It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again

Here we go again. No sooner have I recovered from last week’s travel debacle and crammed one week’s worth of work into 2 games, I am headed back to St. Louis. On a airplane. And you know what this means. More tortured stories and nonsensical observations for you the reader!

Somehow, I managed to park, walk (check that, sprint) to the airport, check in, proceed through security, and locate my gate -- all in the span of about 20 minutes. I contrast this with last week’s fiasco and I it gives me hope for a normal flight.

So everything is proceeding relatively normally (i.e., I haven’t lost my bag/phone/ticket yet) as we begin to board, when all of a sudden some asshole runs over my heel with his bag in his mad rush to get in line to board the plane.

Now I know I’ve mentioned this before, but can someone please remind me when it was that grown men become incapable of carrying their fucking luggage? Seriously, what normal, adult male is incapable of carrying a 30 pound bag and instead has to rely upon on one of those rolling luggage devices? And when has it suddenly become acceptable to crash into someone without some sort of acknowledgement or apology? (I will later discover that it has become relatively vogue to do so, but let’s not jump ahead of ourselves).

Given that I’m not in first class, I no longer have the fortuitous luck of avoiding the lines and boarding the plane first. No big deal, I’m in no rush to fly.

But being among the last people to board, I look to see who else is similarly situation and decide to play the little game “who in Seating Area 4 is going to be my seatmate?” Will it be the hot blonde in the tight jeans? Or will it be the odd looking fellow who keeps mumbling to himself? I’d guess there are approximately twenty people left that are waiting to board, the rest of which appear like relatively normal and nondescript. Standard statistics suggests that I have an equal, five percent (1 in 20) chance of getting either the Blonde or Golum. However, my luck does not follow standard statistical norms, so I put the odds at Blonde - 0.009%, Troglodyte - 64.3%.

And as destiny would have it, I end up next to the Danny Devito look-alike. Fortunately, he is only sitting across the aisle from me so I fortunately don’t have to arm-wrestle him for the arm rest. Whew, I dodged that bullet.

Aside from the invariable ten minutes of turbulence, the only downside of this flight is the gabby woman sitting in the window seat who won’t stop making small conversation. I have one earphone in and am holding the other one 3 inches away from my ear and she still keeps talking. Fortunately, I catch myself before I say something abrupt like, “hey lady, can you shut your cakehole? I’m trying to arrange my songs in iTunes.” I know that might sound rude, but I am really not in the mood for explaining what I’m watching on my laptop (BBC’s “The Office” for those that are curious), nor do I care for detailed description as to how bad winters are in Detroit.

Rather that the pointed approach, I take the diplomatic route and retreat to the bathroom, which I am hoping will politely signal to her that the conversation is over. I return to my seat two minutes later and -- ta da! -- I find that she’s covered herself up completely in one of those mite-infested airplane blankets, trying to fall asleep. While I am gladdened by the silence that greets me upon my return, I am also horrified that anyone would voluntarily touch their skin to one of those woolen louse farms. Disgusting, but perhaps she’s hoping to get rid of some extra dead skin while she sleeps.

Tomorrow: Denver to St. Louis (a/k/a “What The Hell Crawled Up Your Ass and Died?”