Don’t they know I need blog fodder?

By Mir
October 13, 2011

Yesterday I left my humble abode and pointed my car Atlanta-ward, on the first step of my journey to New York City. I felt confident—nay, positively smug—that my trip would bring me enough material for a blog post or three, because something wacky always happens when I travel. I would just wait for the magic to unfold.

Maybe there’d be a giant accident on the highway. Possibly I’d get stuck in Security or have to argue with the TSA about my hair products. Maybe my flight would be canceled! Alas, none of these things happened. I had an uneventful drive to the airport, parking was easy and the shuttle was waiting for me, I somehow got whisked into the “priority” security line (which took a record five minutes, tops), and my flight was on time.

So then I thought, “Man. What the heck am I going to blog about NOW?”

Well, I do have just a few things to mention, but none of them are as good as a crazy travel disaster story, I’m afraid. (I’m… so sorry that my day wasn’t all that traumatic.)

First: They started boarding the plane and did the pre-boarding, then first class, then Super Special Elite Medallion Mucketymucks or whatever it is on Delta, and then… the gate agent left. Just, like, wandered off. And I don’t mean for a minute, I mean there was a ten or fifteen minute gap inbetween when she left her little stand and someone else finally came along and finished letting us common folks board the plane. It was very odd.

Second: So I’m finally on the plane, seated at the window of a 3-seat row with a nice older woman sitting on the aisle. “Are you from New York?” she asked, just making conversation. I laughed at the thought of being from NYC. “Nope, I’m from here,” I said. And then she nodded and began rifling through her purse for something and I realized, DUH, I AM FROM NEW YORK. I grew up in New York! (Not the city, but still.) And I’ve only lived in Georgia for four years. Since when am I from here? So I had one of those WHAT DO I DO NOW moments where I really wanted to correct my answer, but dude, she doesn’t care, she was just being friendly. And yet, I spent the first half of the flight completely anxiety-ridden about the fact that I apparently don’t know where I grew up and I like to lie to strangers. Whoops.

Third: They are renovating the bathrooms at LaGuardia. That means that there was only one (small, not-so-good-smelling) bathroom available, aaaaaaall the way down in baggage claim. Because I managed to consume three cups of coffee on my way to the Big Apple, I waited in line there with the rest of the poor planners. Once I was finally ready to leave the airport, I was concerned I was going to miss my designated shuttle, so I basically ran outside and accosted a driver and made him agree to take me. He took my suitcase, I hopped inside, and away we went. I immediately remembered that I require heavy sedation to ride in traffic in the city, but because I didn’t have any, I instead turned to fiddling with my phone and NOT LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW at all the people we were narrowly avoiding collision with. Eventually I flipped over to Twitter, where I saw that a fellow blogger at this event had tweeted, “I think I’m sitting behind @wantnot on the shuttle, but I feel a little too chicken to ask and be wrong!” Up to that point the shuttle had been oddly silent, but I laughed out loud, turned around, and said, “HI! Through the miracle of Twitter I just learned you are sitting behind me!”

Fourth: Our hosts took us out for barbecue last night for dinner. It was delicious. And our very solicitous waiter came over to discuss the wheat situation with me. “We’ll just make you a separate plate with no sauce on it.” I expressed dismay that their sauce had wheat in it, because IT’S BARBECUE and I like sauce. Well, there was a jar of sauce on the table, so I read the label, and it didn’t say anything about wheat. So the next time he came back, I told him I thought the sauce was fine for me, and he said no, I couldn’t have it, but hang on, he’d get the official allergy menu to check. He returned and pointed to the line that said “SAUCE CONTAINS SOY” and triumphantly said, “See, you can’t have it.” And I said, “Um, I can’t have GLUTEN. Soy is fine.” And he said, “Oh, okay!” and left. Another person at our table leaned in and said to me, “I… don’t think he knows what gluten is.”

Fifth: After a day of travel and a big noisy dinner, a bunch of folks decided to go out for karaoke. There was a time when I would’ve done that for fear of missing something, where I would’ve gone and hated the whole outing, but last night I merely wished them well and came back to my hotel room and got into my jammies and enjoyed the silence. Ahhhhhh.

So it’s no Major Travel Disaster story, but there you go.

25 Comments

  1. Tenessa

    No disasters equals fun right? Fun is better, if not quite as funny. (which is odd since fun is the root word for funny…)

  2. Laura

    You are in NYC, I am so jealous. I was supposed to go in June for a girl’s weekend but I let my massive flying phobia get the better of me and I completely chickened out. Yup, lost the money on the plane ticket. Please have a good time and then post every detail so I can live vicariously through you. Also, are you going to see any shows while you are there? If you are going to see “Book of Mormon” I will be so happy for you, but silently curse you under my breath. I would sell a kidney to see that show, I just don’t know how I could get on the plane to go up there. :) Have fun and may your return be just as uneventful.

  3. Sally

    I can’t believe a waiter erred in favor of protecting you from gluten. Usually, when I get uninformed waiters, they say something along the lines of “there’s no wheat in that, just flour.” Which, um, what exactly is flour made of, sir?

  4. el-e-e

    Haha, the person right behind you!! LOVE!! That is something I would do, totally. Which is why I have never attended a bloggers’ conference. have a good trip!

  5. Lucinda

    I was going to say the same thing about the waiter. How uncommon it is for them to err on the side of caution. Glad you figured it out and could get your BBQ sauce.

  6. Sian

    It’s truly a great moment when you realize that it’s ok to miss other people’s fun sometimes.

  7. Frank

    Question…. could swore you didnt color your hair blond.. but you must have.. at least for the time you talked about where you are from. ROFL.

    #3 kills me. One of the few good things we hear about using Twitter.

    have fun!

  8. Liza

    New York City? When you say that, I hear it in the voice of the guy from the Pace Picante Sauce commercial. It just seems…wrong, even though I think I’ve actually spent time with you in NYC. But I’m glad you’re having fun.

  9. Holly

    No need for anxiety! She was merely asking which way you were traveling on your flight. Homeward or…tripward? You answered correctly. :-)

  10. Aimee

    Heh. Even when nothing happens to you, you’re funny.

  11. dad

    Here’s wishing you “no major disaster stories…ever.”

    Is it poor form to tell a writer: “break a leg?”
    Have fun.

  12. Megan

    Hey oddnesses are just as good blogfodder as disasters, and less personally traumatic too!

    And if that’s no comfort then consider that there’s always the return trip to go horribly, grotesquely wrong.

  13. meghann @ midgetinvasion

    Bring me back something pretty!

    If you wanted to get hassled in security, you should have asked to take one of Otto’s tripods in your carry on. I did that once, and it caused much flurry of activity.

  14. Julia

    On the side of the waiter, some soy sauce contains gluten. Unless the soy sauce specifically says “gluten free”

  15. Katie

    But then, soy sauce, isn’t exactly the same thing as soy…

  16. Katie in MA

    If only the Very Nice Person behind you on the shuttle wasn’t the person you thought she was. Now THAT would have been amusing. We’ll let ya off the hook, but DO try harder next time. ;-)

  17. The Woman Formerly Known as Beautiful

    It’s a load of fuckery for a blogger when nothing horrific occurs. Now I feel I’ve called up the Goat Monster from Take Me To Hell for saying nothing horrific is occurring in my life or yours. I’m sorry. This could be bad. I’m off to burn sage and recant. Let me know if the Goat Monster attacks.

  18. 12tequilas

    The Twitter thing was much better than travel disaster (hilarious!)…and the anxiety over accidentally lying to a stranger? Very Relatable.

  19. Lise

    Last week, I had a waitress ask me if potatoes contained gluten. This at a restaurant whose website advertises its gluten-free pasta.

  20. Anna

    Love the Twitter bit. :)

  21. mamaspeak

    “So it’s no Major Travel Disaster story, but there you go.”

    ……YET!

    You’re still there, right?
    You just jinx the heck out of yourself. Well, if you’re me, you did. I suspect it’s true for you too. But hey, thanks for taking one of the team. I look forward to your return journey. ;-)
    (I can hope it’s uneventful, so I did not wish it on you, ok?)

  22. Heather

    That twitter thing made me inordinately happy.

  23. Brigitte

    mamaspeak beat me to it!

  24. Daisy

    I think you had plenty of adventures, all of them minor. May the return trip have be uneventful, too.

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