Excuse me, your latte is in my eye.

Why is it that a frequent topic of the publisheR is travel? Well, it’s my blog and I’ll write about what I want to - leave me alone! Ok, fine, the real reason is that travel brings out the best, worst, and most ridiculous in people – if you really look, people are funny as heck in general, but even funnier when traveling, because it pushes us to act in ways we never would in everyday interactions. Don’t get me wrong, animals are hysterical too, as are plants and rocks, and everything springing forth from us outside of travel is just plain bizarre – from how we act to things we make (cars, tricycles, fudge brownies, cocktail napkins, etc – you get my point). (Plants and rocks wouldn’t nearly be as funny without people doing stupid stuff with them – especially while traveling). But it’s traveling that makes you shake your head and wonder how people lasted this long on earth. It’s the stupid people I’m concerned with, and well, that’s all of us. The Intelligent Designer sure had a sense of humor – he/she/it gets to observe all of our moronic tendencies all at once – giving fodder for great works, such as the Bible, Koran, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

ANYWAY…you may wonder how snag fits into this, given that this blog is called “Snagwatch.” Well, people are weird and funny, and sometimes those weird and funny people have snag. Severe cases of snag and/or snaggle (upsetting or hysterical) will be noted in their own individual entries, and people’s dentition will be used to accentuate and embellish stories as we go along our journey towards the light…

So, back to travel. Here’s what’s so interesting about travel, it’s a time when you are around a plethora of people you don’t know anything about, and I have the tendency to want to watch these people, not in a stalker fashion, but mostly because I am scared and don’t want them to come too close. That why I carry my trusty invisible lightsaber. (Shoot! That was supposed to be internal monologue…) I mean, that’s why I have my evil glare all polished up and ready to flash at a moment’s notice. This visage can scare you back 10-12 feet if you aren’t careful. I’ve been known to cause heart palpitations and incontinence as well. So keep your heart medicine and diapers on hand in case you get a look from me. You may also feel it burn a hole in the back of your head if your back is facing me. It’s powerful stuff.

Car traffic is scary in its own right, as there are all these people you don’t know, and you’ve got a 3,000 pound bumper car you can take them out with if you don’t like them. You also have a middle finger that can do a mighty fine job of expressing how grateful you are that they cut you off. With public transportation, if you don’t like the way someone is looking at you, or someone is being obnoxious, you can either throw your paper at them in disgust, or simply change train cars. Same thing with the bus. The 2C will come around in another hour or so, and you are fine. With flying, however, that is a whole different bag of walnuts. If you don’t like someone who is going to be on the airplane, you are stuck with them on the tin can o’ death (I don’t really like flying – we’ll get to that later) for hours. No ifs, ands, or buts. If you try to punch them out, you get shot by the air marshal or tacked by the flight attendant, and they pour “hot” coffee (translation: cold mud) on you.

A recent experience. I had a 5 hour flight ahead of me – it left mid-morning or so, no hurry or funny stories in getting to the airport or going through security (although I’m sure in the future there will be). At this moment, the only thing I’m concerned about now is that I can’t remember where I parked my car among the 5,000 other cars at the airport. No worries, I suppose I’ll just cross that bridge when I get to it.

It always amazes me when people stampede the ticket counter at the gate, waiting for their “Group” to be called to get on the airplane. It’s not like you are going to have to run after the plane, and jump on it like the streetcars of old. They know you’re here, sitting RIGHT IN FRONT of it at the gate, with a ticket to get on – I think it’ll be all right. But, as with the others, I feel left out if I don’t join in, so I get all excited and start to push up against it as well, hoping they’ll let the hungry pack of dogs loose onto the jetway, which again bottlenecks while trying to enter the aircraft. Well, I found out the real reason people want to get on that airplane so fast – overhead bins. This is coveted space – similar to the coveted free plastic tongue depressor in a box of fruit loops. You’ve got to have your bin space, or apparently they will kick your suitcase out onto the runway, and you’ve lost your prized possessions. Apparently that’s the airlines unwritten policy, if it doesn’t fit in the bins, the mechanics get it. No wonder there’s always a fist fight that breaks out. I suggest that we have a new policy of “No luggage left behind” – an unfunded mandate that we require of the airlines. Seriously, though. The baggage, to many people’s surprise, actually does make it to their destination. Unless it passes through Denver International Airport. Then you are screwed. Most people don’t even make it through that airport.

Ok, back to me. So almost everyone and their 1 overhead piece (there are those bastards who put two up there – the nerve!!) are shoehorned onto the tin can ‘o misery, and this gentleman comes running in right before they close the door. Now, I am on the aisle, and the 2 seats next to me, window and mid, are open. As luck would have it (or maybe I did something bad and was being punished for it), this dude had the window seat. Normal airplane etiquette is to have the aisle person stand up while the inner folks get into their seat. This man apparently had not read the unwritten book on it (you ever notice how airplane etiquette isn’t written down either? I’m up to the task, don’t worry). Well, he had a newspaper in one hand, which was also carrying his OVERHEAD bag – note the emphasis on overhead– and a cup of coffee in the other. Before I knew it and could stand to move out of the way, this man threw his big bag over me and, I am not exaggerating, climbed over me on the armrests. In the process, his coffee in his left hand proceeded to spill onto my head and the left side of my face, finally coming to rest on my nice fleece and jeans. As you can imagine, the last thing I thought was going to have happen was to have coffee poured on my head. So I didn’t realize what was happening at first – but started to yell once I did. This man did not seem to speak English too well, nor did he understand that he couldn’t leave his monster bag in between our two seats (something that the flight attendant yelled at him for). Anyway, I thankfully am given some napkins to sop up what seemed to be a skim latte with Splenda. Now came the evil glare. And I broke that thing out like I never had before. I even sprinkled some angry muttering under my breath and a few exasperated sighs for emphasis. I think he got the hint. When his hair set fire, I knew I still had the magic touch.

Once that traumatic event had occurred, the next one began, a.k.a., takeoff. I am not a huge fan of flying, especially in airplanes, because my brain clicks on and moves waaaaaaaaay too fast – I imagine what crashing will look and feel like, and how the airplane will skid off the runway, how the coffee will taste terrible and how the bathrooms will smell. I imagine what it will be like when the oxygen masks fly down in my face, and I take two just in case the first one doesn’t work. Mr. Latte didn’t need the extra one anyway. So, as any normal paranoid flyer would do, I write my will and pray. I’ve gotten much better in recent years, in that I don’t need to clutch the armrests until my knuckles are white, and I can usually talk myself down from hyperventilation. But, if I hear a funny jiggle noise or a sneeze, the palms start sweating and the leg starts a-tapping. Well, needless to say, I finally did make it, but we’re not done with discussing this flight quite yet. I always hate to recline my seat, I feel bad for imposing, but I did anyway. Little did I know that Jaba the Hut was sitting behind me. When her window-seat person got up and she had to move for them, she stood up and turned around to face the rear of the aircraft, thrusting her derriere into my seat, and in the process, I am not kidding, ratcheted up my seat into the upright position. Now if the coffee on the head didn’t wake me up, my head flying into the seat in front of me sure did. She didn’t seem that large, but maybe she just had an extremely powerful butt, because she sent me flying (pardon the pun). Needless to say, the seat was broken after that one…no more reclining for this publisheR. Don’t worry – Jaba comes back into the picture later.

You know how the pressure changes in the aircraft as you ascend? Well, that has a funny effect on pens. Mine exploded in my bag. It was awesome (note the sarcasm). I pulled out some work to do, and opened up the pen, and didn’t really look at it, since most pens don’t explode as a normal course of things. So, in about a minute, I realized that black ink had coated my right hand. Let’s recap: the left side of my body was covered in latte, and my right hand was dripping with black ink, and my face was plastered into the seat in front of me. I looked like a regular psycho. A brilliant start to a day of 14 hours of travel.

Such as my luck was going that day, as we landed in Los Angeles (no, I didn’t die on the landing either, but I did have you down for receiving my CDs – you’ll just have to wait for those), another etiquette issue came to light. Mrs. Super-sized triple happy meal behind me got her self up and stood in the way of me being able to get out and pull my bag down. I HATE THAT. Give me some room, woman! You’re behind me and it’s my turn! Wouldn’t you know, when I finally squeezed into the aisle to pull my bag down, Jaba didn’t budge a fricking inch! And she had room to move! Either back into her row or a bit of a step backwards. ASS!!! So, me being the nice person I usually am, shot her a look of death. She must have had her force field up, because it didn’t seem to faze her. And upon pulling my bag down so as to not clock her in the face, I had to contort my shoulder in the most unusual position. Well, you know what that means; I ripped the crap out of my shoulder so that it felt like I had been stabbed. Repeatedly. Jaba probably did stab me, in fact. I wouldn’t have put it past her. I should have let the case drop on her head. Would have served her right for breaking an airplane seat and the unwritten rules of airplane etiquette. Alas, I exited the aircraft to hang out until the next tin can o’ death was ready for departure.

Tin can o’ death #2. Not nearly as bad as #1. No crazies, no major malfunctions. However, due to being stabbed in the shoulder by the heifer on the first airplane, the nice people at the gate had to check my suitcase since I could no longer lift it. And it arrived, would you believe! See, they actually do put it in the aircraft. And I was one of the last people on the plane. Who would have thunk it. Now to the disappointing part. I’ve been to Hawaii several times before (this was a trip for work, not fun, so don’t get all jealous), and the one thing I really look forward to is as follows… The way that the Honolulu airport is configured is that the gates are separated by the main terminal by an open walkway, where the clean air and sweet-smelling breeze blow past you, welcoming you to Hawaii. Now if anything was going to make this 15-hour day and brief trip worthwhile, it was that moment. So, filled with exhaustion and excitement, the doors opened before me…and I smelt…Camel lights. A huge flipping cloud of it. Ugh…I sure was ready for the day to be over, now. I decided to buy a t-shirt that read: “I went to Hawaii and all I got was black lung.”