Stranger Wisdom

I love traveling by air. Not only because it's quick and efficient, but because I always seem to get a good story out of it. My Christmas flight to Oklahoma was no exception.

After finding my perfect just-behind-the-wing window seat, a rough-looking man in his early sixties plopped down next to me holding a jacket in one hand and a plastic grocery bag full of his personal belongings in the other. Before we pulled out of the gate, I was greeted with a loud, "Ya headed home fer the holiday?!" There was not a moment of silence from that point until the "Fasten Seat Belt" sign was turned off in Tulsa. Did I mention it was a two and half hour flight?!...

I decided it would be a good opportunity to collect some pearls of wisdom. Here are just a few of the things I learned from my new friend Eugene:

~ Flying is dangerous and frightening, but more so when there are snakes on your plane. No really! He's seen the movie!

~ There are thousands of ways to die, and stupid people usually find them. Just like that one fella that let the black widow bite 'im... just to see if he was immune. He wasn't.

~ When you've got his kind of system, you don't need to drink any water. Just a cup of coffee in the morning and maybe a glass of juice at night. Water will bother your belly...especially during exercise.

~ However, if you're suffering from heat cramps out at the lake and you've got to walk a mile to the nearest building with nothin' but your dog for company... a large Sprite will not be helpful.

~ Trail mix is practically dog food. Most people buy it to eat themselves, but he'd just as soon give it to the dog.

~ You never know when you'll lose someone you've decided not to speak to. That's why you should never hold grudges... for long.

~ Ginger ale is actually supposed to help you lose weight. Not that he means nothin' by it!

~ He's pretty much the best driver ever. He can go 85 miles per hour in the pouring rain at night without a worry. Blizzards are the best, though.

~ If you're any good at horseshoes, I can tell you two men you do not want to face in a tournament.

~ The KKK is still very much alive and thriving... be careful if you're in Northwestern Arkansas with a suntan.

~ If you are a serial rapist, and he's anywhere around with a bat or gun... he will get you. Unless you get away and die of natural causes later in life. (Of course, that's only happened once.)

~ Just because you win at everything all of the time doesn't mean you're competitive. If you've got it, you've got it. Who cares if it makes everyone else mad?

~ The very best thing for popping ears is a fruity Mentos mint. And you will try one.

I'll stop right there. Partially because I can't even begin to remember everything we "discussed" on that flight, and partially because I'm sure you're all in disbelief that all of this wisdom came from one man. Needless to say, I didn't get much use out of my window seat, and may have been speaking with a thick accent upon exiting the plane.

Great guy. Hope he had a wonderful Christmas.

So Small A Thing

In "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," the character Boromir makes the observation:

"It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing."

This quote went through my mind last Saturday evening as I sat stranded and cold at the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport... awaiting a ride that wasn't coming.

You see, just before boarding my plane in Salt Lake City, I made the horrible discovery that I had left my cellular telephone in Cache Valley. No big deal, right? They can mail it to me on Monday! Clearly I knew little of the journey in store for me that evening.

My flight landed in Arizona just after 10:00pm. My roommate had flown in at 9:30, and I thought I'd somehow be able to track them down on my own. After all, there are payphones still, right? The tricky thing about pay phones is that you have to have exact change, and you have to know the phone number of the person you'd like to call. I had neither.

I had managed to scrape up $.75 from the bottom of my purse. To make a long-distance call, it would cost me $1.00. Calling my mother was out of the question. My original plan had been to call my mom so she could call the people who had my phone so they could use my phone to call my roommate. With $.50 I could make one local call, and the only local number I knew was that of my sister. I had to give it a shot. The tricky part was that my sister was on vacation in Georgie... making it after midnight her time. Needless to say the call went straight to voicemail and I didn't get my $.50 back.

Plan B: wander around the pick-up zone in case they're waiting. This was doomed to fail. At the Phoenix airport, there is a pick-up zone on either side of the terminal. After making a sweep down both sides of the terminal, I came up with the perfect plan! The cell phone lot! That's where you park while waiting to hear from recently-arrived travelers. Surely they would be in the cell phone lot! It wasn't too far away...right?? I had a 50% chance of choosing the right end of the terminal. The first attempt landed me in a creepy, semi-deserted employee parking lot. Walking another length of the terminal and past a few more unnerving lots, I did reach the cell phone lot... only to see a lot of unfamiliar faces in unfamiliar cars staring at me. I walked back.

Final plan. Pull out my last dollar bill and beg for change. This was not only a mental challenge for me, but an actual near impossibility. By now it was after 11:00pm and all shops and desks in the terminal are closed. Finally I came to a shuttle ticket desk. The lady there informed that they didn't have change for my dollar.

This is where I began to cry... just a little.

"What is it for?" she asked... obviously noticing my suddenly pathetic demeanor. I accidentally half-shouted back that I just needed to make one phone call. She pulled out her own purse and found four quarters.

I was able to get through to my mother who just happened to have my roommate's phone number. Unfortunately her cell phone needed charging, so after finding the charger and getting it plugged in and turned on, she encountered some trouble scrolling through her contacts. Remember how pay phones only give you 5 minutes to talk? Yeah. It hung up on me before I could tell her where I needed to be picked up.

Assuming she got ahold of my roommate to tell her I was stranded, I perched myself in the spot I thought I'd be mostly likely to get found. 45 minutes later (after being hassled by three segway cops telling me how they found God) my roommate arrived! Oh joy of joys! Apparently the plan had changed and someone else was picking me up... which may be why I didn't find her car in the cell phone lot. Since they hadn't heard from me they'd given up and left.

The moral of the story is that I now know that I can live without it... but I'd rather not. Also, I apparently don't own a clock.

It is a strange fate....

The Whole Dam Story (explicit)

This Memorial Day weekend, I drove up to Las Vegas from Phoenix to visit one of my college roommates. I've been asked to recount the events of that drive in a blog post. Warning:: Some material may not be suitable for children.

The drive consists of approximately 6 hours of surprisingly lovely desert landscapes and sparse plant life. This particular trip, I was blessed with an extra hour of lovely desert landscapes and sparse plant life. But I'm getting ahead of myself! Let's back up a few hours.

It all began on a beautiful Saturday morning. I loaded my car, checked my tires, filled up with gas, grabbed a gigantic Powerade and beef jerky and off I went. Together with a GPS borrowed from my sister, I was unstoppable. For the first few hours anyway. (Did I mention the gigantic Powerade?) When I finally stopped for a break, I tucked the GPS into my bag and went inside.

Side note: Public restrooms are a unique place. Second only to the notorious crowded elevator, a crowded public restroom has an extremely high risk of awkward silence. Back to the story.

It was at one of these uncomfortably silent moments in the stall that the woman inside the GPS in my purse firmly stated, "Lost satellite signal. Recalculating." She repeated it twice more. Nobody asked why my bag was talking. This day and age, I suppose it isn't terribly uncommon for objects to speak to us.

An hour and half (and two disappointing chicken strips) later, I was approaching what I was sure would be the highlight of the drive. On the Arizona/Nevada border, as most of you know, is the Hoover Dam.

At this time I would like to remind you all that it was a holiday weekend. "Prepare for delays," the signs read. Good thing I'd laid off the Powerade!

I've never seen so much dam traffic in my life. I was creeping along at about 2 miles per hour when the woman inside the GPS politely asked if I would like to "switch to pedestrian mode." Even she couldn't believe my car was capable of moving so glacially. I continued this pace for about 20 minutes before I could even get a dam view. (I must say, it's not nearly as big as I thought it would be.) In spite of the fact that it was putting me an hour behind schedule, I enjoyed having a while to get a good dam look. The dam architecture was very interesting, as well as the dam statues and a memorial to those who died building it. There's a large dam bypass being built (in order to avoid the dam traffic in the future) which I got a good view of as well. It looks absolutely horrifying. It seems to be about a million miles above the dammed river. I think I'd rather deal with the dam traffic than risk the dam bypass.

Anyway... Apart from all the dam tourists running in front of my car, it was an interesting dam experience. (Not to be confused with a "dam interesting experience." That would be inappropriate.) My time in Vegas was relatively uneventful, but extremely refreshing. Great weekend.

I did, however, take a different route home in order to avoid the whole dam mess.

Flight Plight

On my way to Utah Friday afternoon, I had just settled into the flight with a good book when the flight attendant came around with the beverage service. After taking a few sips of my Diet Coke, I began to doze off. With the drink on the tray table I sat back, arms folded, to take a quick nap.

As I dozed, apparently I had one of those crazy dreams where you startle awake. Uncontrollably, my right arm flew out in front of me, nearly smacking the man in the seat next to me, and knocked my beverage directly into my lap. Laughing, my neighbor reached up to press the service button as I held myself up by the arm rests to keep my already wet jeans off my soaked seat.

As the flight attendant approached she looked at my face and said, "Uh oh, did you spill?? I've seen that look before!"

Just after getting things under control, the pilot came over the intercom to announce our descent into Salt Lake City. If there was ever an instance when I needed more time to air dry... this was it!
With my head held high and my duffel held strategically behind my rear, I calmly walked straight to the ladies' room. Hopefully nobody noticed my Coke crotch. I will say it was chillier than I'd expected in Salt Lake.

Comparatively, the flight home was uneventful!

What Happens in Mexico...

As I obviously am a big fan of making lists and presenting them as editorials, I have compiled this list of important observations and lessons learned while I was on the beach in Mexico this last week. Let's get started, shall we?

1) You don't REALLY need your birth certificate or car title to get into Mexico. They'll let anyone in... it's getting out that can be tricky. However, if you all look white enough, they'll let you back to the US without too much trouble, as well.

2) The ocean is salty. It is REALLY REALLY salty. It burns your eyes. It burns your tongue. It dries you out and plasters your hair to your head. It looks BEAUTIFUL!...but you won't anymore once you've been in.

3) Any captured sand crab should be named "Pinchy". Any questions?

4) You really should avoid running in shallow water at low tide. One of three things will happen. You will either a- get stung by a jellyfish or stingray; b- tear a foot up on the jagged reef (which I chose to do); or c- end up having to carry the a's and b's back to the camp.

5) If you do tear your foot up on the reef while running in shallow water during low tide, don't run up to the top of the beach afterwards to show all your friends. By the time you get there, your foot will be gushing blood, and you'll be halfway into a state of shock. That's why it'll seem so funny to you at the time.

6) It's handy to know Spanish when you get pulled over in Mexico. If you can't work things out that way, however, just pretend you have no idea what's going on and hand them $20. Works every time.

7) You really can't go wrong if you constantly refer to the ocean as "the drink". It will ALWAYS sound cool. Seriously...try it.

8) Looking cute always helps. When your friends get their truck stuck in the sand dunes, you don't have to feel helpless. You're doing your part just by standing around and being cute.

9) Sunscreen isn't waterproof. I don't care what the bottles say.

10) The tough guy is usually the one that gets sick. Just when you think you've made the whole trip without anyone getting sick, the tough guy will probably puke all the way home... just for kicks.

11) You can enjoy an entire four day stay in Mexico listening to nothing but Jimmy Eat World.

12) You can tell yourself you don't care what you look like, but you'll change your mind when all the other girls are sitting in their tent doing their makeup in the morning. Good thing you're not trying to impress anyone, right?

13) Finally, if you're ever stopped on the side of the road in a caravan with some friends in Mexico, and you've got a bag of gummy worms... try licking them and throwing them onto the windshield behind you. This is guaranteed to make everyone's trip 10 times more enjoyable.

Thirteen... a good prime number. I could go on and on about the lessons to be learned on a singles vacation; but for the sake of time and the avoidance of developing carpal tunnel, I'll stop here.

The Longest 7 (or 10) Hours... ::Travel Troubles::

Before I begin, I would like to make two things very clear...
1. I never get airsick.
2. I like little children.

It all started around 3 pm. After a short break for the holidays, it was definitely time to go back to school. Everything seemed fine for a while, but my mother is a crier. Do you know hard it is to remove your shoes and jacket, empty your pockets, present your passport, pass through the metal detector, replace your shoes and jacket, and walk away while your mother is watching you...crying?!? Not simple, my friend. Anyone who can watch their mother cry without shedding a tear is dead inside. Don't worry, though. She called me five minutes later to make sure I'd found my gate. (Have you been to the Tulsa airport?!)

Upon boarding the plane, to my dismay I found that my seat was already occupado by a man who barely spoke english and smelled like a coat closet. With some help from the cute boy behind me (also the boy who was to sit next to me for the next 2.5 hours) things were cleared up and we settled in. Only a few moments later, however, it was realized that the entire row in front of us was empty and the cute boy quickly moved to the seat in front of his. Too quickly. I chose not to take that personally.

Before taking off, the pilot came on to explain to us that we would experience a great deal of turbulance over Colorado. Usually the captain won't talk about turbulance until turbulance has actually been experienced. When the captain predicts turbulance...BUCKLE UP! Let's just say that by the time we got to Salt Lake, I was probably green... not to mention quite happy the cute boy was not sitting two inches from me. Enough about that.

In Salt Lake, I had about a three hour layover. Since nothing interesting happened at this point, we'll move ahead.

During that last leg of my travels, upon boarding the plane I was informed that my seat had been changed for me. This didn't phase me too much, since I was replaced into a window seat. After everyone else had boarded, the three seats in my row were still unoccupied. Following some hustle and bustle at the front of the planes, two small girls and a mother holding a baby walk down the isle to the seats next to me. A charming little lady sat neatly next to me, buckled her safety belt and helped herself to a bag of chips. The cuteness didn't last. It wasn't long before I was being tackled by a monster with Dorito-encrusted fingers and milky breath, insisting that I keep my window shut and turn BOTH overhead lights on. (Neither of those are things I like to do.) That went down for about the next hour. The highlight of the flight was when the young child blurted out loudly, "Hey, why is your nose so big?" While her horrified mother apologized and scolded her, I explained politely that my father has a large nose. I didn't FEEL like being polite...

Upon our 30-minute late arrival into Idaho Falls, I joined the other passengers in waiting another 30 minutes for our luggage. Then I joined the other 6 passengers whose luggage was lost. Yes... that is how my day was yesterday.

Moral of the story: Flying is the safest way to travel.