What do these three things have in common?
For my first post of the new year, I have decided to share a story about last year. It's a traveling tale, which guarantees an opportunity for you to laugh at my expense, so enjoy.
This past December I went home for Christmas break after my first semester away at college. It was the longest period of time that I had spent outside of my dorm room since late August, and I have to admit that by the time I was on the road back to Tallahassee, I was sorely missing my twenty-five square feet of living space, complete with extraneous pillows and minimal closet room. I spent the first half of the break in Florida and then flew out to California on the 28 of December. Normally I love flying. I just bring a blanket, some fuzzy socks, and headphones and I pass out. This was not normally. For some reason, the gods of cheap airfare travel decided that it would suit their purposes to inflict upon me a twenty-four hour virus right before flying. I'm not exactly sure why that suited their purposes, perhaps they consider whatever goes down those terrifying airplane toilets (in my case a lot of water, stomach acid and not much else) as tribute of some sort. Whatever their plan was, it resulted in my feeling, and looking, like poop when I walked into the Orlando airport with my older sister.
Can I just say thank God that my sister was even with me? I'm pretty sure that she was more than thoroughly annoyed with me for being sicker than a dog, but she was still awesome and even bought me an expensive bottle of Fiji water.
Anyway, as soon as we sat down on the first plane out of Orlando and into Atlanta, I knew it was going to be a long haul. Someone sitting in the vicinity was wearing an overpowering perfume and I thought my head was going to burst. Either that or my stomach was going to declare mutiny on my slowly sinking ship of a body. I put my sweater over my face to block out the smell, the light and the noise. A well-meaning stewardess stopped by after noticing my makeshift tent and offered me some non-aspirin pain medication. I gladly accepted, but less than ten minutes after we'd been in the air, I had to sacrifice the aspirin, er, non-aspirin, to the gods of air travel.
The one hour flight to Atlanta took what felt like a lifetime, during which I visited the closet-sized lavatory twice more. On the third trip that I made to pay homage as the gods' new favorite mortal, I found that instead of a desire to upchuck, my body now had a desire to faint. I took a momentary assessment of the situation and decided that I would rather pass out in my seat than in the tiny bathroom, particularly as we were getting ready to descend into Atlanta, so I pushed open the door and began to make my way down the narrow aisle of the plane. I didn't make it very far. A flight attendant made me sit down at the back of the plane and ran off to get what I thought was ice.
It turned out that she'd said "oxygen". I'm not sure how I mistook that for "ice", although the blood was rushing in my ears and I was experiencing the joy of a barf bag for the first time ever. Regardless of what I'd thought I'd heard, what she came back with was a huge oxygen tank and a mask. I have never been so mortified in my life, except possibly when she asked if I wanted the paramedics to meet me at the gate.
Yes, please. I would love for some paramedics to wheel me off the plane and through the airport...
No! No, thank you. I have never had pleasant experiences with paramedics, I really didn't want this flight to go any further downhill.
The flight finally ended, we touched down in Atlanta, and I got off the plane, on my own two feet, thank you. The next flight was not nearly as awful, although it was three times as long which made it awful in its own right, but at least the gods of air travel had finally decided that I had been an adequate disciple for long enough and left me the heck alone.
Eight days later I had to board another plane to fly back to Florida after a wonderful stay with my family. This trip was nowhere near as horrendous as the trip from Florida, but it was a red-eye flight, so suffice it to say that I got about two hours of sleep that night. There was not one, not two, not three but four babies on the flight at 10:45pm out of Sacramento, and all four of them were seated within ten feet of me. That means that nearly fifty percent of the space around me was taken up by screaming babies.
Sitting directly next to me was an adorable little girl and her mother. This little girl must have been at least seven or eight, but she was very tiny. I didn't think she would cause much trouble, considering it was way past her bedtime and she probably just wanted to sleep. Well, yes. She did just want to sleep. Unfortunately she just wanted to sleep on my shoulder. Why my shoulder when her mother was right there? Who knows. It was difficult to fall asleep when her head kept going *bonk* onto my shoulder, but at least she looked clean and free of head-lice. Then again, it was just difficult to get to sleep because airplane seats are the worst.
Tell me, who designed the airplane seat? I want to know if they finished their design, looked at it and said, "Good. Good job. This looks like something people will want to sit in for six plus hours. Good for you, Bob. Good for you."
The thing that made my trip back to Florida so fantastic is that I was landing in Jacksonville and being picked up by my boyfriend and his mom. First impressions are incredibly important to me, so I was really excited that the first time his mom would meet me would be after six hours on a plane. I hope you note the intense sarcasm. Being the person I am, I put a change of clothes in my laptop case (the only bag that I brought onto the plane) along with some makeup, and when I touched down in Atlanta at 6:00am the morning of Saturday, January 5th, I went to the ladies' room, changed my clothes, washed my face, and put on some makeup. I then drank a strong cup of coffee and read a book until I arrived in Jacksonville, as fresh-faced and sociable as ever.
Of course, thirty minutes into the drive back to Tallahassee, I was fast asleep, but at least I looked like a human being.
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