The Trials of a Traveler

It's long, but entertaining.

It was the first day of my vacation. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't wait to leave. Off to Colorado for one whole week. There was a threat of severe weather about the time I was supposed to fly off into the wild blue yonder, though. That had me just a teensy bit on edge.

Low and behold, the storms bypassed Austin and looked to be traveling North-East. Phew! I was up at 5:30AM getting ready, switching suitcases (very different packing when you have to pack winter clothes), and making sure I had everything in order. My plane was to leave at 10:20 and I would be in Colorado Springs at 1:15 (2:15 my time). Hooray!

I went through security with no problems. My plane was on time. They loaded us up and we pushed out to the tarmac. And we sat there. And sat there. Finally, the pilot came on and told us that Houston had put a stop on all arrivals due to a storm to the north of them. It looked like we would have to wait about 30 minutes. Crap! I only had an hour between flights. I pulled out the Continental magazine to look at the gate situation Houston International. Great!!! We were landing in the E terminal and to get to the B terminal for my next flight I was going to have to run through two terminals and catch a bus to get to the one I needed to be at. Meanwhile, the woman sitting next to me was furiously thumbing e-mails on her blackberry and she didn't have her key notes turned off so I have this incessant "beep-beep-beep" going on right next to me. I finally resigned myself to missing my flight. We finally took off, with Miss Blackberry still thumbing away when she was supposed to have it turned off, and we flew into very turbulent skies.

Upon landing, I got off the plane and noted that my connecting flight was delayed 30 minutes. That gave me less than 10 minutes to get there. I tried, but of course I didn't make it. So I stood in line at the Continental counter for 20 minutes, along with other people who were having travel troubles, and when I got to the counter discovered that they had already booked me on the next available flight that would be leaving in about 30 minutes. Cool! How nice of them. Meanwhile, a vicious front was descending upon Houston. My next flight was delayed by at least 40 minutes. It was a much smaller plane--one of the express jets--but they loaded us in as quickly as they could so they could take off before the front hit. We got in, pushed out to the tarmac...and sat there. And sat there. Pilot comes on, "We're number 32 in line to take off and it looks like it will be about a 45 minute wait". OY VEY!

45 minutes turned into another 45 minutes due to the tower having computer problems. I'm sitting all scrunched up in my seat listening to the people in front of me tell there life stories to each other. They were both in their 50s. He was a psychiatrist, grew up in Catholic schools, married three times--twice to the same woman--and had two grandkids that were a year or two older than his youngest son. She'd grown up in Catholic schools as well, married young, had two kids, three grandkids, got divorced, got involved with someone else, moved with him to Colorado Springs (she was originally from Mississippi), blah blah blah. When her boyfriend called her she had "When A Man Loves A Woman" as her ring tone. Mr Psychiatrist thought that was so sweet. They were getting antsy though. They wanted to start drinking wine. The flight attendant was having none of it, but Mr. Psychiatrist got up and somehow sweet talked her into it. So, they started drinking wine.

45 minutes turned into another 45, because the front changed the wind direction and we, as the pilot put it, had to take a tour of the airport and go over to the other side, because planes cannot take off with the wind. They have to take off into the wind. So we followed the trail of the 31 other planes in front of us to the other side of the airport so we could take off correctly. I had already been sitting on the plane for hours, and when we finally took off, I would have another 2 hours and 20 minutes in the air. My butt was having a hard time with that realization. My mother and her husband, on the other hand, had to keep finding things to do in Colorado Springs since they live 2 1/2 hours away from the airport and they had left the house at 8:30 to meet me. We were supposed to have lunch and margaritas at a Mexican restaurant. Well, they got theirs.

Meanwhile, Miss Southern-Belle and Mr. Psychiatrist have finished two small bottles of wine each and at one point, she just crawled right over him to go to the lavatory, jaunty breasts stuck right into his face. Uh-oh...I see what's happening here. She has a boyfriend and he's married, mind you. Yes...by the time the plane did take off, they were making out like teenagers at a drive-in. I had to bare witness to all this. Sloppy kisses, too. The kind you can hear. That's pretty sloppy when you can hear kisses over the sound of plane engines. It made me feel dirty. I just prayed that they wouldn't head off to the lavatory together. (They didn't) They had more wine, then graduated to SCREWdrivers.

We land!!!! After 7:00. I was supposed to be there at 1:15. After a few more kisses, Mr. Psychiatrist said, "Well, it was nice meeting you." Yeah...I bet! Her cell phone burst out into "When A Man Loves A Woman" right after he said that. She just giggled and said it was nice meeting him, too. They have plans to meet somewhere tonight at 6:00. I'll bet she's all a-twitter with lusty anticipation.

So, out of the plane and into a car I go...for another 2 1/2 hours. My butt was not happy at all. But, I'm here...and thankful I've never had to see a psychiatrist myself. Talk about problems.