Just Take Your Damn Shoes Off Sir

I hate flying on holiday weekends.  The airport develops a serious case of armature hour-itis that strains something I usually enjoy a great deal (travelling).  No, I don't just mean going places with palm trees and beaches, I actually enjoy the experience of physically travelling.  I like the motion.  It probably has some connection to all of the travelling I did with my family when I was a kid but I feel genuinely at home on an airplane (being raised thinking a nine hour flight was fairly standard... you can get from a lot of places to a lot of places in nine hours).

This means that I find it taxing to stand in a security line with people who are scared absolutely shitless or confused to a point of hysteria.  This morning at LAX I was subjected to a little too much America for my taste this fine Independence Day weekend.  Don't ask me why I am in a security line that is six people long and you are in one that is sixty people long.  Life isn't fair.  Isn't that always the answer to your questions sir?

Perhaps I am being too harsh.  To be fair, I have only ever had two travel partners that I have actually enjoyed in my life:  my father (The Legend) and Boondock.  My mom (The Sky is Falling) and my sister could easily be placed in the previous "hysterical" category when travelling.  My father used to play this game with them where as soon as they began to board he would immediately think of something that he needed to get from the concourse (a newspaper, a magazine... a beer).  This would, without a single exception, throw my mother and sister (The Dancing Orange) into an absolute panic.  I would take this moment to note that it is not as though a plane ever left without all of us on it.  That never seemed to calm them.

Anyhow, that is probably where I get it.  Why I am so relaxed through a process that seems to be desperately stressful for so many.  I do know one thing, being a good travel partner is in the top ten of qualities I would need in a significant other.  No one likes a divorce on a jet-bridge.

As timing would have it, my flight just started boarding.  Onward and upward.

Charles in Charge,

-I Heart Palindromes