I was only gone for two days. That's all it takes. I staggered in from my garage a little after 10:00 (thanks to a very delayed flight. Why? I don't know. Traffic jam on the runways is all I can blame, but I don't know the why of that either. Maybe it was weather related. I didn't have a great Continental experience this time), dumped my stuff in the kitchen floor, and if it had been someone else's kitchen floor, I might have kissed it. As it is, it's my kitchen floor. It didn't seem like a good idea.
I don't fly well ever. Not because of the flying but because I hate airports, security lines, parking decks that I can never seem to drive into correctly the first time so I have to circle and try it again, cabs vs. shuttles, and where the heck are my boarding pass and id. And then this time...add delays and turbulence. Lots of it.
I thought my trip out Friday at the crack of dawn was bad. The weather was bad here and for some reason, there was a surreal blockage of my way out of my neighborhood by police cars, wreckers with flashing yellow lights, and men with flashlights on the railroad tracks. I have no idea what that's about. I just turned around and went another way because...I had places to go, you know? And it was about 4:30 so it might have been a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation. I did manage to park my car in the garage on the first trip which was a good thing as I had lost some time and only had an hour before departure. That's too close for me. But I made it. Without my umbrella.
Thinking the worst was over, I happily squashed myself into my seat, strapped myself in, and grabbed my book. And then we took off...and bounced and jounced and tumbled and rolled and lurched and...you get the idea. Death wasn't my biggest concern. Losing my breakfast croissant in an embarrassing episode seemed imminent, but I fought it off. And my stomach returned to normal about 12 hours later. I have a little trouble with motion sickness on easy flights, so this felt like a real victory.
Oh, and the best part: I determined that I might be just a little sexist. Captain Alicia and her first mate Robin were at the helm. And the whole time I'm jiggling in my seat, I'm wishing for a Dirk and a Bo (short for Rambo. We don't know if Dirk is his real name or a nickname because we're all too afraid to ask) who have in the past worn facepaint and flown in places like Fallujah or Tikrit. I sort of distracted myself on how I thought an Alicia and Robin might have become pilots here. And of course, they might have been the ones being shot at in the desert. Still, I think maybe pilots ought to be Captain Smith and First Mate Jones so I don't spend a lot of time thinking about this when I ought to be regretting all the things I've never done with my life.
And the way home was much worse, more turbulent, but I had less to worry about depositing in an airsick bag. And those pilots were never introduced. I did see them at the gate. They weren't Dirk or Bo either. I was sorta wishing for Alicia and Robin again, just so I wouldn't know how young the pilots appeared.
It's good to be home.
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