THE PLIGHT OF EARLY FLIGHT

Oh, my territory is Reno. I said in response to her query and then hit her with one of my own: What’s yours?

The blonde, middle-aged pharmaceutical representative that I’d never met before answered, Oh, I’m about 45 minutes from here. In Corona.

My face waxed quizzical: Is there a Corona, Colorado?

We’re in California.

Huh? I thought I was in Denver. I was actually in Irvine.

That’s where I've been for the last couple days, attending a regional meeting for work; though the entire time I was there, I thought I was lodged someplace in the Rocky Mountains.

Perhaps my problem had something to do with my having roused at 3:50AM on Tuesday to catch my flight in order to arrive at the meeting on time. Perhaps it had to do with the relatively high amount of travel my life includes as of late and the fact that I often wake in the middle of the night wondering what city I'm in.

However, Because I travel so much so often, I’ve become pretty adept at the whole process.

Adept in the way that when I learned that my 1:30PM flight on Wednesday was delayed two hours, I didn’t fret or become nasty to the United Airlines employees. After much travel, I’ve learned that nastiness aimed at them gets me nothing, as it gets me nothing when aimed at hotel employees when my room isn’t ready on time. Adept in the way that when I learned that though I was supposed to get in to Reno at 5PM but wouldn’t get there until midnight I didn’t fret. I shrugged: Oh, well.

Can I help it that my delayed flight would make me miss my connecting flight? Nope. So don’t fret. Rather, step back and watch the overweight man with the space between his two front teeth let spittle fly in the face if the small African-American United desk agent as he screamed at her for the delay and subsequent loss of his connecting flight to Calgary. Step back and marvel at how people think that kind of behavior gets them things.

I become oddly reflective when traveling. It could have to do with the fact that I have no one to talk to but the voices in my head (and gratefully, I do that silently so that no one sees me as the short, crazy lady in Seat 11D). But when reflective and in the window seat (when I prefer the aisle), I look down to the mountains below and wonder: has a human foot ever stepped right there?

The answer doesn’t actually matter to me. There just seems to be more romance in reflection when it’s just you, the man in 17A smacking his gum, and the flight attendant who walks up and down the aisle while the plane descends, holding out a garbage sack, saying, “You’re trash. You’re trash. You’re trash . . . ”

Glad to be back.