I must have done something to tickle the travel god's fancy, because I'm 24 hours away from setting off on summer '06 trip number two (not counting the weekend romp in LA). This time it's with my cousin, Jeremy, and uncle, Richard. The plan was to meet them in Portland and head up to the soon-to-be-irrelevantly-named Glacier National Park. But the weather took a turn for the crappy and we decided to spare ourselves the weiner-sicle inducing stow storms. We're going to have to come up with a new plan tomorrow. (Which is too bad, because I lined up a pretty solid list of "I'm afraid of bears" jokes. Oh well.)
So, I had my first big dinner in a long time last night (I love going home). However, my body forgot how to handle that quantity of food and I woke up having to take quite a dump. Problem was that I kinda slept in today (getting up at 4:30 is no easy task for me), but I figured I'd just go at the airport. I had a soon to expire coupon for free admittance to the terminal VIP lounge, and I hear that they have toilets you can drink a smoothie out of (poothie?). An airline credit card that I signed up for came with complementary access to that mysterious set of double doors that swallows up executives by the dozen. However, a nasty bout of gridlock on the way to the airport knocked my schedule out of whack. I had only arrived at the airport by the time I was planning to be knee deep in complementary danishes. So I booked it to the gate sans-breakfast (and sans-pooing).
By this point, I was squirming pretty bad, but I couldn't bring myself to drop a deuce on the plane; those bathrooms are just way too public for me. Short version: as soon as we landed, I linebacked my way off the plane and headed for the first bathroom that I could find. No time to lay down the paper cowboy hat, this was an emergency.
I had stopped in San Diego so that I could buy a round trip out of there and not Phoenix (I get in the night before school starts). I was also switching airlines, so I had to pick up my luggage and recheck it. This meant another sprint to the gate, but the security line was longer than Wilt Chamberlain's...well...you know what. (List of records broken, what were you thinking?) So to avoid the mass of liquid-toting, line-slowing rookies, I took out my airline credit card and headed for the first class line. I told the ticket checker that the credit card was actually a membership card to the elite frequent flyer program (it's not), and that bypassing the security line was a bonus perk (it's not, either). It's amazing what people will believe if you sound like you know what you're talking about.
[Ouch, I just got my knees bashed in by the douchebag sitting in front of me--hang on a second, I think we're going to have a little chat.]
Much better.
As you've probably guessed, I'm sitting on the plane again, this time heading to Salt Lake City. It's like a flying Latter Day Saints conference here. A lot of blond hair and blue eyes on this flight. [I'm restraining myself because I happen to have some high school friends that prove not all Mormons are Warren Jeffs, but there's just so much humor potential there.]
By the way, I thought that there weren't anymore hot flight attendants these days. I was mistaken.
Alright, I'll check in again from Portland, I need to get some sleep. Ahh, the safety announcement, that should help.
M
