The Joy of Traveling

5:00 AM EST: Awake...Can't sleep

6:45 AM EST: Wake Sheila and Fia up
(Thinking, It's gonna be a great day! I am going home today!)

8:00 AM EST: Journey begins...we leave for the airport


9:30 AM EST: Been sitting in crazy traffic for an hour and a half. Splitting headache...About to cross the George Washington bridge. I just "check" my itinerary one more time...Oh, crap! I have to be there at 11:11 AM not 11:51 like I originally thought. We drive like New Yorkers with little concept of lanes all the way to the airport.


10:28 AM EST: Arrive at the airport, flying out of the car, chasing down sky cap....Run to the gate, winded and very tired. Well, once again...I RAN INTO A NAZI! I think I attract assholes.


Me: Hi, I am here for the 11:11 flight.

Plane Nazi: (keep in mind these are angry New Yorkers) You missed YO flight. You can't take that flight with THAT luggage. The cut off is 45 minutes.

Me: OMG, are you kidding me. It is only 43 minutes before the flight. There was traffic.

Plane Nazi: 45 minutes. THAT'S THE RULE.

Me: So what...what do I do? (frantically scared)

Plane Nazi: Get behind the line and wait!

FLOOOOORRRED I GET BEHIND "THE LINE" DUMBFOUNDED FOR FIVE MINUTES WHILE THEY ARE ALL IGNORING ME AND TALKING ABOUT THEIR COWORKERS WHO AREN'T THERE...


Me: Can someone please help me. (Starting to freak out, hello 3 year old, NYC, Sheila gone, I have NEVER missed a flight...)

Plane Nazi: Yeah. Where to?

Me: Dallas

Plane Nazi: The next plane leaves at 4:00.

Me: 4:00? Are you kidding me?

Plane Nazi: 4:00. You can either pay $50.00 and RESERVE your seats and go stand by and take your chances.

Me: My chances? What? (I am freaking by now) What are my chances? I DON'T HAVE $50.00. Let me stop and say...I did have $50.00. But, I can be a bit hard headed and I refused to give her one red cent. I probably should have, and John told me to, but I refused. I did not want to give her the satisfaction.

Plane Nazi: (She couldn't be bothered) I don't know. Anything can happen until 4:00.

Me: (I LOOSE IT, AND COMPLETELY UNHINGE) Oh no, you don't know,do you? You don't care? You are not the one who has to entertain a 3 year old for 5 hours in LaGuardia airport of all places and then MAYBE get on the next plane because you don't have $50.00 and you were God Forbid 43 minutes early versus 45.

Plane Nazi: Well I would have left EARLIER. (I was thinking, OH NO YOU DID~NNNTTT!!! If she couldn't have thumped me I woulda kicked her ass!)


So, she proceeds to tell me to put my bags on the scale, weighs them and then has me take my two heavy ass bags to TSA instead of having them pick them up; like she did for the previous person. I felt raped. It only begins there...


11:SOMETHING EST: I walk up to the TSA counter to show my ID and boarding pass to go thru the scanner. Another Asshole....Only LaGuardia....


Me: Hi, Here ya go. I hand her my boarding pass and ID

She stares at them both for like 30 seconds, So I am just staring at her at this point wondering if she has any brain activity. Well then she just morphs into a psycho. (I am thinking shit, I should just get the F out of this airport...like yesterday. ...before these crazy m'r f'rs kill me)

Morph: Did YOU know your license is expired?

Me: YEP...(Now I couldn't be bothered. I didn't give a fuck at this point. She was rude. I was rude. I was rude the whole time I lived in NYC (you HAD to be to avoid getting completely run over) and it fared alot better than the sweet little southern girl approach did. Also, Let me say I am so sick of hearing about the ID. I have tried to renew my License in Texas twice and have not been successful yet)

Morph: Brian and Christie!!!! (Screaming in my face at these two people in the corner)


NEXT THING YOU KNOW I AM GETTING WHISKED AWAY FOR ADDITIONAL SCREENING. IT WAS EITHER THAT BITCH OR THE BITCH AT THE TICKET COUNTER WHO SIGNED ME UP FOR THAT FUN LITTLE TIME. I HAVE A HARD TIME BELIEVING I WAS "RANDOMLY SELECTED". MORE LIKE...TARGETED. OFF WITH MY SHOES OFF WITH SOFIA'S SHOES. MONKEY PACK OFF. JACKET OFF. SOCKS...YEP, OFF. ALL OF OUR BELONGINGS GONE THRU AND RUBBED DOWN WITH ALCOHOL. THE PAT DOWN, THE WORKS....


Could this day get any worse....YEP.

12:00 PM EST: I call Candice just bitching and pissed off. Basically going off. She suggests I get a blanket for Sofia, candy and whatever and just sit in a corner and chill. So this doesn't sound bad at this point. So I put Sofia's IPOD in her backpack and grab her monkey pack and we go and get a blanket. To pass time we go to the airport Chili's to grab a bite. While we are waiting on our food she decides she has to go potty right now. So I grab all of our stuff and run to the bathroom with her. Exasperated already. Before you know it I drop our brand new expensive blanket on the floor at LaGuardia airport <---- NASTY of all places and it gets toilet water on it. FUCK. What else could happen on this awful day.

We eat our lunch and go to our corner that Candice suggested. I start reaching in the bag for all of our stuff. I pulled out my IPOD but where is Sofia's? I lost the freaking thing. I grabbed Sofia and ran over to the last place I knew I had it. Well, Thank the Lord there is ONE decent person in that God Forsaken airport because they turned it in, and I got it back.

4:15 PM EST: We managed to get on the plane 4 hours later and Sofia and I were over tired and cranky as hell. There was a point on this leg of the trip I wasn't even sure who the parent was. I was arguing with her like I was her age, and probably bordered on inappropriate parenting more than once. I thought I was going to lose my freaking mind. I thought I would have a drink to calm my nerves, but I threw that up and excelled my headache into a migraine. Not to mention when I threw that up it got all over my pants...and yes, my blanket. TMI I know, but this was just one more piece of my day.

6:30 PM CST: We got to Memphis and my day took a turn for the better. I walked up to the ticket counter and said...Okay, here is the deal. I am tired. I have barf and LaGuardia toilet water on me and my blanket. I have been at it since 5:00 eastern time, and I am on stand by for this flight because I did not have $50.00 to pay for reservations. I must have looked and/or sounded quite pathetic because she said...Honey, I am sorry. I will make it happen. And winked at me. I think that was the point that God intervened. I had just called John, almost in tears at this point, and then...I met some really nice people waiting for the plane. I even met an old lady who had also had a really bad day...but...it got better at the airport. She was so cute. Apparently her cell phone was dead and she said to me...my cell phone is deader than hector. I thought I would pee my pants. I needed that laugh right then. To top it off she was looking for her Daughter's phone number and she said "where in the poodle did I put that number".....Poodle? That is too cute. I let her use my cell since hers was deader than hector. She got called up to the ticket counter and came back and had gotten bumped up to first class, AND...she got a free ice tea from the BBQ place in the airport. I almost jumped in her luggage. All the while, being about 85 years old.

7:50 PM EST: I ended up sitting with two really nice people. Jo and Lana. We joked around and had a great flight. And...Sofia made out well also. In that same airport she made a friend named Ariel who was 4. So we all sat together on the plane. Wow, Sofia is an easy traveler when she has a "friend".

9:00 PM EST: Needless to say I had one more Bloody Mary and yep...I held this one down. You can imagine how happy I was to see my husband waiting in the baggage claim. I almost left without my luggage. John had to remind me to get it.