The Bastardly tag team of Murphy and Karma

The trip was atrocious.

A friend of mine I work with occasionally ferried me to LAX, but not before insisting I go out to eat with her and her husband. I try to never eat a meal before travelling so this didn't gel at all with my plans but I couldn't refuse so I grinned and bared it. I barely touched the chicken and mushroom crepe though so it went home with them. This was after she made me drink an entire bottle of kombucha. It was recently introduced to me by D, who loves it and is endlessly entertained by making me try things that always require a very close visual inspection first, like "What the hell is all that stuff floating in there?". It is fantastic for you, but like everything fantastic for you, tastes kind of awful. I'm too harsh, the grape flavor tastes ok, very, very powerful tang to it, but just before you take your swallow you smell what seems like being just a little too close to really dirty feet. I suffered through it. Her husband drank the mango flavored one, it smelled like sweat. She cheated and drank the ginger one which smelled like herbal tea.

My flight was at 11:45pm. I was over cautious getting there early with my dodgy ID as it was barely glanced over before I was waved through and I found I had two hours to kill. Laptop came out and I discovered I was unable to get online, screw LAX, how I hate thee. Last post to the blog was successfly made via Blackberry, which did a little to renew my faith in technology.

My master plan was to drink two tall boys at the sports bar while watching whatever sporting event was on tv, scamper to the gate at 11:15, get on the plane and by the grace of god be asleep before takeoff.

Murphy's Law lesson #1: Scampered to the gate at 11:15 to find the flight was delayed and not boarding until 12:30. The tall boy plan worked however, I was exhausted, and fell asleep in the most awkward position in the waiting area, wasting precious plane z's and waking up every five minutes to thrash and try to get the kink out of my neck. Eventually we arrived at 12:30 and the plane began to board.

Murphy's Law lesson #2: And I boarded the plane to the not-so-angelic sounds of the crying baby. First thought - Only the Devil himself would take a baby on a red eye, knowing full well that just because they, the offensive parents, coulnd't sleep, neither should anyone else. I threw the head phones in and, mercifully, the baby was enough rows away that the sound of Adult Swim cartoons drowned it out. Oh but I had no idea what was still in store for me.

Murphy's Law lesson #3: This is the lesson where Murphy teamed up with Karma and I must have done something horrible to someone who didn't deserve it because the 20-somethings that took up the middle and window seats next to me were the physical embodiment of just about every pet peeve I have about people. It was incredible really, if I created two people that did everything that drove me crazy, these two would have bested them. The guy sat in the window seat. Dishevelled looking and doughy, film student, nasal - he did the worst thing ever and that was keep his girlfriend talking. She was the icing on the cake. Every three seconds she came into contact with me in some way, either elbowing me, grabbing me accidentally, hitting me with her stuffed monkey or trying unsuccessfully to climb over me the few precious moments I got to doze off. She was not graceful. Every bump, and we were told at the jump off there would be many, she flung both hands out in a death grip on the two arm rests. If I was changing channels on the tv I got clawed. If I wasn't the channel changed rapidly or the volume got turned way up, not cool when you are asleep. The coup de grace came when I had to turn ipod and tv off for landing and had to listen to her for 20 minutes whine about how her ears wouldn't pop. It was killing her, the pain too intense to bear. Except her ears did keep popping, she said so immediately after. Or one would, but not the other. Oh, there it goes....nope, still excrutiating. But she didn't keep popping them until the pressure equalized. She was a first time flyer and terrified of it. Eventually she became convinced that all she needed was to get off the plane as quick as possible and during my exit I felt like I was running with the bulls in Pamplona and a scant step away from getting trampled to death. She was also nasal and everything she said came out in a whine. Her boyfriend is a stronger man than I. My superpower #2: thanks to an evening where I nearly blew out my eardrums huffing nitrous oxide from whipped cream cans in high school I have been able to pop my ears just by moving my jaw around a bit. Super useful superpower on planes. Probably means I really screwed something up in my head but I'm not a doctor so I'll reap the rewards at the present time.

The delay made me late for the bus I was supposed to take to Portland, Maine. This was going to be my favorite part of the trip. I hate flying because you can't see anything. It's a quick way out. I always prefer to drive. The bus trip from Boston to Maine at this time of year is gorgeous because the leaves start to change colors. People drive to the Northeast from all over the country to see it, I always thought that a bit silly but it certainly makes the drive prettier. That was all tarnished by the fact I got to sit in front of Logan Airport for the next two and a half hours waiting for the next one.

An observation while waiting: a man ran around the terminal in a frenzy, looking for someone. He ran to the same few spots over and over, would throw his arms up in exasperation, then run off, only to show up ten minutes later doing the same routine. He'd make a phone call to someone, "Have you seen mom?" and then race off agan. He did this for an hour. Logan is not a big place. My first job ever I worked with a woman named Becky. I was a production assistant and good at it, very dependable. Becky was a field coordinator, my direct supervisor when we were on location and she always went crazy, frantic, a little out of control. One day we were driving and I gave her advice. "No matter how crazy things are, keep control of yourself. No one wants to see their commanding officer freak out. People lose respect for you. If you are freaking out, appear calm. It will keep everyone calm around you. Your people will follow your orders and your supervisors will always see you as in charge of any situation." She mulled it over and would thank me a year later. It was some of the best advice she had ever been given. All the man running around was accomplishing was convincing everyone he was an idiot. Especially when he worked himself up so much he had to take his overshirt off and wrap it around his waist. Just relax. I always like to keep a clear head, everyone who works underneath me knows this. The interesting psychological aspect is then, if you ever do freak out, and it happened quite often last year when I was saddled with people who had no idea what they were doing and spent most of their time screwing around, people get amazingly scared when you start yelling. It was endlessly entertaining. Becky was a sweetheart and tried to hook up with me later because of the advice I gave her, I was not attracted to her because she had a history of liking douchebags and because I knew she was spastic. But I was happy she took my advice to heart and it helped her climb the ladder. I quit the job babysitting the retarded kids and now never have to worry about being the field commander, but I always keep a level head.

That's why you can never distract me during a game of pool, D. Or can you......? You'll never know and I'll never tell ;)