There is a reason that I'm uncouth and barbaric and simple-minded: it's because I hate to travel. Well that's an oversimplification as I like exploring foreign places. It's just the to-and-fro involved that keeps me up at night with hives and a stress-induced STD.
I'll never understand people I call "Easy Travelers," because to me traveling is such a stressful nightmare that in no way can take less than 17 hours of day-of planning. Take Maddie, for instance: Today she had a 4:30 pm flight to California. Last night we went to Rachel's house party, stayed up waaay past my bedtime, and I crashed at Maddie's. Let's put myself in this position, shall we? If I have a plane taking off in less than 24 hours, I'm not hosting guests. I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off, making 7 different check lists and losing them. I'm massively in awe of people who can pack right before their plane takes off, get to the airport with less than 4 hours to spare and be okay with it, NOT bring with them an empty water bottle to refill after security and save $3, etc. etc. For the art of traveling, to me, involves these essential 24-hours-before-takeoff functions:
1) Visiting the airline's Web site approx. twice an hour to familiarize myself with policies, tips and of course to check the flight status so I can time my cab better
2) Accurately planning my route, which involves counting backwards from the time I want to get to the airport to the cab ride, the bringing of baggage to door, last minute throw-ins, and so on
3) Vividly imagining what it's going to be like when turbulence knocks my plane out of the sky and I plummet to earth
4) Not being able to do normal human activities because of this heinous "waiting, packing, don't have stamina for other mental tasks" period. No going to the gym or out anytime in the morning of my flight. Just eating cereal while watching shows about large families and researching plane crash statistics
5) Using the beauty of weather.com to determine future temps at my destination to plan outfits to pack. Stressing over how to pack double what I need because you never know you might wet your pants 3 days straight and there will be NOWHERE to purchase underwear at your destination and THEN WHAT?
6) Decantering (word?) my liquids into tiny, TSA-approved bottles, which I will proudly display in their perfect-sized bag, separate from my other carry-ons, at the security line
7) Acting like I'm on meth and cleaning countertops/dusty kitchen corners while repeating to myself "Now it will be clean when I get home!!" and sounding sort of like Norman Bates
8) Plotting and packing my "survival snacks," ie 5 Quaker granola bars, 2 bags of almonds, aforementioned empty water bottle, then always gulping down a spoonful of peanut butter on my way out the door just to "hold me over" when let's be honest I just downed 3 Lean Pockets an hour ago
I'll never be the kind of girl who can go to work, get back at 6, throw some things in a bag and rush to the airport for my 7:30 pm flight. It's not just the heinous "rush" factor that terrifies me. I think in a former life I was one of those first airplane travelers, and it was such an experience, such an "us and not them" announcement of your lifestyle, so now I can't just view air travel as a way to get from point A to point B. It's a brain-encompassing labryinth of being absolutely 100% certain I'm going to die and that wherever I'm going pretty much isn't worth it.
Honeymoon in Pennsylvania what whaaaat
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don't forget, i also made you a grilled cheese sammich.
ReplyDeleteI barely remember this grilled cheese aside from the obvious crunchy melty gooey deliciousness- which is odd, as I have a text I sent to Joe saying "whoa walked into Maddie's totally not drunk anymore"- and let's be honest I think I was drunk until the Ludlow stop on the train Sunday morning- I DO remember it was bangin'. Even more so than Brian Electrified Spider's bangin' sandwich of 2004/2005.
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