So, How Was Your Trip?

For the record, I actually left on time.

This is the point where you raise the eyebrow of skepticism. Such statements are dripping with dubious disclaimers. Ok, ok… the point was to leave the house at 2:30 and that did happen. About 10 miles out of town, however, I started thinking about my flight—specifically, what time did it leave? I knew I had to make a stop first and that I had chosen 2:30 to allow extra time, but how much time, again? Let’s see, I remember I was going to key my confirmation number into that app on my phone, but what was the result? Oh crap. My luggage was in the back seat. If my itinerary was with me, it was in there. If. Since I’m flying down the road at 75mph, I might as well drag my luggage up into the passenger seat, right? Yeah, I did that. Not a smart move. But, that was not the problem. Confirming that I did not have my itinerary WAS a problem.

I took the next exit and called home to verify with my daughter that its location was known. It was. Getting back to that point on the road with the itinerary in hand, however, took 20 minutes—and I had already lost 10 getting there the first time. Other than making calls with my contact and explaining my schedule disruption, the rest of that first leg was uneventful.

The stop I had to make was to drop my vehicle for some repairs—which seemed like a good idea since I was going to be gone all week anyway, right? Sure, just bum a ride to and from the airport and I save on parking, too! When I got there, I got my bag out (by dragging it across the front console since it was now in the passenger seat.) I didn’t have much room between the cars adjacent to me, anyway. I’m not sure if it was the awkwardness of the bag in my hand, the angle of the ground beneath me, or something else, but when I went to close the door, the tip-top corner of it scraped across my cheek. I was having a brief conversation with my brother (who was gracious enough to be my driver.) He was asking about whether I needed to check inside [or what other arrangements I needed to make to drop off the car] and I was doing all that other stuff, and in the process of answering, “…I need to…” Wham! “… smack myself in the face, apparently.” Ha ha. What I needed to do was leave the keys in a specific place. As I was walking over there, I was assessing my new wound. Blood. Awesome.

So, there I am climbing into my brother’s car, my nephew is in the back seat, and they are both concerned about my concerns of being late, etc. Now, in addition, there is this new elephant in the room. I said hello to my nephew, but I never even made eye contact the whole (albeit relatively brief) trip to the airport. I hardly remember looking at my brother either. I did spend a bunch of time checking myself out in the mirror. It would not stop bleeding. He had some wet-wipes under the seat (he has younger kids.) For all I know, they have the opposite effect of what I needed—which was an astringent. I mean, they dissolve clotted blood, right? At least I was containing the mess. We made some small talk. I tried to assure them that I was on-time. I wanted to be at the airport by the time that we were on schedule for, so they don’t need to worry or feel rushed, blah, blah, blah. The time that was missing, however, was the hospitality—the time to have a better conversation with people I have not seen in a while. Hey, nephew, how is basketball going? That would have been nice.

When I got to the airport, all I could think about was getting checked in and through security and still have some time to buy bandages. The real problem with all of that thinking is the failure to really focus on the specific task at hand. I also wanted to pack my big, warm, coat in my bag and take my laptop bag out to carry with me. I did all of that, got my luggage labeled, fumbled through the check-in, thought I was done, wasn’t, almost forgot/failed to print my boarding passes thinking my receipt for the checked bag was that, realized it wasn’t, drew the attention of the counter person, got it all squared away, etc.—all with blood running down the side of my face. No one said anything. I even went through security that way.

“Hi!”

“Hi!”

“Where are you going today?”

“Moline, Ill.” Puzzled look. “World headquarters of John Deere… It’s for work.”

“Oh! Haha. It didn’t sound like a vacation destination. Haha.” She notices my jacket. “Wow, I’ve never seen a leather John Deere jacket. Nice!”

“Thank you.” Etc.

No mention of anything unusual from the person wearing blue latex gloves to handle my driver’s license.

I don’t know how experienced the person ahead of me in line was with the put-your-crap-in-bins-for-scanning process but she stood there at the beginning of the line NOT grabbing any bins or loading them with crap—but doing a fine job of preventing the rest of us from doing anything of the sort. This is ND. I waited politely. But, on the inside, I am in full-on judgment mode. That is, right up to the point that I went to go through the body scan step and had to be told by the dude that I needed to take off my shoes. Who’s the dumbass now?

Still no mention of the head-wound, however.

Finally clear of security and firmly on to the wait-for-the-plane step rather than being-the-holdup step, I went to buy bandages. It’s a small airport. There is one kiosk on the secure side. They do not sell bandages. She did say, “Sorry” though. She at least looked concerned. When I got to the bathroom, I could see why. I could only imagine up to that point. I did my best to clean up, but was deliberate about not removing the clotting that was in place since that was my only hope however dramatic it looked. Then, I took a seat and pulled out my phone.

Battery level: maybe ¼ charge. Oh yeah, I was going to plug it in overnight, wasn’t I? I decided since I very much knew that I was going to need it when I landed, I had better conserve the battery and turned it off (my cord was in my checked luggage to minimize since it is my “travel cord.”) I pretended to watch the TV in the waiting area.

A few minutes later, a plane pulled up to the next gate over. A few minutes later, people got off at that gate. Did I mention it is a small airport? A few minutes later, the obvious is stated.

“Ladies and gentlemen, flight blah, blah, blah, will be departing from gate 2. This will serve as your notice of a gate change…” No big deal. Slightly humorous. But, then the kicker.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the gateway is frozen… due to the harsh conditions.” This is ND, pal. We know “harsh conditions” and if you think those are harsh… “So we will be using the steps… outside…” Oh. So glad, I checked my big, warm, coat. What was I saying about harsh conditions? Nevermind.

I get on the plane and settle in. Aisle seat. I can’t use my phone, so I take out the lame catalog in the pocket in front of me and pretended to look through it. The attendant announces that she will be turning off the cabin lights. Well, this is not really reading material—not worth turning on the light and being disruptive when no one around me was using theirs. So, there I sit. Quietly. Doing nothing. Looking at nothing (not even close to a window to look out). With an open, dried-blood wound on my face that looks like the result of a domestic dispute—or sexual assault. That’s a pretty creepy image. I’m good at that, sadly.

The flight has two legs, including a plane change and layover. I got something to eat and wandered back to the gate with almost 2 hours to kill. With nothing to do except make people wonder what the hell happened to my face. But, eventually I and the whole crowd or restless college kids on the final leg of their trip back from Italy got on the plane. And waited.

“Ladies and gentlemen…” What now? “We are waiting for maintenance personnel to come and fix a tray table…” Whatever. Federal regulations, blah, blah, blah. Ok. Just do it.

Might as well fix that other thing at the front for the attendant since you are here. Ok, that took longer than expected, but we are ready now… Wait. Um. The door won’t close.

Actually, the door moved fine, but the big lever that latches and opens it would not move. How far away is that guy? Call him back! Several minutes later we are informed that the diagnosis is someone over-greased the mechanism and it froze. The plan was to thaw it out and clear away the excess grease. All of this took over an hour. But they were very sorry. There will be no beverage service on the trip, but if anyone needs anything they should just use the attendant button overhead.

Ding! (Not me. Someone ahead and to my left.) Attended turns around. Looks. Turns back and does nothing. Umm. Okayyy…

Meanwhile, I have read through everything within reach and am back into quiet, staring creepy mode. At least I have a window, but all I can see is a patch of tarmac 12 feet below me. So, even doing that is creepy.

But, eventually we all got to our destination.

I headed straight for the car rental desk, more than a little concerned that they would no longer be open at this hour. But, they were. I was traveling on business, but I do not have a company credit card. I am in spend-and-get-reimbursed-later status. So, I have the pleasure of being informed that the $240 rental was actually going to be a $440 charge on my card today. Was that going to be a problem? Sad on so many levels, but no.

No, the next problem was actually behind me. When I got my bag, the extending handle did not work. It is a big piece-of-crap bag that I really did not pay much for, but it is not so tall that I can roll it without the handle. So, I picked it up and carried it out into the cold and dark to my rental car. First, I put on my big, warm, coat.

In case you didn’t know this—and count your blessings if it is not something you need to know—if you get a car that is really, really, fuel efficient like you want in a rental car, the engine also does not generate much heat very quickly, especially if it is just idling. If it did, it would not be efficient. The heat is a by-product of in-efficiency, in fact. The really amusing part of this point in the story, though, is that after scraping all the exterior windows, I got back into the barely luke-warm car and had to keep scraping—the inside of the windshield. That happens when you wash a car indoors, for example, or otherwise expose the interior to a humid environment and then park it outside to freeze. I use my glove to do a more thorough clearing than the scraper could from this side (convex/concave issue.) Actually, that was not a good idea. Evidently, my glove had some schmutz on it. This napkin will have to do. Yippee.

The final dash of spice on this illustrious dish came after I managed to find my way out of the parking lot and on to the street that my GPS wanted to be on. It told me to take a left, which I very much intended to do after the light turns from red to green. Any day now. Huh. That’s weird. Wait? What is that over there? Is that a green left-turn arrow?

If it was, it was the most bizarre location for that signal I have ever seen. It was more likely to be a right-turn arrow from there. But, why would you need a right turn arrow, when there is nothing preventing anyone from just turning right on the red? Besides, it certainly looks like it is pointed left. Screw it. No one else is moving and there is no cross traffic. So, me and my hazy windshield just blew right through that deal and got on to the hotel and to bed.

Tomorrow is Monday, after all.