Panties on the pavement
Subtitle: Clearly, the universe hates me
I’m happily snug in the Pacific time zone at the moment, but getting here was one motherfucking adventure.
So yesterday, I got up on the East Coast after two hours of sleep, doing laundry and sneezing and just being uneasy in general because hey, why not? So I was up on time and doing my thang when …
Yep, found a spot o’ cat piss in my (thankfully empty) suitcase.
Bitches!
So I tried scrubbing it out, but it really was stinky. And knowing me, a quick airplane trip usually turns into full-day fiascoes, so I just couldn’t take that suitcase with me and ruin all the clothes I’d spent all night washing.
I’d gone to Kohl’s on Saturday and saw that luggage was 50% off. Which, yay, right? So I packed all my crap in garbage bags and hauled ass to the store a mere two hours before my flight. But Springfield is close enough to the airport that I wasn’t worried.
BUT …
That 50% off sale was done and now it was BOGO. And the suitcase I didn’t love at $99 wasn’t any cuter at $200 — even if I could get two of them for that price.
ARGH.
So I found a cheaper suitcase and picked up a cute smaller bag for my “free” item. Whee.
So I go to three different registers, where every goddamned sales person was slower than the last. I was literally CHEWING on my wallet, trying not to scream. (I can show you the teeth marks. KILL.)
So the cashier was giving me shit because my signature didn’t match the one on my card. Jesus! Even the guy in line behind me said, “She’s in a HURRY to catch a FLIGHT — let her go!” And the cashier said, “Well, I guess it’s different because you’re trying to get out of here, huh?”
JESUS.
So she starts carefully putting “paid” stickers all over it. I was through with her at that point. I’m all, “Lady, I’m parked in the FIRE ZONE and I’m going to RIP those TAGS off the second you HAND ME MY RECEIPT.”
Lord.
So I did just that — threw the suitcase on the ground, dumped my skivvies out of the garbage bags and away I went. If there are panties on the pavement in Springfield, trust me, I wasn’t having any fun when they landed there!
So I flew into fucking Dallas, where my souvenir was my liberal integrity. 🙂 I didn’t buy anything in the crappy shops, because who had time? But boy did I have time SITTING ON THE RUNWAY FOR TWO HOURS because a lightning storm grounded us all.
My first flight was fabulous. Comfy seats, great seatmate. We talked the whole time. Loved her. Second flight? Crammed, cramped and miserable. And HOT. To conserve power, off went the a/c. I was suffocating.
I tried opening my laptop to do some work, but the fuckhead in front of me reclined his seat and nearly snapped the damned thing in half. So I had to hold up the computer with one hand and type with the other — ever so convenient when you’re trying to write articles. NOT.
Seriously, if I’m going to have a man’s head in my lap, I would HOPE he’d be doing something useful while he was down there! 😉
The worst part? I’d packed my headache pills and my money in the overhead bin — not that anyone was coming around with the adult beverages, but I really wanted a bloody mary. Rats.
The flight was fine, once it happened. I ran into someone I knew in the Dallas airport (go figure), so when we landed, he grabbed a rental car and took me on a tour of the city where we finally arrived at. I think he wanted to hang out and all, but I was exhausted (it was nearly midnight Eastern when we landed — I was one crabby bitch) and I didn’t mean to be mean, but I said, “Look, I’m having fun and all, but I’m slap-happy. In 20 minutes, I become silent. In 30 minutes, I become homicidal. Would you mind taking me to my hotel now?”
Yep, I’m a charmer!
Incidentally, we got to the hotel in less than 15 minutes. Hah!
I didn’t get Internet access in my room till about noon Pacific. Joyous. I put a call in to tech support at 5 a.m., as I got up that early to do work so I could go about my day. Again, hah!
It’s been all uphill from there. Let’s face it, after that auspicious start, how could it NOT?!?!