Delirium

My day started at 4:00 am. I had to leave at 4:30 to catch a flight out of San Jose. I'm not a morning person, but I learned that there are a LOT of other people who are also NOT morning people.

It was a rough start, which included trying to navigate dark, unfamiliar roads to the airport---once after Neverlost (yeah, right) told me I missed my turn, I thought rather than wait for the next exit I would just pull a U-turn and be on my way. The roads were pretty deserted as you can imagine at that hour. I flipped it, and as I was happily driving my way, suddenly noticed two things simultaneously. One: there was a divider on my right side and there were cars on the other side of it driving the same way as me. Two: There was a semi-truck coming right towards me, but in the "other lane" of what I thought was a small one lane road. Turns out it wasn't. I quickly flipped another U-turn after a furiously honking semi insured I was now wide-awake (see, who needs caffeine anyway?) and proceeded to the exit I should have taken in the first place.

Once I made it safely to my flight, I boarded the plane and took my lovely middle seat next to a man in the window seat who was also busily arranging himself and his belongings. Since I was awake now I thought I would engage in some witty conversation with him. I felt like the seats were really, really small on this flight--it felt tighter than usual, so as I squirmed out of my coat I said to him, "Doesn't it seem like these seats have gotten smaller? Either that or I've gotten bigger!" He was still working his way out of his coat and shutting bags and stuff and just responded, "No, I don't really think the seats are any smaller, they feel pretty much the same to me..." He then paused, realized what he was saying as I also paused, looked at him and lifted one eyebrow to wait for the rest of his sentence. After looking at each other for a full 30 seconds we both burst out laughing. I told him he might not want to insult a perfect stranger, especially when that stranger was stuck next to him for 2 hours. He assured me that I probably was not any bigger than I used to be, but that he was just really, really tired from his 4:30 wake up call. He also told me he was shocked that he just said that since he had just finished speaking at a conference on how to win friends and influence people.

I reminded him of his faux pas when the plane landed and Brian and Jeff called. They asked where I was and I said, "On a plane with REALLY small seats." The guy next to me spit out his water he was laughing so hard. More flying fun. The moral: Don't take the 6:30 flight.