare at me lasciviously. Or am I being paranoid, and they are really looking at something down the street?
Silly moi, because I had a really good time that weekend. I felt like a superhero. I didn't leap tall buildings in a single bound, or run faster than a locomotive, but I did go to the movies alone, restaurants alone, window shopping alone, and I didn't get mugged or kidnapped even once!
Sarge calls my escapade "Going Rogue." I call it "Baby Steps." Just a little rehearsal for a much bigger show to come. You've gotta crawl before you can walk.
