You know that little cartoon girl in Lizzie Mcguire who represented her thoughts? Lizzie was always calm on the outside, but then on the inside little, cartoon Lizzie would be screaming her head off? That’s me in airports.

“Your gate will be on the left.” Wait, which way is left? Think, you’re in college! You know this! Okay, I write with this hand, so …

Things I have never had a problem with a day in my life suddenly seem unconquerable at the airport. Tying my shoes after security … wait, which loop do I put through and which do I hold on to? It’s an endless barrage of everyday tasks that have been made impossible simply by adding a fed-up security agent and an impatient mob behind me. Occasionally there is one golden moment when I go through security with no one else around, and I think I’ve finally beaten the system, and that I am the queen of the airport, only to see another checkpoint that has thousands of people. Little cartoon me usually starts crying at that point.

It is for all of these reasons that food is a very important part of the traveling experience for me. If you want me to be stress free and calm during this process, you buy me food. I’m always trailing behind my family, mouth watering as I pass restaurant after restaurant, promising myself that the second I get to my gate, I will get food. But there’s never any food at the gate, is there? The food is always a three mile trudge back to the middle of nowhere, where you are sure to miss the sole announcement over a crackling speaker that your flight has moved gates, is leaving an hour early, and all hope is lost.

So I wait at my gate, sorrowfully munching on the small candy bar or bag of trail mix that my loving mother knew would be vital to my survival at this critical moment in my life. But everything tastes like sawdust when you know that there’s a Chili's burger with your name on it on the other side of the airport. All I have to look forward to is airplane food, or, as I like to call it, indigestion.

Then, assuming all goes well, the stewardesses announce boarding, and I get to wait for all of the rich people to go on. They get nice seats and get to board first? Smells like imperialism to me. As I board the plane there’s always some slight vision in my mind of who I will be sitting next to. In the movies, people are always seated next to gorgeous, friendly strangers or a mysterious person who recruits you to help with their secret mission. In reality, they usually smell bad. To be fair, I probably do too. We all had to do the security Olympics; lifting carry-ons, removing shoes, putting arms up, down, and all around. That’s enough to make anyone sweat. Then, after running to our gate in a flurry of irrational panic, we arrive to find that we barely made it in time for our three hours of waiting before we board. So of course we all smell. But then my person always has some unjustifiable evil, like someone who looks like they’ll be using the barf bag or is holding a crying baby. Once I spent 20 minutes holding a stranger’s baby. She didn’t speak English, I don’t know who initiated it, it just sort of happened.

The next hours are filled with one of two things. In a good ride, it’s filled with me mindlessly watching a movie from the options that the airline has presented to me. Or, it’s filled with me trying to sleep while I wonder who thought that a bunch of grown-ups (AKA the people that actually paid for these tickets) would want to watch Bob the Builder, the sole item playing on the screens. Then the meal comes, and you pick the option that sounds least likely to glue you to the toilet the next day. I’ve seen what they serve in first class, and believe me guys, they’re holding out on us. The whole situation just kinda makes me wanna cozy up to the president and get in on the whole Air-Force-One-private-jet deal. I bet Mr. President would wait while I got Chili’s to go from the terminal.

So the plane ride is hardly the glamorous ride of the olden days. But all in all, the plane gets you to your destination quickly and saves you from being cooped in a car with your family for 20 hours. And if everything was stress free and easy, there wouldn’t be any good stories to tell when you arrive. Which, let’s be honest, is half the joy of flying in the first place.