I finally- after 6 long years of desiring- bought a Westy, a VW Westfalia camper van. We had one years ago, when the kids were itty bitty little things and there was another man in my life.
I found one on Craigslist the other week, and on impulse called the guy.
"You're the first person who's called about this van who isn't a hippy!" he exclaimed halfway through our conversation, "Sold! I'll hold it for you til you can get here."
A few days later I hop on a 5am flight to Northern California. Halfway through the flight, I get violently, horrendously ill. The plane lands in a rinky-dink airport in the middle of nowhere and I stumble off the plane to the closest airport bathroom, where I alternately sleep on the toilet floor and vomit for the next four hours. I literally crawl out of the bathroom and collapse in the floor in the airport hallway, completely ignored by passers by. I finally, luckily, and half delusionally, flag down an off duty airline mechanic leaving after a long night.
"Is there a medical facility in this airport?" I ask. His blank stare tells me everything I need to know.
"A what?" he asks, probably wondering what the hell the woman lying on the floor is asking.
"A doctor, a quick care, anything?" He shrugs, and it's all I can do to ask for a wheelchair to get me to a cab. He wheels me out, taking care to get my full name and the airline I came in on (in case I sue, I presume) and dumps me in a cab. "Closest ER, please," I ask the driver, who looks understandably scared, given that I'm vomiting all over his back seat and have shocking red and oozing welts protruding from every inch of my skin.
The driver, nice that he is, rushes into the hospital and retrieves another wheelchair for me when we arrive. He wheels me in, and as I'm doubled over in pain and alternately crying and vomiting, I check in.
I know the drill, I work in healthcare. And still I'm shocked as a nurse parks me in the corner of the ER, where I fall out of the wheelchair, and I spend the next hour huddled on the floor, crying and sick, and only other patients also waiting for help bother to check on me.
A nurse finally retrieves me from the floor, and I'm given a bed and medication for pain. Then IV drips of antibiotics and anti-venoms. My phone rings, it's the VW Van guy.
"I'm here with the van, where do you want to meet to see it?" he asks.
Completely drugged up, I tell him to bring it the ER. Tell them your my uncle, only relatives are allowed, I say. He shows up, a half hour later, and a sweet volunteer brings him to the ER bed I'm in.
I'm naked, save for the hospital gown, hooked up to IV drips and cardiac monitors, and he's looking around nervously like he's on some hidden camera pankster reality show.
"Do you want to see it?" he asks, somewhat ridiculously. I can't move, am hooked up to so many lines and wires I'd trip if I tried to. I laugh, say no, and we make somewhat awkward chitchat. I buy the van, sight unseen.
Hours later, I wobble out to the parking lot after I'm discharged, (diagnosis: severe allergic reaction to venomous spider) and there it is...
A 1983, manual drive, somewhat beaten up old camper van.
And it's beautiful.
I climb into it, and collapse in the back to sleep for a couple hours.
And so begins the next chapter...
