Airports, Flames, and Tazers

Hello, DSP peeps!

So, uhm, yesterday was a travel day.

I usually don’t have too much to report about those, yeah?  I get on the plane, I happily occupy myself with books and knitting and music– things I don’t have enough time to do off the plane– and then I land and cab, or kiss my husband who is waiting for me.  (That second part is the best part.)

But yesterday…

It might have been exhaustion.  I’m heading for a nap shortly, and that’s how I spend most of the day after any trip, and there’s a reason for that.  But it might have just been…

I dunno… Monday?

L.A. Witt

My plane left NOLA at around 5:30.  After attending breakfast with Dreamspinner & Co. (wherein we realized we wouldn’t see each other for months, and were all really frickin’ sad!) I set up shop intending to work, but in reality what this did was give me lots of time to talk to Zam and Belinda McBride and L.A. Witt and. EM Lynley.  (Talking to L.A. Witt right before I catch my cab is becoming a habit– I think I should always do this, because she’s funny as hell, savage, kind, and likes stupid spam on her phone.  What’s not to love?)  Then Zam and Belinda and I all shared a cab and checked in and got a chance to talk some more– awesome, no?

The weirdness started when I got on the plane.

The guy in front of me was cute.  He was also drunker than any man I have ever seen in public.  When the passengers stood up at the end of the flight, the woman in front of us had really amazing earrings, right?  And this guy almost reached up and grabbed one, like a baby.  He wasn’t doing it for attention, he was just that beery. The guy next to me– who washed down two Dramamine with Jack & Coke– was like, “Dayum, that guy’s wasted.”  (He also was darned cute– but I watched him drool on himself a lot, and the only time that’s adorable is when it’s your own mate.)  So, well, that was odd.

And then we got to LAX.  So, if you arrive in LAX in T5 or T6, and you need to go from one to the other, they send you on a sherpa hike through a long existential tunnel, replete with murals of places that neither T5 NOR T6 generally go to.  Seriously.  Paris is pretty and all, but the majority of these flights are domestic, and given that you’re trekking down a mostly featureless hallway with no air conditioning?  Screw Paris, I want some fucking air!  Oy!  And then, when you get to T5 (in my case) and attempt to use the ladies room, you find a three-seater.  Yes.  10 gates and a three-seater.  With a lot of pissed off women, sweating because, again, no air.  I’ve been in campground bathrooms that were bigger and less irritating.

But after that, I plunked my ass down at a charging terminal and, omg, finally got around to texting my family.  Chicken, of course, was using me as a way to stay up during her 9:30 class, but Mate actually shared stories.  In particular, this one:

Mate:  So, the stove caught fire.

Me:  o.0

Mate:  It hadn’t been cleaned in a while.  Remember the toaster oven?

Me:  But I just CLEANED the oven.  Is there no justice?

Mate:  This was a burner.  It’s all right though.  The flames freaked the little kids out, but I had it under control.

Me:  Mom guilt.  IT BURNS!!!

Seriously– that’s all the little kids could talk about this morning.  (After opening their presents of course.  New Orleans masks do a lot to ease the pain of parting.  Saying.)  Dad made them go outside while he tried not to burn the house down.  *headdesk*  If I wasn’t exhausted, I’d probably clean.

And while I was texting that, some weird shit was going on next to me.  Somebody left their cell phone and computer charging… and then, just, uhm, left, while Security freaked the fuck out.  So, I dragged all my shit to a restaurant to go eat, and came back and they had apparently moved the stuff.  After some mindless sitting and starting Anne Tenino’s Frat Boy and Toppy (which was hot and awesome!) we got moved to another gate (LAX– I’m frickin’ telling ya… it’s like on some sort of weird warp of space, time, and logic!)  And we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  So the flight was delayed almost an hour and a half, and as we were all getting in line to board, security apparently caught up with the drunken 60 something guy who had left his cell phone and computer charging.

He was demanding them back.

Loudly, and aggressively.  From the nice man with the weapons.

“You can’t do this to me!  I want to talk to the FBI!  I want to talk to your supervisor!  I want to talk to a real cop!  Give me back my fucking phone!  I’m within my rights!  What are you going to do about it, asshole?  Huh?  You gonna shoot me?”

And he got up in the security officer’s face, and we all got to see the red light blinking on his shirt.

And then we got to see him still yelling, “You’re not gonna taze me!” while the nice man with the taser said in his loud official voice, “TURN AROUND AND ALLOW ME TO CUFF YOU OR YOU WILL BE TAZED!”

The guy turned around, again asking bitterly for other law enforcement agencies which, I am sure, didn’t want a fucking thing to do with this goatfuck, and allowed himself to be cuffed.  And then he pulled a 2 year old maneuver– he let his knees collapse and when the officer grabbed at his shoulder to hoist him to his feet, cried, “My shoulder!  My shoulder!  I just had surgery!”

And that’s when we all got on the plane, looking anxiously over our shoulders.  We really didn’t care about the guy (I know that sounds cold, but live by the asshole code and be abandoned like a cold asshole) but we were just worried that the officer was going to have to actually taze him, and then the section of the airport would be shut down, and the flight that was leaving boarding nearly an hour and a half after schedule would be delayed yet again.  


It wasn’t, but by then, I was so exhausted I actually drank a soda on the way home (when normally I stick to water, for not peeing in the tiny bathroom reasons).  And because the flight was delayed (he must have literally flown like the wind, because we only arrived an hour late, as opposed to an hour and a half late) when we got to Sac Metro, all of the roomy, modern, clean and cool bathrooms were closed up to be cleaned.

Ugh!

But on the plus side there was Mate, who was happy to see me!  And the kids, who gave me lots of hugs.  Squish needed her hair braided, Zoomboy wanted to try on his mask and the dog wanted to sleep in my shirt and everybody wanted to talk about the fire and…

Yeah.  Good to be home.  So very, very good to be home.