Oh, The Places You'll Go...

It's been a while since I've traveled on business. I am no stranger to airports both foreign and domestic. As a matter of fact, I take a certain amount of pride in the extent of the travel that I have accomplished in this life. All of my experience was brought to task in my most recent journey: a trip from Minneapolis to Amarillo, Texas.

Naturally, I felt no hesitation in going to the airport, getting on a plane and flying somewhere. The only difference in this particular case being that I was leaving Tim for a full week. To my surprise, I started missing him a full day before my departure. To be fair, I started missing the cat as well before I left.

I boarded my plane in Minneapolis with no delays. Luggage checked and a full hour before my departure time, I was secure in the knowledge that my trip from point A to point B would be relatively uneventful. I was quite keen on the fact that my seat was near the rear of the aircraft (and in the aisle - woo hoo!). I considered this a good sign, being a bit superstitious in my choice of airline seating.

Boy, was I wrong.

The minute our row became comfortable, The Family arrived. They sat in the row directly in front of mine, with a little spillover into the row across the aisle. In front of us, two boys between the ages of five to eight and what I presumed was their father. Across the aisle from us, the mother portion of the equation sat in with a little girl of early toddler age on her lap. It was obvious that this was to be the seating arrangement for the two of them during the entire flight.

Initially, the annoyances were forgivable. They had to settle in, tackle the head bin storage issue, get comfortable. With children in tow, it is evident that this can be a daunting exercise. Then there was the take off. I kept reminding myself that the kids probably weren't all that comfortable due to the pressure equalization and its subsequent effect on the ear canal.

An hour later, with the flight not even halfway over, I could only count my blessings that I wasn't sitting in front of any of these demon seed, nor was I in the same row as the mother and toddler. Oh? Did I say toddler? I meant to say Spawn of Satan. Don't get me wrong, this kid was adorable. The evil ones usually are. She could have won a Cutest Toddler Spawn of Satan contest, easily. But between the two boys in front of me and the specialized, almost animal-like shriek that continued to emit from their little sister's mouth, it was all I could do not to wish that the plane would plummet to the ground. Then we would all have something to shriek about.

Additionally, the rows that lay in proximity to this circus were all treated to the soundtrack of The Incredibles at an unreasonable peak of volume. Don't get me wrong. I own a copy of The Incredibles. But the bickering between the boys over who had the best view of the screen that sat directly in front of both of their faces (on their father's laptop) did nothing for this glorious piece of animation. All forays into "he's touching me again", "don't touch me", "he has my blanket", "I'm cold", "are we there yet?" and "don't touch me" was underscored by the voices of the entire cast of The Incredibles and all of the sound effects that go along with the film.

Let's not forget that the mother and toddler (or SS, as I like to call her) are fighting a constant battle in the seat across the aisle. This battle consisted of a lot of squirming, incessant screeching (l i t e r a l l y - itneverstopped!), and mom's failed attempts at picking said toddler sized monster up and trying to place her in the row with her brothers so that she can "watch the movie". The reaction of the father to all of this was for the most part silence, the occasional picking up of a random object that had been thrown by SS into the aisle, and a not so heartfelt "stop that" thrown in there for good measure. I get the feeling that he waiting for the plane to fall out of the sky.

I am not going to go into the failed attempts of mother of satanic children to breastfeed her toddler in order to calm her down.

Toward the end of the flight, the sky actually did threaten to fall. We were warned to take our seats and prepare for "severe turbulence". Fine by me. A slight distraction from the melee that continued to occur in the row in front of me.

Little did I know that this threat of turbulence was a result of a storm system that had taken hold of Houston's surrounding geographical area. We landed safely, I parted ways from the disconcerting sound of constant high pitched whining, walked to my gate to catch my connection, and found that I had successfully missed my plane.

As I stood in line at the gate waiting for a fix to my quandary, I became more and more frustrated about my situation. I missed my husband, my cat and my bed. The last two and a half hours of my life had convinced me to look into sterilization, my one bag that I had confidently checked was on its way to Amarillo, Texas without me, and I could only stand there in awe of the fact that I had taken such a Pollyanna attitude toward this particular trip that I had failed to carry on spare toiletries.

By the time I got up to the counter to receive my replacement boarding pass for the next morning, I had started to cry. I suppose I couldn't think of anything else to do. The ticket agent rose to the occasion. She gave me my new flight info, a hotel voucher and some kind words. It was enough to propel me down to the ground transportation area to call a hotel shuttle.

Tim, the entire time, proved to be his usual caring self. He called my every fifteen minutes for an hour to check my mental state and travel status. He continued to offer me words of encouragement as I ranted about nothing in particular: "I heard Houston has the most obese people in this country per capita. These people are dumbed down by saturated fat. That's the problem." This comment as I waited for a hotel shuttle to pick me up. A hotel that was five minutes away from the airport whose shuttle took fort five minutes to arrive.

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Here I sit. It is 9:00 AM CST. I got a decent nights sleep at La Quinta. I awoke to crappy coffee and lack of a shower, but as demonstrated above, I've actually been through worse. I am sitting on the inevitable departure flight next to a very robust man (of the top ten "fattest cities in America", Texas can claim four of them... so he is not necessarily from Houston) on a very small aircraft awaiting take off. The air conditioning above my head drips on me every five minutes or so - little balls of fake snow emitting for who knows what reason.

I find it hard to find cause for concern however, as I am now preoccupied with other things.

Primarily, the flight home in three days.