Nothing is EVER easy!!

So, Friday we flew out to the Atlanta Linux Fest, a fabulously well-thought-out and organized conference of All Things Nerdy, but you know, with me, travel can not be easy.  Ever.  Ever, ever, never.

And, therefore, I must blog.

Alright, Friday afternoon.  Let's leave the house by 3:30!

3:32: Gas station.  Go to pay for soda, inside store.  CRAP.  Forgot my debit card at home.  No big deal, right?  Well, typically no, I had other forms of payment with me...  except we were on our way to the airport, and my plane tickets had been procured with my debit card, and both our rental car, and our hotel room, had been secured using it as well.  I knew I would have to present it, in order to have a car to drive, and a room to sleep in.  TURN AROUND.

3:35: Back in car, back on our way to airport.  Michael gets on interstate, and begins speeding up to merge.  As he does, he proclaims "SHIT!  We're going the wrong way."  CRAP, CRAP.  We are speeding along at a nice 75 miles per hour, headed to Tampa.  We're flying out of Orlando.  TURN AROUND.  again.

3:45: BACK on interstate, this time heading to Orlando... laughing hysterically at ourselves, cause you know these sorts of things only happen to us.  Make it to the airport with out killing or maiming ourselves (which is a feat unto itself), get checked in, and head to security.  Oh WAIT, we parked at A Terminal, and we are apparently leaving from B terminal.  So, we schlep our way across the airport.  Thank goodness we weren't running late. 

Get to security, where, apparently, there is no air conditioning.  I'm telling you, it had to have been approximately one trillion degrees, with 100% humidity, inside.  I fully expected to see a little Eeyore-like raincloud moseying through the airport security area...  and also fully expected to see it come find me, just to rain on my parade.  OK, so through security we go.  Orlando International Airport could use some instruction on how to effeciently make people stand in line... I seriously felt like a cow, on the way to the slaughter.  Perhaps not the best feeling to have when going through the airport. 

Get to the checkpoint.  I'm sweating like a hog, and anxious about making it through security.  Of course, the last time I flew, I was lovingly flagged by the TSA, and sent through security no less than 4 times, while they looked for a 'bottle of liquid' I did not possess.  So, here I am, watching my laptop, shoes, and bag enter into what my brain deems as the Tunnel of Doom.  The charming and friendly security person motions that I should walk through the metal detector, which I do, without blaring alarms.  Score!  And, as I watch, my shoes, laptop, and bag all make it out the otherside of the Tunnel of Doom without triggering a full-body-cavity search of my person.  I swear, I heard the heavens open and choirs of angels sing the Halleluja chorus.  Mike wanders his way through, leaves me to schlep the three bags we carry over to the bench, as he absent-mindedly wanders over to put on his shoes. 

Alright, off we go, then.  Monorail ride out to the terminal... uneventful, if not for the bizarre window decorations of the train.  They're advertising for Disney's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.  Donald is dressed like Satan.  I'm disturbed.

Off the train, making our way through the terminal.  Our gate is the last one, of course.  At least I'm not wheeling thirty-seven pieces of luggage behind me.  We get to the gate, sit down, and look to our right.  Oh sweet Jesus, we've got one of ~~those~~ passengers with us.  Actually, two.  Mike immediately deems the pair "Dead and Dying".  Twelve seconds after we sit and begin people-watching, here comes the rescue team, backboard in hand, etc.  Guess who they are coming for... Well, it's not me, so it must be Dead and Dying.  Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.  Dead stands up, begins flailing her arms, and starts carrying on about how someone hit her in the back with a Galley Cart, and how it caused her to have a seizure, how she feels her spine growing stiff, etc.  Mike and I come to the conclusion that she is thoroughly intoxicated.  I am sorta vaguely wondering where *I* can get something to drink, because I'm sure that the only way this woman would possibly make any sense to me is if I were thoroughly intoxicated.  Meanwhile, there is much wailing, much gnashing of teeth, much writhing around on the floor.  "Ma'am, let us call an ambulance for you, etc." is met with "No, must get on airplane."  Damnit all.  Dying is sitting in her wheelchair doing nothing more than, well, perhaps dying and looking thoroughly embarrassed about it.  Dead is the one making all the racket... in her hot pink skinny jeans.  Really now.

Finally, after much to-do, it comes time for us to board.  Get in, get settled...  Flight is mercifully uneventful.  Thank heavens for that. 

Get through the Atlanta airport...  get our rental car...  and start heading to the hotel, right?  Wrong.  We get on the interstate, again.  GOING THE WRONG DIRECTION, again.  Jesus H Christ bananas.  Turn around.  Go toward the hotel.  Check in, 10 pm.  I am starving!!  Hadn't eaten lunch, cause I'm an idiot.  Go down to the overpriced, overrated hotel "Grill."  Eat fish and chips, because I don't want to pay $37 dollars for a steak (which, for all I know, would have been llama instead), and visit with some friends who happen to also be there for the Linux show. 

Back to our room... to discover we are in, as Mike called it, the "short people room".  Mike is not short.  I, although shorter than him, am not 4 foot 7.  It has one of those toilets that looks like it belongs in a pre-school bathroom.  I am convinced that if it were any lower to the ground, I'd be sticking by butt through the ceiling of the floor below us.  This is not good for business... or doing business, in fact.

Sleep.  Ah, good lord, sleep.

Sleep IN.  Whoops.  No screaming children to awaken us, only a cell-phone alarm clock, which I promptly throw on the floor.

OK, so off we go.  Check out of our room, go hang out with the fellas at the Linux fest.  Met lots of great people, met some AMAZING girl-geeks.  Nice to find some sisterhood in a swamp of testosterone.  Learned some stuff, made some friends, discussed flying to Kansas (I need a frequent-flyer card).    All in all, excellent time was had by all, and I'm glad we went. 

Finish up at the fest, get into the rental car, tell the GPS that we want to head to Car Rental Row, by the airport.  Must turn in rental car.  Mabel, as we affectionately call her, gets us stuck in an indefinite loop.  Oh, you think I'm being silly.  No, she told us to make a right.  Then another right, and another right, and a fourth right...  wait, I'm sensing a trend, here.  Every time we made this loop, it made us turn in a just-slightly-different-enough fashion that we didn't pass the same landmark until the third trip around this giant circle.  Wait.A.Minute.  We've been here before... 

Finally, we figure out that perhaps Mabel is not being friendly, and rather has developed a mean streak.  Ha, ha, Mabel, you have an off button.  We turn her off, and decide to go about this the old fashioned way...  Look, SIGNS!  Remember that chorus of angels earlier?  Yeah, their presence was known a second time.

Returned the car.  Went through the security again...  Again, sweating like a pig, again worried about making the FBI most-wanted list.  Successfully negotiated my way through security again, and went to eat at one of the airport's various restaurants.  I have some phenomental chicken.  I am a southern girl by birth, and a Paula Deen fan to boot.  I like things friend, and think that all food is made better with a half stick of butter.  Fried chicken, baked mac and cheese, black eyed peas, and corn muffins.  Someone loves me.

Go hang out, waiting for the gate to open.  Twiddle my thumbs a bit, read a book a bit...  Finally board. 

Flight is uneventful.  Lovely flight attendant.   Nothing remarkable.  Whoo hoo!!  Just the overtly religious folks behind us talking the entire time about Jesus.  Not that there's anything wrong with Jesus, mind, but I was exhausted, and some quiet time would have been lovely.  The mommy in me was very, very tempted to shout "TALKING TIME-OUT" at them, but I refrained.  Be proud of me. 

Back on the ground in Orlando.  Offload with no particular difficulty.  Get out through the terminal, over to the main part of the airport.  Realize we're walking the wrong direction, turn around.  AGAIN.  I sense a theme. 

Get to the elevators where we go down to the parking garage.  Out into the parking garage... we had parked on the row directly in front of the elevators, on Row C.  We get off the elevator, and look up at Row K.  FART.  We took the wrong damn elevators.  Jesus.  I needed him in that moment, let me tell you.  So, off we go schlepping 13 rows down through the airport parking garage.  It is 8 pm, but it is Orlando, FLORIDA, and we're working with about 97% humidity.  I don my swim fins, and make my way to the car, which seemed a lot further down the row than we remembered it being.  Finally found it, and off we went. 

We mostly managed to get on the interstate going in the right direction...  and finally made our way home.  9:27pm, and we are home, and I declare that Jetsetting is perhaps not my thing. 

SLEEP. 

Today, I get up, and now have what I affectionately refer to as the conference-airplane-exhaustion-flu. 

Going to bed now.