Notes to self

Lessons learned in the past week:

1. Don't mishandle your water bottle in the airplane. I bought a bottle of water in the Minneapolis airport to bring onto the plane. It was one of those tad larger ones, with a twist top that opens the little spigot (i.e. don't have to pull off a cap, but also leaves the place where you drink from wide open to dirty airplane air). After boarding the plane, sitting in the aisle seat, I attempted to put the bottle in the seat back, but alas, it wouldn't fit. So, I had to turn it sideways, to where the tip was leaning out towards the aisle, by maybe 1 inch or so. Allergy or cold season was flaring up, who knows and who cares, all I know was that the plane was, as my co-worker so aptly described, a "cocoon of disease". Hacking and coughing, sneezing and nose blowing all around. So, brand new water bottle, only 1 sip taken, and wouldn't you know, the woman in front of me has a cold, and so she sneezes, not covering her mouth, and i kid you not, whips her head into the aisle and back, spraying her delightful aerosolized germs directly onto the tip of the water bottle. I saw spittle fly, no joke. She could not have made a more direct hit. I suppose she didn't want to spray on the person directly next to her, because of course, that would be terribly rude and disgusting. Clearly sneezing on all those behind her was a much better option. Not to mention, she sneezed without covering her mouth and probably sprayed her germs up into the ventilation system. Some days, I hate people. People who don't cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing, and people who don't wash their hands in the bathroom. Oh we've all seen those nasties.

2. Noise canceling headphones don't cancel everything. Same plane ride as above. The noise canceling headphones have done me well over the past year or so, really helping out on the planes, and allowing me to sleep and block out annoying people's voices. Not so much on this joyous ride, friends. Five or 6 rows behind, a set of 4 year old twins (little girls) came on board with their mother. Oh yes, you are starting to form an image in your mind already...I can tell. They proceeded to talk through the entire flight. With outdoor voices. Piercing outdoor voices. I couldn't turn the music up loud enough, I couldn't tie the blanket around my head and earphones tight enough to block them out. They hit the one frequency that the earphones cannot filter out. It made my eyeballs want to pop out of my head and poke out my eardrums with Q-tips (stop that, brain, or I'll stab you with a q-tip!). And most infuriating, of course, is that the mother didn't do a dang thing to get them to tone it down. The entire rear of the plane starts to develop tiny twitches of annoyance, and begin to whimper and rock back and forth like that girl in the corner in that movie "The Crying Game". The entire way on the descent and final approach, there was a color commentary on what was being seen out the window. And whatever one said, the other had to repeat, at least twice. "Mommy I see a cloud. Mommy I see the sky. Mommy I see the ground. Mommy I see cars. Mommy I see lights. Mommy I see planes" (that's when I was about to stand up and call them out on "bullsh*t - you can't see any planes, if you can see them, you're too close to them". Alas, I kept myself in check. So multiply that conversation by 4, and you'll start to get the picture of how many times they said each thing they saw. But it was a solid 25 minutes of this nonstop diarrhea of the mouth. Instead, I turned to the guy sitting next to me, rolled my eyes and did the whole gun-in-your-mouth-blow-your-brains-out hand gesture to show how pleased I was with the whole situation after a full day of travel. Anyway, plane lands, I get off and quickly get up the jet way, only to trip in my flip flops on the gap between it and the terminal, and doing a graceful perfect 10 landing on the other foot - it was awesome - I soared through the air as the gate agent laughed. I made sure to tell her to watch out for that bump - it jumps up and get you. Seriously - it does. They should put up a sign or something: "watch for foot-grabbing walkway". Someone might not be so graceful as I.

3. Eating Mexican before getting on a plane for 3 hours is not a great idea, no matter how hungry you are. Nothing bad happened after, though after I ate the pink chicken inside my tacos (yes, I bit into it and it wasn't cooked), I sure thought I was in deep trouble. No one wants to have liquid butt on the plane all the way home. Never, ever again will I risk that. Though I suppose gas ass would have been ok; after all, everyone toots on airplanes. It's a free-for-all. No one can tell because you can't hear the sound due to engine noise, and it could have been anyone among the 100 people on the plane who sent that air biscuit into the ventilation system. Packed like sardines, it could be anyone. Except you can feel the vibrations in the seat if it was the person next to you who ripped it - and that's just downright nasty. I'd rather it be anonymous than me feel the vibrations of that cheek-rippling blast of air. Feel free to glare at them should this situation occur.

4. If you've batted your water cup on your desk and spilled it all over, don't put it back in the same spot and do it again. I sit in an L-shaped desk; computer sits at the intersection of the "L", one side of the "L" is against the wall, the other opens into the room. I usually store my coffee and water on the right side of me, within reaching distance, and papers are typically spread out in piles all over the desk (looks a bit jumbled). I like post-its, I need to write a lot down, so at any given time there are approximately 10-15 post-its on my desk. For example, today I just counted - 15 plus a note pad list. Post-its to the left of me, post-its to the right of me... Anyway cut to yesterday - the coffee must not have fully kicked in yet, and I turned a bit quickly to my right to get a document, and I knocked a home run out of the park when I nailed that water cup. It flew up and into the wall, spraying water everywhere, and down in between the desk and the wall...where, yes...my plug strip resides... "Expletive expletive expletive" screams I, and then "expletive expletive expletive" again, when my floor lamp and desk lamp both short out. One the bulb pops because of the surge, the other just got a little too wet when the surge protector was rained upon by a liter of water, and decided to take a rest. Water, flowing all over and pooling on my desk, washing away my post-its, my mouse ran for the hills as the pad it plays on was dunked. In the half-dark, quickly I dive under my desk and shut off the surge protector and yank all the plugs out (maybe not the smartest idea? Who knows.) Mind you, I'm also covered in water myself from the tsunami of filtered water. Running to the kitchen I grab a roll of paper towels and run back, trying to dry the spill, i started throwing papers on the ground to air them out so now the floor of my office looked like a hopscotch court. I'm under the desk, still muttering expletives, and drying off electrical plugs and wall sockets. I sheepishly ran over to IT to get another power cord, and predictably they laughed at my stupidity. What a glory story for a Monday.

Now, a moderately intelligent person might think that on the following day, you might not put the water in the same spot, or at least be more careful when turning around, right? Wrong. I clearly do not fall into even the moderately smart category...because I proceeded to put it in the exact same spot. (Yesterday was a fluke, I told myself. Dumbass.) With all my recently dried papers and post-its back in place, I decided a repeat performance was in order, so this time, I did the chain reaction, the accidentally-hit-it-with-your-coffee-cup move, which tumbled the cup (completely full, mind you) directly over into the same spot (only a little more headed towards the computer, not the wall). Well the one thing I did learn was to not let the water go over the edge of the desk and onto the plug strip, so in diving to block the flow over the side with my hands, of course I knocked the coffee cup over too. My precious Post-its? Even more soaked than yesterday - the ink started to rub off, and they got all fragile so I couldn't move them without tearing them (I cried a bit). Hope I didn't break my mouse, because it had to swim for dear life today. It was actually even worse than yesterday because most all the water ended up on the desk & papers - notebooks were soaked, as well as the same pads of paper as yesterday. But, wouldn't you know, I kept the paper towel roll in my office just for this very reason (I had a feeling yesterday that I might need it again...), so at least I could mop it up with crappy paper towels. Where's Bounty when you need it? Cheap-ass office kitchen supplies. It took about 45 paper towels to dry everything up. I would have done better (and faster) with a straw. Now everything has that wrinkly spilled water on paper but now it's kind of dry look to it. Worst of all, my actual square pad of post-its was soaked and all the edges are sticking together, so I feel lost and incomplete, and can't figure out what I'm supposed to do the rest of the day because my stuff is all ruined. No more "notes to self" today.