Travel Ticket

Traveling with anyone is always an educational experience--you get to see the "true" person and learn all sorts of things you didn't know about a person you thought you knew quite well.  Traveling with co-workers is even trickier--after all, do you really want your peer to know you can't poop while on the road?

Case in point: I just returned home from a lengthy out-of-state training with two co-workers.  I am sure they learned more about me than they ever wanted to know. If I had to guess, I think the top three things they learned about me would be: (1) I have a lot of food rules; (2) I am a pessimistic realist when it comes to the transportation portion of travel; and (3) I do not poop while traveling the globe.

I hope they will still be talking to me come Monday morning.

Those who are close friends know I don't like to eat late; in fact, I would rather eat a candy bar and go to bed rather than go to dinner after 7 PM.  Food just doesn't sit well with me after 7 PM.  It rots in there and I have trouble even laying down with all that food in there.  It doesn't cause pain or heartburn--it just doesn't sit "right." This need to eat dinner ridiculously early causes issue for the other 95% of the world who can eat dinner any time and would much prefer to eat dinner sometime after the blue-hair specials have expired.  The first night, my peers went to dinner and I went to my hotel room to snarf down a protein bar.  I'm pretty sure I had been asleep for an hour by the time they were eating dinner.  They thankfully humored my weird dinner food rule the next three nights--they should get an award for that.  It's hard to be on a trip with others and not eat late.  It's just the world of eating-while-traveling-with-others.  Being a vegetarian in a strange town with others who are not vegetarians can also lead to issue, even when your traveling companions are doing as much as they possibly can to accommodate you.  One day, I had cole slaw, a brownie and some sure-to-have-been-fried-in-beef-fat hush puppies for lunch.  Being a vegetarian really isn't about food rules, but it does create a headache for those who are trying to be nice and accommodate my non-meat ways.  (Question: are scallops and clams living creatures? I didn't eat any because I think they are living "things," and I'm the kind of vegetarian that don't eat seafood, anyways; but, questions by my traveling companion did lead to discussion and wonder. Huh.)

I do not like to travel as I "know" too much.  I have turned into quite the pessimistic realist when it comes to modes of transportation, especially the kind that involves an airport. It is not the actual mode of transportation--I really like flying.  Flying is fine, fun, fast. It's all that comes before and after the actual flight.  Compared to friends, I've flown a lot of places, considering I don't fly as part of my profession.  (God love Bitty Bichon's mama, who flies all the time--and, I'm talking ALL the time for her job. I don't know how she does it. I don't know how my father did it.  I sure wouldn't want to do it.) The wife and I have been on many "need-to-fly-to-get-there" vacations and my father worked for the airlines; hence, I probably got to fly more than most of my peers.

Air travel has warped and jaded me. I know what things "mean," especially when at O'Hare.  For instance, I know if you land at O'Hare on an "on time" inbound flight, you will not get a gate--you will sit on a tarmac and wait for a gate to open.  It's not good or bad--it's a fact.  (It becomes a bad thing if you have to pee.  Then it's painfully bad.) I know that even a slight drizzle can screw up arrivals and departures at O'Hare like there is no tomorrow...and, if O'Hare is screwed up, so are many of the other airports (due to connections and such via our beloved Orchard Field). I know how long it takes to turn around a "late to the gate" plane. I know connecting flights take nerves of steel, no matter how much of a layover you schedule. I know that airlines skew the data so they have a great on-time arrival. I know the landing patterns and holding patterns at O'Hare. I can tell you if we are circling to kill time or if we are circling to get into the landing pattern. I know that people try to bring car-sized carry ons to the plane and it so you might as well plan on not putting anything in the overhead compartment.  I know the size of airplanes and why it is important to know the size of your plane when making reservations. I am well versed about what times and days are the best to--and not to--schedule air travel....

(Side tidbit:  I know if you get a rental car and it is all perfumed-up, it means that people have been smoking in the no-smoking car and that they are masking the smoke until the next day....then, it's too late--you are stuck with the stinky, smoky car.)

It is impossible to miss how jaded I am about traveling.  I'm not sure if it's the scowl or the bitchiness or the stalking walk that gives me away.

This trip featured an attempt to fly out of O'Hare with a pending ice storm.  I glared out that window, demanding that ice storm wait until we got out of town.  Imagine how happy I was when I noticed it was starting to drizzle just a wee bit.  Others didn't see it, but I did.  Imagine how happy I was when I noticed it was starting to sleet just enough to see but not see if you weren't looking. I know this is a bad thing--the delays had to be minutes away.  If we missed this plane, we'd most likely miss our connecting flight, which just leads to more headaches....I hate connecting flights and try to avoid them like the plague. (Side note: the airlines have made it really tough to get anywhere without connecting during trips.  I spit on them for this.)

I don't think I've ever been happier to be on a plane during the start of an ice storm--operative word "start" of an ice storm.  They de-iced that baby and had us on the runway in record time.  We made it right before the onslaught of delayed departures.  I know that had we been delayed even a few more minutes, we would have been stuck at O'Hare for at least an hour and that everyone at the gate would be really, really crabby (including one jaded, bitter party of one--moi).

Before I get to the story of traveling back to home, I must mention point number three: I do not poop while traveling.  It's like my sphincter says CLOSED FOR BUSINESS.  Now, I could take medication to correct this issue while on a trip, but unless it's gonna be a week away from home, I just break out the stretch pants and hope for the best.  I know this is mostly about eating differently (read: eating unhealthy foods and changing eating times) and not drinking enough water.  Oh, I might squirt out a marble here and there but it's nothing like the real thing.  Just this issue makes me glad I do not travel for business.  It is impossible for me not to say something about this to my traveling companions.  I'm pretty sure my co-workers didn't want to know about my non-pooping status, but there are some things that I feel must be shared.

Back to traveling home.  I know if you airplane is not sitting at the gate when you arrive at said gate, you are going to be late.  Now, this might seem like a no-brainer, but unseasoned travelers might think that as long as the plane pulls up by boarding time, all will be well.  This couldn't be farther from the truth.  No matter what, they have to "turn" that plane around--if nothing else, gas it up and do a quick sweep of the cabin.  So, when it was 30 minutes before our departure time, I knew that our baby plane was running late and thus our trip would be delayed.  (This is when connecting flights/layovers become a real pain in the ass.)  We had 1.5 hours between trips.  In the real world, this would sound like a lot of time.  In the world of flight, it might mean a sprint through terminals or worse.  When our baby plane landed at our actual boarding time, I calculated the trip and for some reason knew that we were going to be fine.  I knew we'd have to book through the connecting airport and that we would get there when the connecting flight would be boarding but knew it'd be okay.  As long as we got in the air within thirty minutes and weren't trying to catch a connecting flight via O'Hare or Atlanta, we'd make it.

I guess my travel knowledge comes in handy at times.  I became calmer as others became nervous wrecks.

Suffice it to say we really did have to haul ass through the Charlotte airport (which is much bigger than one would imagine).  Of course, our arrival gate was as far as possible from our departure gate, so not only did we have to haul ass, we had to haul ass for quite a long duration.  I'm in pretty good shape and was sweating from the work-out by the time we got there.  Our connecting flight was indeed boarding as we puffed up to the gate.  We had to check our carry-ons because there was no room left in the overheads.  They shut the gate door right behind us as we wheezed down the aisle.  Even during all of this, I knew we were going to be fine.  Go figure.

I'm sure there are other little nuggets of information my co-workers gleaned about me during the trip.  They now know that if there is a Dunkin Donuts within ten miles of where we are scheduled to go, we will be going to that DD.  They know it is absolutely painful for me to only bring one pair of shoes.  They know I do a thorough bed bug search when arriving at my hotel room (what I would do if I found a bed bug, I do not know) and that I am a morning person, definitely not a night person. They know I am not a fan of baby planes and that if the baby plane has propellers, I am probably going to throw a fit before getting on. They know that I can be a real pain in the ass....

...but, they probably already knew that.

Travel with me, if you must--be beware of the pessimistic realist who will be traveling with you.  I'll do my best to behave but there is only so much I can do to hide my scowl and not talk about my poop.