Home again, home again.

I’m pretty sure the term “Jet Lag” was invented for people traveling much further, beyone one time zone. Nonetheless, I’m home, I feel laggy, and I’ve been on four jets in two days, so excuse me for sounding dramatic (in my head, anyway) when I jump to that term to describe how I feel.

It was a good trip, the meeting was great, and at least this time, there were no planes hit by lightning, flights canceled, 8-mile walks through airports, etc. And on our last leg back, as we were sitting in O’Hare, I told my boss I think I’ve switched my entire position on little planes to preferring them over the jumbo jets. He asked me if I’d fallen and hit my head.

Because a month ago, i was pretty wonked out of my gourd that small planes were a Death Sentence. And I’m still going to maintain I don’t like itty-bitty planes, with prop engines. But the Embraer jets? That have 12-20-some rows, two seats on each side? Those suckers are nice. They are easy to embark/disembark, and you aren’t waiting for 100 people to gather their luggage and make their way down the football-field-long plane while you, late-booking passenger, are in the back of said jumbo jet.  The seats tend to be bigger on the smaller planes, too. But it still doesn’t change the single biggest fact – traveling in this day and age is lengthy, hassled, and not terribly consumer-focused.  You, the passenger, are freight, and the goal is to get said freight from point A to point B as efficiently and profitably as quickly as possible.

Flying out of White Plains (omg, I just typo’d that as “Whitie”, which is pretty funny, given the demographic makeup of Westchester NY), we spent a ten minute time frame watching our flight go from on-time to delayed (an hour) to on-time, to delayed again, then back to on-time. Thinking the aiport bar might not be the best vantage point to ascertain what was going on, we headed down to go through security. Apparently both Chicago-bound flights (United & American) had ping-ponged between being on-time and delayed by an hour, due to weather. People were PISSED. We were standing in a line of maybe 50 people, and all of us were on flights that were flashing “now boarding” and we still had to navigate the “take-your-shoes-off, place everything in tubs” blah blah part of the adventure.  People were squawking. The American flight people got to jump in front of us, as barked by the oh-so-non-enigmatic TSA personnel. Then word drifted back to us that the despite the fact our flight WAS delayed by an  hour, the pilot wanted everyone on the plane NOW and we would do our waiting on the tarmac.

Everyone instantly hated their respective pilots. Playing god, making me drink my gin and tonic at record pace, keeping me from a bathroom visit, creating panic as I waited behind an obviously inexperienced traveler who had not thought through the fact that all his piercings and jewelry might set off the metal detector. And by the way, putting your oversize silver bracelet IN YOUR POCKET isn’t going to keep the machine from detecting it, unless you’re taking your PANTS OFF and running them through with your shoes. I’m just sayin’.  It took him three attempts to finally clear the machine and the wand lady. OY.

On our delightful jet, anticipating an hour of waiting, we were informed by our pilot what his strategy was, that there was a chance, some hope, that we might actually be released earlier than the hour delay – and it paid off. We took off only about 20 minutes behind schedule, and we instantly forgave his god-like behavior that had caused such turmoil earlier.

I got home around 11:30 p.m., and after heading to bed, we had storms that knocked out power for about an hour – plus the dogs were out of control, whining and wanting to go out repeatedly. I foresee a weekend of many naps.

Completely unrelated: I have no idea how to fully appreciate synchronized swimming, because I just keep seeing the vision of Martin Short saying, “I’m not that strong a swimmer.” Enjoy the weekend.