TheBanyanTree: Fwd: [New post] Travel, Family, and a Hot Mess

Sun Jun 21 13:57:32 PDT 2015

   Monique Colver posted: "Last weekend I spent with my siblings and their
children (and their children’s children, in some cases) in the OC, which
I’m pretty sure is Orange County, the land of Mickey and Minnie and more
princesses than one can count. It was awesome. I can’t tell y"    Respond
to this post by replying above this line
      New post on *Monique's Blog*
<https://mcolver.wordpress.com/author/mcolver/>  Travel, Family, and a
Hot Mess
<https://mcolver.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/travel-family-and-a-hot-mess/>
by Monique
Colver <https://mcolver.wordpress.com/author/mcolver/>

Last weekend I spent with my siblings and their children (and their
children’s children, in some cases) in the OC, which I’m pretty sure is
Orange County, the land of Mickey and Minnie and more princesses than one
can count. It was awesome. I can’t tell you who they are (my family, not
the princesses) because that would interfere with the restraining order
they have against me.

Okay, I made that up. But honestly, they’re all wonderful and I love them
very much. You’d never guess I was part of the family because I’m more of
the family disappointment, or would be if we had a family disappointment.
I’m as close as it gets.

Anyway, I had a wonderful weekend, and on Monday afternoon I got in my
rent-a-car to drive myself to the airport to catch my flight.

I don’t know why we say, “catch a flight.” It’s not as if I’m just standing
out there with my arms outstretched and a catcher’s mitt on, hoping a plane
flies right to me. No, I have to go to the plane, which is hopefully not
moving at the time I board. (On the flight down I had a slight layover in
Seattle, which means I got off the plane and headed for my next gate, down
corridors, on a tram, off a tram, down more corridors, down escalators, up
escalators, down more corridors, and when I got to the gate there was no
one in the waiting area because SURPRISE! Everyone was boarded and just
waiting for one last clumsy person to get on, which meant I didn’t have
time to use the lavatory before I caught the plane. So the plane was almost
moving, but not quite yet.)

On the drive back to the airport I fiddled with the rent-a-car’s air
conditioning. It had worked the previous time I’d driven it, but on this
day it was not cooperating. I could get heat, and I could get nothing at
all, but I could not get any sort of cool air. I found this irritating as I
love cool air when the temp is in the 80’s. it’s a quirk. And I couldn’t
spend too much time fiddling with it because I was, hello, driving, and
it’s a good idea, generally speaking, to pay attention to the road when
doing so.

By the time I turned into the rent-a-car parking garage (RETURNS HERE! The
signs said, which I found immensely helpful) I still had no air, and I was
a hot sweaty mess.

I grabbed my suitcase (which has wobbly wheels and needs replacing – it
felt like dragging my alcoholic drunk uncle through the airport, with him
trying to go whichever way I wasn’t, or would, if I had such an uncle) and
headed for the terminal. Naturally the terminal I wanted was the next one
down, so I started that way, but my way was blocked by valet parking, and
when they saw me, a hot sweaty middle-aged woman, they pretended they
didn’t, which is something I’m used to, especially in Best Buy, so I went
into the closest door.

I had intentionally worn loose comfortable clothes, but the lack of air
conditioning and the natural humidity had rendered my clothes sodden.
Here’s another fact: I recently heard someone talk longingly of the days
when people would dress to fly, as opposed to these days anything goes.
This is why we don’t dress up to fly now: Corridors that never end, trams
full of people standing, planes where one cannot move one’s arms or legs
more than two inches in any direction, and security that makes you remove
half your clothes, especially if you’re young and attractive. I am neither,
and no one wants to see me with less clothes, so I generally fare well
through security. (“Please!” I can almost hear them say, “Put some more
clothes on!”)

And then I saw it. Something I’ve never had occasion to use, since I never
travel with young children. (This is mostly because their parents would
object were I to accidentally bring some of them home with me.) The family
restroom.

Remembering that I had overpacked, because I never know what I might want
to wear or how many changes of clothes I might want, and that I had clean
clothes in my wobbly drunk uncle, I went in to the family restroom.

OMG. It’s like being in heaven. Not that I would know what that’s like, not
at all, but it was quite impressive. A big long room, with a big long
counter, with a toilet at the end. I could have danced in there, so
spacious was it, and if I had any energy to do so, which I most certainly
did not.

I changed everything except my sandals. Threw on a lightweight sleeveless
jersey dress, and remembered that I had failed to pack a wig or big dark
sunglasses to complete my transformation. Oh well, I had to make do, didn’t
I? And it wasn’t like I was a real spy, entering as one person and leaving
as another.

I rested in the comfy family restroom for as long as I could, but I kept
picturing mobs of families gathering outside with pitchforks, so eventually
I left. There was no one waiting.

I made my way to my . . . what are they called now? Certainly not ticket
counters, I print out my own ticket, all I do is hand over my bag. Anyway,
I handed over drunk uncle, glad he’d be doing the rest of the trip on his
own. Not only was he wobbly and weaving, he also tended to fall over a lot.
Let the baggage handlers deal with him.

I walked back down the corridor to get to security, and found myself . . .
hot and sweaty, a hot mess again. This was disappointing. Frazzled, I asked
a TSA guy, “Which way?” and he grumpily pointed down the corridor. “Follow
those people.” Once I got into the line he came over, staying on his side
of the rope, pointing out where my gate was (that big one I could see from
there that said 6 on it) and apologizing if he seemed short. I assured him
it was fine, because one thing I’ve learned as a spy is not to irritate TSA.

Dumped my stuff in bins, walked through, held up my arms, walked out, and
had my knees, especially the right one, thoroughly patted down because they
looked suspicious. Really? My knees? Might I have something dangerous
strapped to them? I mean, they’re perfectly normal knees, as far as that
goes.

When I was released, my knees cleared for take-off, I walked to the first
set of chairs in front of me, sandals in hand, and plopped my surprisingly
small butt down. I was dripping sweat. All that changing and all I’d
managed was to get more clothes icky and ready for decontamination.

Underneath my chair was a blue sort of paper, which I ignored, until a
well-dressed man came up to me and told me I’d dropped something. “No, not
mine,” I said, and he picked it up and looked. Wait. Had I missed a spy
thing? Was I supposed to have claimed that and read the secret code and
jetted off to Istanbul? No matter – he threw it away.

I wandered around for bit, looking for a place to sit and have a cold
non-alcoholic drink, though the idea of boarding a plane sloshed was
starting to have some appeal. I found the restroom, the normal people
restroom this time, and my face was red, and my hair was wet. I looked like
hell.

I sat down, tried texting friends to bitch about my circumstances (“I’m at
John Wayne having hot flashes,” I desperately texted, but people were out
or disinclined to text back at me in my admittedly icky condition.) and
when that didn’t work I went book shopping.

I don’t actually buy books much, not real ones. I found one I wanted and
then bought it on my iPad, because I’m technologically dependent.

And eventually I got home, relatively intact.

I wrote this last Saturday:

*Today I saw, as I came barreling down the street in my bright red
rent-a-car, two little boys waving at me, their enthusiasm melting my
heart.*

*Today I saw an old friend I hadn't met yet, over lunch in a California
coastal town.*

*Today I saw my little brother, once no bigger than his boys now, lovingly
father his children as if it were the easiest thing in the world.*

*Today I saw the dry desert of southern California as I drove through it,
expanses of empty land that seemed to never end, and I thanked whoever's in
charge for letting me live where I live.*

*Today I saw reminders of who I was, once, but it's not anyone I recognize.*
  *Monique Colver <https://mcolver.wordpress.com/author/mcolver/>* | June
21, 2015 at 8:56 pm | Tags: airport
<https://mcolver.wordpress.com/?tag=airport>, family
<https://mcolver.wordpress.com/?tag=family>, travel
<https://mcolver.wordpress.com/?tag=travel> | Categories: Life
<https://mcolver.wordpress.com/?cat=1393774> | URL: http://wp.me/pljUz-2C

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