You're in the wrong spot lady

I finally took my first trip back to Connecticut this past weekend.  Let me tell you how it started.  I woke up Saturday morning in Texas EARLY.  The blond BFF was taking me to the airport, and we had to leave the house by 6:30.  I came out of my room and had to go through the kids play room in order to head down the stairs.  There is a digital clock on the shelf that read the wrong time.  I glanced at it and this is what time it said: 9:11.  Okay, scary right?  So I head down the stairs...

We are driving to the airport and I realize my cell phone didn’t charge the night before, so I borrowed Blond BFF’s car charger.  I plug it in and we get carried away in conversation (do you see where this is going?)  We pull up to the airport, I grab my stuff and say my goodbyes and start heading indoors.  Not even ten steps, and I realize I left my cell phone plugged into her car.  I turn around and run back to the street as she is pulling away.  I drop my suitcase and run after her car with my arms flailing, screaming at the top of my lungs for her to stop.  She doesn’t see me.  THANKFULLY, someone ahead of me does and waves at her to stop.  I catch up to her, now sweating and shaking because I can’t imagine life for five minutes without my phone.  I grabbed my phone, and hugged it to my chest...not caring about the traffic jam my abandoned suitcase was causing in the middle of the road.  I jog back to my suitcase while lecturing to my phone about how it is a serious crime to hide from me.  I head inside and make it over to the kiosk where I need to print my ticket.  I do the whole process and wait patiently for my ticket to print.  When it does, I quickly take it and head to security. 

“Ma’am, Ma’am...you forgot your other ticket!” 

I turn around and realize it printed out my connecting flight too.  So I thank the stranger and take my ticket from her.  I turn around to go back to security, and for some reason my legs decide they are going to disown me.  Bastards.  I trip over my whole suitcase, and fly forward landing on my stomach.  So now, here I am...sweating and shaking from my cell phone episode, and now I am laying on the ground...ON MY STOMACH in the disgusting airport.  Trying to not think about all the diseases I have just caught by touching the carpet with every exposed part of my body, I quickly get up as gracefully as I can.  Of course everyone at the airport saw my frantic tumble and was staring at me...I was suddenly having flashbacks of falling in the hallway in the 6th grade with my books flying past me while everyone pointed and laughed.  I grabbed my suitcase and tried not to make eye contact with anyone.  I made my way through security, and to my plane.  The Chief checked me in and got me a B2 seat.  

If you haven’t flown Southwest, you don’t know they have a dummy-proof procedure for getting people on the plane.  You have either an A, B, or C on your ticket.  Next to your letter, you have a number 1-60.  At the Southwest gates, they have it set up where you stand by your number (they have them grouped in 5).  Are you following me?  So after the call the A’s, it is time for the B’s to line up.  I walk over to B2 and ask the lady standing there if she is number one.  She looked at me and said, “hugh?”  

I said, “Your number, is it number one?  I don’t want to stand in front of you if it isn’t number one.”  Lets take a moment to remember the Type A personality that consumes me.  Everything must be in order.  I like to be first.  So I am not going to stand there and let a B3 stand in front of me when I am clearly a B2.  She just stares at me.  She is holding her ticket, and I try and look at it as she flips it over to the wrong side.  I said, “actually, your number is on the other side...here let me help you.”  I snatch the paper from her and flipped it over.  “Ouch...your actually a B54....that means you have to go to the very end on the other side.”  I point the direction she needs to head.  She doesn’t move.  Another man walks up, trying to detect who has what number.  He goes to stand behind her and I quickly say, “Actually Sir, you are in front of her because she is a B54.  She is in the wrong spot.”  I say it loud enough to attract attention from the onlookers who quickly look at her as if she is covered with deadly contagious skin lesions.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I take these numbers very seriously.  It doesn’t get easier than this.  Are you really that stupid or are you just upset because your number isn’t as good as mine?  She is lucky I didn’t go ape shit on her for having THREE carry-on bags instead of two (the Chiefs BFF would be proud of me right now).  So she hangs her head and makes her way to the back as far away from the angry stares as possible.  I breath a sigh of relief feeling as though I have done a good deed.  

I get on the plane, choosing my isle seat carefully.  My goal here is to not get stuck by seatbelt-extension-needed passenger.  The challenge is this: My initial reaction is to sit in the isle seat that has someone my age by the window.  WRONG.  Can’t do that because then you will get a 300 pound man that is going to squeeze his way in between us, hoping to score.  So my safest bet is to sit on the isle seat that has a bigger guy sitting next to the window.  This will make it hard for 300 pound man to sit in the middle because he doesn’t want to be fondling a dude on the flight with his under-the-armrest chub.  So I find the perfect seat, and sit down.  

Just when I think I am safe and clear, a pregnant woman sits down next to me.  Okay, this may not be so bad.  I attempt to look completely engrossed in my book, so I don’t have to make small talk.  She obviously didn’t notice.  She asked me if she was supposed to change flights to get to Albuquerque.  She explains she has never flown before, so I tried to be pleasant and help her out.  I look at her information and tell her she does get off at the next stop and switch plans.  Then, I thought I would extend an even softer hand and ask her when her baby is due.  

“I’m. Not. Pregnant.”  

Excellent, I thought to myself.  Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse.  I apologized quickly.  

“That’s okay, I actually have a tumor so it looks like I am,” she said quietly.    

I apologized again and then looked back down at my book and remained silent the rest of the flight. 

And you wonder why I hate flying.  It NEVER goes smoothly for me.