Houston, we have a, well, a sight.

So here I sit in my luxury Hilton Hotel room, eating my room service pizza and watching Sunday night football. There are no kids, so it is quiet. Marcy isn't here, so the thermostat is set at 65 degrees, and I'm considering moving it down to 63 degrees. Do I like to travel? Yes and no. Yes, because of the things above, but no cause I actually miss my family. And, because I like to go into work. I keep caught up on my work and I like my co-workers. The main thing I like about my work trips is, I get to meet the people I normally work with via email and phone, in person. I get to get my hands on my inventory, so I can be certain that all is good in the world. Most people complain about the travel part, but I have been pretty lucky. I did miss a connecting flight in St. Louis once, the last flight to Des Moines for the evening, and had to drive home at 3am. That wasn't fun. I have never lost my luggage, knock on wood, and haven't been bumped and my plane has never crashed. What I have gotten, is entertainment.

My trip started off at the kiosk you now have to use to check in to your flight, since there are only 3 people working in the entire Des Moines airport, they typically focus on fueling up the planes and throwing luggage around. When I got to the kiosk, there was a couple, man and woman, who were traveling together, but were each at a different kiosk. I waited as they struggled to figure it out. I was about to push them out of the way, but the lady finally gave up and let me go, while the guy raised his hand like he was in kindergarten and the teacher was going to ask him what he needed. I checked my bag and got the heck out of there before he started looking over my shoulder to see how to work the dang thing. DON'T CHEAT! Figure it out on your own. I got up to security, which in Des Moines, is typically a 10 to 20 minute process, but usually 10. They only had one line open so we were headed for a 20 minute line, when a miracle happened, they opened a second line. Wow, that was a first. The people in front of me poured to the new line, so when it came to me, I had to decide, move to the new line or stick with the old one. I chose old one. Wrong choice. Not because the line was slow, but the lady in front of me was showing me parts of her anatomy I didn't need to see. When I got into the line, she was wearing a coat, like a suit coat. I was busy taking my shoes off when she removed the coat, so I missed the tease part of the strip tease. When I looked up, I saw that this lady, who was a bit overweight, had removed the coat and was wearing a "shirt" that didn't have a back. It had like straps that were holding it "closed" but there was a ton of skin. How do I say this? She had back boobs. I hope I'm not breaking any news to you, but if you get overweight, you can develop boobs, on your back. They aren't real boobs, so I don't think she was breaking any laws, but wow, that is a shocker to look up to. Who the hell wears a shirt with no back, let alone on a plane? People watching is my favorite thing to do at an airport. What people choose to wear, fascinates me.

My flight is on time, so we board. I have to almost crawl to get in this tiny plane, but I find my seat and sit down, just as my window mate shows up so I have to get back up and bang my head on the roof again. Flight takes off, seat belt light goes off and my seat mate has to pee. I let him out, cram my legs back into my seat and wait for him to get back. I pry myself out of the seat to allow him back in, then squeeze back into my seat. About 10 minutes later, he decides he needs something out of the overhead, so we go through the routine again. It's a 2 hour flight dude, get the shit you need and sit down. No upsie downsie. The other problem with these tiny planes, the dude next to me was about my height, so we played footsie all the way to Houston and his hairy ass arm was hogging the arm rest. This plane has 2 seats on one side and one seat on the other. I try to get the one seat whenever I can, but couldn't on this trip. On my flight back, I have the single seat.

Before you take off, the flight attendant always gives you the safety speech. I stopped listening to it years ago. I think I know what to do. If the mask drops, scream "we are all going to die," remove your seat belt and proceed to run up and down the aisle ripping all the masks out. I might have mis-understood the directions, but that is the gist of it. I'm not listening to the lady today, but out of the corner of my ear (is that a saying?) I thought I heard her say something about asparagus. Surely she didn't, but maybe she was trying to see if ANYONE was listening. There was no reaction from the rest of the plane, so she either didn't say it, or nobody was listening.

When I travel, I try to dress to be comfortable. I watched a show years ago that said you should always wear long pants and tennis shoes on planes. The long pants protect your legs if there is an accident and the tennis shoes so you can do wind sprints on the movable sidewalk that is in so many airports now. OK, that isn't right, it's actually because a sandal exposes your toes, if there is an accident, and flip flops can come off and if you have to run over fiery wreckage once you have been de-flip flopped, it can hurt. All of this is to cover your ass on a worse case scenario, but jeans and tennis shoes is how I want to dress anyway. Since the weather in Houston is in the 90's, I wore short sleeves. I also don't get could easily, so I'm usually good. A lady who sat two rows up from me, apparently, doesn't have the same temperature tolerance that I do. She was wearing a stocking cap that looked like one of those sock monkeys. It was pulled down over her ears and it was hilarious. Looked like she was heading to Alaska in February.

When we got to Houston, I was waiting for my luggage when I watched a guy grab a suitcase and moved it a bit, so he could get the handle of his suitcase. A guy right behind him, angerly told him not to touch his suitcase, seeing as the case that guy one touched, was guy two's. It seemed a little harsh, seeing as how guy one didn't chuck the case across the airport, he barely moved it. I guess travel makes some people a bit edgy.

I had a little luck on my side as well. I was standing in line for a cab to go to the hotel, when a van pulled up with one of those scrolleing message boards on the side that listed my hotel. I knew my hotel had a shuttle, but when I tried to call from the booth, I sat on the phone for 5 minutes and nobody ever picked up. I decided to take a cab, until this little miracle pulled up. I checked with the guy, he said he did go to my hotel, so I skipped the long taxi line. I'm glad I was able to find the shuttle, my hotel was farther than I thought and it saved my company some money.

All in all, a good trip. I'm off to my warehouse in the morning and will probably sweat like crazy in the 90 degree, un-airconditioned, Texas warehouse, so wish me luck.