Hey Lady, You Smell!

This was my greeting to Newark today but I will get to that in a sec... First - who vacations on a Monday morning? Who actually thinks it is a good idea to get on a 6 am flight for vacation? I woke up this morning 10 minutes before my alarm went off, that would be 3:30 AM EST to get ready to catch the 6 am flight. This flight is a puddle jumper, it holds roughly 74 people, 2 flight attendents and 2 pilots. Normally this flight has about 70 business travelers (because, to live in Paradise, aka Asheville, NC you have to travel somewhere else to make a decent living). This morning, however, about half of the flight were tourists AND THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO TRAVEL. Now, I know I sound callous but think of it this way: the Monday morning business traveler can get through security like it is noone's business, we manage it like a well oiled machine. Throw a wrench or some sand into that and everything slows down and gets ugly. For example: 2 bags are two bags...like a backpack and a roller board. It is not a roller board, a tote bag, a purse and another bag of 'breakables.' 2 is 2, not 4. My four year old knows this, I expect the 50 year in fron of me to know this too. Secondly, even in a little airport, like Asheville, you need to give yourself a bit of time to go through security because shit happens. So a half hour to go through security and a half hour to board means you get to the airport 1 hour before your flight to make sure everything is fine, then you can watch CNN until you board (or play computer games, my personal favorite). If you have to check in and check some of those 4 bags (since two is the limit), you should get there a little earlier, especially on a Monday morning. If your flight is at 5:50 then you should be at the airport at (anyone? anyone? Buehler? Buehler?) - that's right, 4:50. Getting to the airport at 5:30 for a 5:50 flight and then say you didn't think the security line would be so long secures you a place in the 'You are an idiot traveler' hall of fame. Now, imagine that instead of a few people doing this, half the people on the flight are like this. I can understand vehicle issues on the route to the airport, and I feel for people in that position, but I doubt 30 people can all claim this issue. So that was my first flight. Rainy weather caused some stomach wrenching turbulence (which is always fun with people who don't like turboprops). I ended up being delayed to Newark though because they couldn't uncouple the lavatory dump from the plane. In my mind, that's a funny technical issue.
I get to Newark and I am walking to the office from the hotel where I dumped my rollerbag when a guy walks up to me says 'Hey lady, you smell, but I have this lotion I could sell you for $10 which will fix that.' It is a little bottle of lotion that is at the bottom of his clear trash bag which contains his life's possessions. Now, I don't walk alone in Newark since my co-workers have asked me not to and the first time I do walk alone I have this traveling salesman try to sell me his lotion. I don't think this guy understands his sales ploy doesn't quite work for me. First I know I don't smell because I showered this morning and used Bliss body butter and second, I know the lotion he has can be purchased from the travel section of Duane Reade for about $1. So I ignore him, I would have just given him money if he had asked although I wonder if I should reward him for showing entrepenaurely spirit...
I get to the office and log onto my computer (the one that worked great at the airport earlier today) just to have it get really bitchy on me (that's the technical term). Now, I still don't have a ton of work to do so I I really only planned on reading email and reading blogs all day but I can't. If I reply to an email I get a stripey screen of death and have to shut down the laptop. If I try to open up a web page and scroll down I also get a stripey screen of death. it appears I have a video card issue. My MIS department hasn't called me back but the guy next to me told me he had the same problem and they swapped out his shell (so at least I can keep my hard drive which has all my work). So I can read blogs but only the first screen. what does this mean to me? It means that I know Friday Playdate went on a date but I am not sure how it ended (and yes, I was wondering, dates are hard to come by and worth every dollar shelled out). I also have to thank Kristin because she has many links right at the top of her blog...of course I could only read a limited amount of those too. To the left is picture of my laptop screen taken on my new RAZR, I love it and I never thought I would say that about a cell phone. Super easy to figure out and sleek and sexy to boot.
So I am still waiting for my MIS department to call back, we are going on 4 hours, and I am afraid to do any work because I am afraid I will get the stripey screen of death and lose everything. But really what I have been wondering is: if my traveling salesman with the lotion had thrown in a set of Ginsu knives , would I have thought that was a good deal?
PS - I cannot preview all of my post (because it requires me to scroll down the web page) and that is how I edit my blog. If there are a lot of typos and stuff at the end of the page it is becuase I can't get past the line that reads: 'anyone? anyone? Buehler? Buehler?'