Jing a Jong and Whistling Idiots

I am finally home safely from Key West, where I had a particularly rejuvenating and refreshing time both physically and mentally. It was so good to arrive home - yay, home! - to the enticing aroma of roast chicken and vegetables David had thrown in the oven before he left to pick me up from the airport (what a sweetie), to take a shower in my own bathroom (liquid hand soap in designer fragrances, yay!), and of course to commune with the kitties.

My homecoming joy was intensified by the fact that everything that had happened so far during the day had been exhaustingly annoying. The cretins running the Key West airport decided to announce less than an hour before takeoff that my flight would be leaving 10 minutes early and that everyone on it should be through security by now. Thanks for the memo, you weenie wagons! I panicked, because I wasn't.

But I made it on the plane to Miami. It turns out that this would be the least annoying of the legs of my air travel.

While waiting on the crowded airplane out of Miami into Houston, this guy sitting in the row behind me was subjecting everyone on the plane to his last-minute cell phone conversation. He literally kept yelling into it long after the announcement to turn things off, as if to say, "I'm soooo important that I have to talk right up to the last possible second before take-off." As if this wasn't grating enough, he was speaking in very agitated Spanish, and had clearly forgotten the oft-broken cardinal rule of cell phone usage to use your inside voice while in a public place.

Finally, to the great satisfaction and amusement of the passengers sitting in front of me and to my right, the flight attendant made him hang up. I could almost hear the collective celestial major chord sung by my fellow passengers.

I inflated my fleece-covered Brookstone neck pillow (man, those things are a godsend - worth every penny), read my latest James Patterson thriller "Mary Mary" and listened to my mp3 player. As soon as I turned it off as we were descending, I became aware of a slow, bluesy, whistling that was just out of tune enough to make your teeth itch. I thought, "who in god's name whistles on a crowded plane?"

After enduring several minutes of this (during which I was technically not allowed to drown him out with my digitunes) I turned around and made eye contact with the guy and raised my eyebrows. Several of the passengers behind me smiled at me in gratitude - clearly this turd juggler was irritating the crap out of them too. But the infernal whistling kept on, and was it my imagination or did he get louder after my death stare? Did he think we all really needed his nauseatingly tone-deaf serenade? Aircraft exit music or water torture? As soon as we were taxiing, at the earliest possible opportunity, I cranked up the mp3s again and let Gwen Stefani drown him out and felt better. :)

Then I had to figure out where the hell I was in the Houston airport, which was so big I'm surprised it doesn't have it's own damn zip code. It was the size of a small planet, and I had forgotten my space suit and Jetsons car. To my horror, I had arrived in concourse E and had to somehow teleport myself to concourse B in 20 minutes to board in time for my flight. This involved forcing my airplane-stiff knees and legs into a light jog for what had to have been at least a mile with my 30 pound horn case on my back - and taking a blasted train, all of which put me at the gate on time (phew!) but with no time to spare before boarding. I hadn't eaten anything all day at this point, which raised the IBF (Inner Bitch Factor) considerably.

The last leg of the trip was by far the worst. Continental's commuter planes are so innefficient space-wise that I literally had more room on the little puddlejumpers into and out of Key West. My ultra-thin new expensive horn case didn't even fit in the overhead compartments, which were ridiculously crowded with everyone's carry on baggage. God forbid people actually check their non-valuable/non-breakable luggage so as to leave space for the carry on bags that cannot be checked. Oh no! It's absolutely necessary that you lug every last suitcase and garment bag on with you! Because if they checked anything, they would have to go to the....gasp....baggage claim area!!! Which is at least 5 feet away from where they'll be exiting the airport anyway when they leave! The horror!!

Anyway, we sat on the damn tarmac for an hour while the crew repeatedly said that "our safety" was their "primary concern" and that there had been a "concern" that they needed to investigate and fix. Of course I was glad we weren't ultimately going to plummet to our miserable deaths because of some fart jockey's equipment malfunction, but it was still a drag.

But I will say I was extremely grateful that no one was using their playground voices on their cell phones or whistling in between semitones behind me. :) I wasn't about to discount whatever small blessings would happen to me today.

Finally, though we were up in the air and man, I was glad. It was a long flight but I read for most of it, which helped pass the time. And they did feed us a small sandwich about the size of a dinner roll with some chips, which was a godsend since I hadn't had any time to get breakfast or lunch yet.

When I finally got to Milwaukee's baggage claim, my largest suitcase never showed up on the conveyor belt and I had to report it. They said it probably didn't make it onto the plane in Houston. (The baggage space shuttle was running a little slow, apparently.)

So they're (hopefully) going to deliver it to our house sometime soon, and there's really nothing I absolutely need in it in the immediate future except my Y card, swim suit, cap and goggles.

I am going to actively avoid getting on an airplane in the near future.

However, despite today's travel "Jing a Jong" (a very handy family term, mainly used on my Italian mother's side, used to denote any stressful situation caused by any combination of incompetences, annoyances, loudness and useless behavior) I arrived safely, didn't miss any flights due to delays or layovers, and am absolutely ecstatic to be home again. During the blizzard on the 1st (the day I was supposed to fly out), I kept watching all the coverage on WGN of the people stranded at Chicago O'Hare sleeping on cots, and thinking, man, that's gotta suck big time. Even in my grumpiest of funks when unpleasant things happen over which I have no control (like the entire 10 hours of my travel today), I still try to make a valiant effort under my little black cloud to appreciate what I do have.

So to make a long story slightly less long, (or at least to end the dang thing), I'm home safely. :) The next few posts from me will be considerably more fun, involving lots of pictures.

And remember - unless you want me to personally come stand right behind you and argue loudly in french into my cell phone, don't whistle on an airplane. No matter how strong the urge. :)

Darcy