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Vacation, Why

March 17, 2012 by

Holiday, many of us take one a year and spend a not insignificant amount of our hard earned cash to enjoy some time away from our everyday lives. I am no different, though my husband and I tend to have a couple of favorites and we stick to them. We both like Caribbean Islands, the ocean, the sun and breezes from the sea.

Vacation…time away from the mundane, the daily drag of life, you can’t wait for the first day despite knowing you still have to get through airport security and porn x-ray machines. Crowded airplanes full of families with children struggling with far too many over-packed carry-on bags. If you travel out of country you will need to traverse Immigration, with Passport in hand queuing up to await you turn up to 30 minutes, if your luck though it will be far less.

Astonishingly, it seems no matter how long you might have waited at Immigration when you arrive at Luggage Claim, your bags will not have started on the round yet. What you find instead is courtesy of Bleacher Reportnotification your luggage will be arriving at Claim number X, all your plane mates will have their children lined up at the front of the claim like the Defensive Line of the New York Jets; keeping this blocking line does not a bit of good, bags come down when they come down, if your bags come first you must either knock them down to reach your bags or wait for them to leave. Your choice, I choose to politely ask once for them to MOVE and then mow them down.

Before you can finally exit the airport and begin your well-earned holiday the last obstacle is Customs, if you are lucky you look innocuous and touristy enough for you and your bags to pass through without much more more than a cursory question and answer regarding the contents of your bags and your purpose, with the right answer and a lack of shiftiness on your part they will pass you through to your well-earned and much anticipated holiday. Well, this might not be entirely true if you rented a car you might still have a wait. Not necessarily a wait in line, just a wait while your car is located and you are then transported to wherever your rental car might be off or on airport grounds.

Finally though the true holiday begins, bags are flung into the rental car and you are on your way. So why then are we usually somewhat disappointed by what we find upon arrival?

Lumpy beds, too soft or too hard pillows, bathtub / shower combinations with plastic shower curtains that chase you around the shower sticking to your wet  body, towels that feel as if they are made of Luffa and sheets that feel as if they are in fact fine grained sandpaper. Those are just the beginning of the disappointments. Disappointments you always forget when the holiday is over. Unless the hotel is truly ghastly you forget the truth of the room and amenities that did not live up to the trailer provided by the hotel that convinced you to pre-pay for that miniscule discount you received for doing so.

Did I forget to mention if you travel to resort areas this time of year you will also face the dread Spring Breakers? Oh yeah, this is my favorite. Barely out of diapers and out of their parents supervision, wandering the hallways and beaches drinks in hand and generally bad behavior close to the surface, Spring Breakers. Wandering out of elevators where they have lit up their first cigar, thanks. Spring Breakers, who failed to understand yet the idea clothing, even bathing suits are intended to cover our most private parts from public consumption, public exposure while certainly good for tan line control leaves you open; yes really open. By the way did I mention most of you young women have put on that Freshmen 15 and should likely considered something a bit less revealing or at least a trip to WalMart for a larger size before Spring Break.

These were just my general observations. First day observations at that. Yes, we are on vacation, some place I love in fact, Bahamas, yes that is where we are this week. For seven hopefully sun soaked days we will sit on the beach, visit with family, eat wonderful foods straight from the sea and possibly do a bit of shopping.

We are at the same hotel we stay at most times we travel here; the same hotel we met at nearly 15 years ago. We know what we get here; there are rarely surprises for us. I think though we forget the things we don’t like in favor of the reasons we stay, the tradeoff’s.  We like this part of the island, we like the convenience and the beach. I like having a deck where I can enjoy the view of the ocean, my morning coffee and a cigarette without disturbing my non-smoking husband. Works well for us and I enjoy sitting outside listening to the waves, watching people on the beach and huge ocean liners coming in to dock for the day.

Before the week is out I will share some of the reasons I love it here, probably some other caustic observations.

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Tales from the Air

January 3, 2012 by

Farts on the Airplane

There is probably nothing worse than someone with uncontrollable gas in the tight confines of an airplane. Certainly they are embarrassed by their overactive digestive track and their own stupidity at eating foods that would cause their active flatulence.

Let me give some advice. There are some foods that lend themselves to greater amounts of flatulence than others. This is due to the types of sugars they contain, the body CANNOT effectively break these sugars down and thus they produce gas which travels to your nether regions ultimately producing noxious fumes. If you know you will be flying, do yourself and your fellow passengers a favor avoid these foods!

Beans, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Raisins, Milk (especially for those with lactose intolerances) and yes the all-important BEER.

Elbows and other Sharp Objects

I once had a man (not what you are thinking you are so dirty minded) seated next to me in those big comfy First Class Seats. This man must have seen that I was more blessed than the average woman with pair of breasts that might be the envy of a Playboy Centerfold. Perhaps in his fevered fantasy he believed this meant they were public property, since they took more space than was normal. Whatever the case may be, I once had a man and he had a plan.

Our flight to Dallas was looking to be a long one, with plenty of turbulence and stormy skies. I had already taken my seat, 1B aisle bulkhead left side of the plane. When he arrived he first glared at me, as if to say; “what are you doing in this section of the plane?” Admittedly, back then there were few women flying in First during what was considered the Friday specials, business flights back to Dallas on American. Add to this I was already in my standard Jeans, cowboy boots and tee. But then my Man with a Plan noticed my assets and his gears turned. He sat his happy self down, pulled out his Wall Street Journal leaned to the right, taking more than half our ample arm rest as his own, and ordered his Scotch and Soda before take-off. Then the fun begin……….

Turn page one, right hand grabs page turns and shakes landing squarely against the edge of my breast. I think nothing of it. A few minutes go by and time to turn the next page; oddly the exact same action produces the same result. “Excuse me, my breast isn’t public property and your attention isn’t welcome. Would you mind keeping your elbow on your side of the arm rest and your hands to yourself, please”, said as nice as possible and looking directly at the Man with the Plan. He smirked, moved slightly to the left and started reading again. A few more minutes pass (he reads slowly) and the same exact thing happens, fortunately the two gentlemen across the aisle see it this time, so when I turn and tapped him and said, ‘The next time you touch my breast I am going to break your ribs and it will be self-defense’, they concurred. Again he smirked and this time he didn’t move.

Five more minutes, he readies himself for another page turner and a free feel. I ready myself as well, I am watching for him how. He turns the page and this time takes a slow linger down the side of my left breast as if daring me to follow through with my threat. Boy did he challenge the wrong Texas girl, I pulled back my elbow and delivered a blow to his ribs that knocked the wind from his lungs and bent him over in his seat. When he could breathe again the first thing he did is push the call button and when he Flight Attendant arrived he demanded the police meet the plane in Dallas and arrest me for assault. She asked me what had occurred and I explained the situation. She asked the nice gentlemen across the aisle what they had seen and their story agreed with mine. She offered him a choice;

  1. She could have the police meet the plane and he would be arrested. I might be also, but it is likely the charges would be dropped against me.
  2. He could change seats with someone and forget the entire incident assuming I was willing to do so and someone was willing to change seats with him.

He took option two and the rest of the flight was quite pleasant. He called me a Bitch as he was moving his bags, I agreed.

Thus we have two tales of many of my time in the air. Farts on a plane, well that is on-going and frequent. Elbows that is a true story from about ten years ago.

Filed Under: Flying Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Flying in the Face of Sanity

December 30, 2011 by

Did I say that, mention sanity and flight in the same sentence. Could it be I have finally lost what little true lucidity I have left and crossed over into the land of la-la. This could be the case, but as I look at the end of another year of mileage and other sundry programs that award me for spending my life away from home I am forced to take stock.

It is important to understand what I do for a living; I am a consultant or as one of my favorite customers once said during a heated debate;

“Well Val, that is because you are a Conslutant”, at which point he grew beat red and

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fumbled mightily for a way out of his Freudian Slip. Being the wonderful Conslutant that I am I gave him one, I smiled sweetly and said, “Why no George, I am not a Conslutant at all, you pay me very well for my services and thus I think there might be another name for what I am”. While the Steering Committee of the very proper southern State Board of Education stared mouths agape, both George and I burst out laughing and all was right with the world once again. Freudian Slips forgotten and the heated debate regarding the state of the project picked up where it left off.

Nevertheless, I am a Consultant, to be precise I am Project Manager big IT projects. I have been working in this capacity for twenty years. For the past five I have worked as an independent, meaning sometimes I get to pick my customers but most of the time I scramble for new contracts. The other thing this means is I spend a great deal of time in airports, airplanes and hotel rooms; that is away from home.

The Mile High Club

Get your mind out of the gutter it isn’t what you think! Those of us who spend a significant portion of our lives catching catnaps in the air belong to a unique club. We know the secrets of getting through long check in lines, security is a breeze and we generally don’t

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stress when our flights are delayed. Why you ask? The answer is simple this is our life.

We make friends with the people at ticket counters we know their names, sometimes even the names of their children; we see them week after week. TSA agents greet us by name; we take the same flights week after week and are on the same schedules. Flight attendants know us and we continue conversations from the previous week with them, sharing war stories of our time in the air, bad passengers and the changes since the airline has cut back services.

How many miles can a single person fly? 3,722,902 – you read that right. Three million seven hundred twenty-two thousand nine hundred and two. Those are the approximate miles I have flown between four main airlines in the past twenty years. It is likely a bit more, but many miles have fallen through the cracks of bankruptcy, mergers and sundry other incidents of flying life. To be perfectly anal about this that works out to be five hundred and ten (510) miles per day every single day for twenty years.

The Road Less Traveled

Now of course I didn’t fly every day. Didn’t even fly every week. Most weeks but not every week. In fact there were entire years during this period where I actually I stayed in one place and was able to act just like a normal person, commuting to and from an office on a road rather than in an airplane, I found the experience far more stressful. When people ask how I can stand to fly every week I point out if they live and work in any metropolitan city in the US they likely spend up and hour or more each way in the car five days per week. They are subject to road rage, incautious drivers, traffic jams and many other terrible inconveniences. I on the other hand am met at the airport where my car is valet parked, I rarely stand in long lines, I always board the plane first, my commute consists of sitting back while others ‘drive’ and I catnap.

I don’t want to glamorize my commute, believe me there is nothing glamorous about it at all. Every privilege I have has been earned by bad food, rude seatmates, long layovers, delayed flights and being away from home.

I am starting this series here, more to come on Flying in the Face of Sanity.

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