Travellers

I had an excellent Thanksgiving weekend, and should have pictures to put up soon. I believe they’re on a disc that’s still in my suitcase, and at the moment, I’m too lazy to go get it to see.

The trip up to my parents’ place in Wyoming was an interesting one, and filled with inspiration for my blog and for my novel.

One encounter that left me feeling rather thoughtful was with a willowy redhead in the San Diego International Airport, before we’d even left for Casper. I noticed her coming up the stairs as my daughters and I waited in line to go through security. She headed for the ticket counters, and we, of course, had to get through security. Twenty minutes later, I found myself standing behind her in the line for Starbucks. As I said, she was a redhead, and redheads have freckles…and we know how I feel about freckles. As I stood behind her, looking for any excuse at all to strike up a conversation, her boyfriend joined her. I’m assuming he was her boyfriend…he stepped up and planted a kiss on her lips. I politely looked away, but as I did so, I caught her looking me in the eye as her boyfriend kissed her, looking like Nicole Kidman on the Eyes Wide Shut poster. As soon as he’s done kissing her, she apologizes to him for making him stand in line for coffee, but says she’s addicted to Starbucks and that she’ll be grumpy until she gets some.

“This guy knows what I’m talking about,” she says, fixing me with pale green eyes. “Don’t you?”

We agree that coffee is an addiction, and we are connected for a moment, to the exclusion of her decaffeinated boyfriend. She allows her guy to encroach on her space, but without enthusiasm, and I suspect her conversation with me is a sign that she’s pissed off at him and I’ve been enlisted to help with the torture process.

On the flight to Salt Lake City, an impossibly pretty dude and his girlfriend are sitting in front of me, looking snuggly-cute with her head in his lap. That is, until he jams his backpack under his own seat so that he can stretch out his feet under the seat in front of him. When he hits my feet, he simply pushes harder until I instinctively move them out of the way. I kick back. This is MY space, dammit! “Place carry on items securely in the overhead bin or under the seat in front of you.” He shoves harder, and my legroom disappears for good. No matter how cutesy the couple may be, this guy, with his artfully shiny hair style and sunglasses perched on top of his head, is just another jerk who thinks the rest of us are here to make room to suit his whim. I spent the next hour deliberately squishing the contents of his bag with my feet. I am gearing up for a New Year’s Resolution: I will no longer feel obligated to accommodate anyone's rudeness.

With any luck, he had a tube of toothpaste in his backpack.