July 1993. My friend and I are leaving Kingston on a BWI flight to Antigua. We had pre-booked this flight months prior and had been in Jamaica for two months already when it was time to carry on island hopping.
Our friend Wayne drives us to Kingston to catch our 1:00 p.m. flight. We climb out of the car with our backpacks, hugs and thanks to our friend, and head towards the airport door, when the security guard jumps up off his chair and asks us where we're headed. We say Antigua. He says, "Bee-wee flight gone, mon!" We're saying "What? No, that can't be. See our tickets??" But he's not backing off. "No, no, Bee-Wee gone this morning! The counter closed!" Then he gets even more excited and runs into the parking lot, yelling at Wayne, who is backing out, "Don't leave your friends, mon! Their flight gone!"
Lucky for us, he caught Wayne's attention before he left the parking lot. We decided to go inside the airport and check for ourselves, and sure enough, the sliding gate was down over the BWI counter and no one around at all. We managed to find someone to ask and were informed that the BWI flight to Antigua leaves at 11:00 a.m., not 1 p.m. and had for several weeks. Of course we had been having too much fun in Negril to bother to check at the travel agency to see if our flight had changed.
So we haul ourselves back into Wayne's car for the long, hot ride back to Negril, where we had to rebook for the next week.
But the fun don't done! Wayne says "How about we take the scenic tour through downtown Kingston? We had taken the more direct route on the way there but had lots of time now. I was "No, no! I've heard too much about guns and violence in downtown Kingston". My friend is laughing at me - "Oh, don't believe everything you hear; yes by all means let's check it out."
So we are cruising along the streets of Kingston, taking it all in, when out of nowhere, a guy is running along the street, right on my side of the car, being chased by 3 plainclothes cops, with guns blazing! I kid you not! I could have reached out my open window and grabbed him he was that close. Instead, I hit the back seat floor and said "Get us the hell out of Kingston".
Of course that day was the topic of conversation for the rest of our week in Negril. Each time we saw Wayne after that, he would just smile and say "EP-I-SODE". It was an episode, indeed.