Visiting my parents in Florida while attending college in New York is always an experience and a half. To begin, I usually get a (sketchy) ride from a taxi driver. The taxi driver is often a talkative, smelly man who insists on regaling me with the tale of his entire life. He never does so in an opportune moment, and it feels like the most obscure of details are of the utmost importance to me. For instance, the last cab driver filled me in with the evil inner workings of the hotel company, Howard Johnson. It’s actually less riveting than you’d think, especially considering it was 5:26 a.m. when I was let in on this earth-shattering bit of information.
Once the cab driver gets me to the airport, I’m forced to deal with the baggage claim people who assume that due to the huge bags under my eyes, and the vacant stare, that I’m either stoned out of my mind or someone who purchased the Kimmoji app. Keep in mind that, by this time, it’s around 6 a.m. when I’m at the check-in desk; and this is never an uncomplicated step. My last time was no different, after my mom had booked my flight for me, but booked a flight for Dylan Thomas, as opposed to Dylan Dinho. So there went 25 minutes of my life. I’ve got bigger bags under my eyes than a single mother at this point. The woman working the counter reminds me several times that I cannot have open food, drinks or e-cigarettes. (She repeated the e-cigarette line three times, because apparently I give off the vibe that I use a mouth fedora). She then tentatively hands me my boarding pass, as if I’m some sort of pariah.
Once I’m through that hoop, I find myself heading through security, where I have to take my belt, Tims and one layer of clothes off. Making matters worse, my laptop case is jammed into my backpack thanks to the new policy that every airline has begun implementing by charging for every conceivable thing that they can. So that means I have to risk undoing the Jenga-like arrangement that is the contents of my backpack. Once I’m through the air pat-down, I smile and activate white privilege, which is almost always super effective, and thus ends my security tale.
From there, I begin the arduous task of putting all my things back where they belong which can take anywhere from 30 seconds to three minutes. After that, I’m off. I walk past the menagerie of overpriced airport stores, and find myself at my gate, where there is never a convenient seat close to the bathroom, or to any available electrical outlets, for that matter. As such, I’m usually sitting next to an obnoxiously loud family, or an elderly couple who don’t seem to actually live in the current year, but rather appear to be caricatures of old couples from the early 2000s.
Then, whenever the pilot decides he’s good and ready to fly, the audibly challenged airline attendant will announce that every row but mine can board the plane. This is perfect because that allows me to board the plane last with my comically overfilled carry-on, so the other passengers have some pre-flight entertainment in watching me struggle to put said carry-on in the overhead bins.
Once that’s over with, we go through the safety procedure that I haven’t paid attention to since my first flight from when I was seven years old. Needless to say that if my flight ever fails, I’ll be among the first to die. After that point, I try to close my eyes and relax before take off.
The plane pulls out onto the tarmac and idles for a few moments before the monotone pilot voice comes on the loud speaker with some half-baked explanation for why we cannot leave when we are supposed to leave. I groan loudly so the rest of the passengers know that I’m dissatisfied with the way things are going. No one usually cares, but because the solar system revolves around me, my discontent is universally understood.
After anywhere from ten minutes to nine hours later, the pilot decides to remove his head from his rectum, and we finally get into the sky. I usually have to pee five minutes into the flight, and I refuse to die in an airplane bathroom, so of course I hold it.
Nothing reminds me of home like a full bladder and a snack-sized bag of Doritos.
