How NOT to Travel

I consider myself a pretty well seasoned traveler. In my younger years, I was what is known as a road warrior. I traveled so often, that there was a period of time that I did the math to find out if it would be cheaper to rent a hotel room, rather than my apartment given the number of days I was there a month. My years of heavy travel spanned on both sides of 9-11, so I remember with fondness the days of getting to your gate 2 minutes before take off and still getting your seat. I had friends and family standing at the actual gate to greet me when I arrived, and waved at friends as they took off in their planes.

Post 9-11, many changes have occurred. I, like most other road warriors, took them in stride. You can’t fight the system, so you might as well flow with it as best you can. I’ve been subjected to more searches, pat downs, scans, questions, and general scruitinzation then I care to remember. None of it really bothers me. For the most part, these folks are simply doing their job, and really do strive to make things simple and safe for the public at large.

I am going to tell you a story, however, of what NOT to do when you travel. It was all over a small, orange, drawstring bag that my 3 year old son leant to me for my crochet project. (yes. I crochet. Stop laughing and read the story…)

Airline baggage policies have become laughable in the past 10 years. It used to be, if you could carry it and fit it through an X-Ray machine, you could bring it on board. Now, it takes some well thought out planning and quite a bit of extra money if you want to take the comforts of home (Read: necessities) along with you.

Checked baggage hasn’t changed much. You can still pretty much put anything in checked baggage you like as long as it isn’t overtly nepharious such as a bomb. Even firearms are allowed with the proper paperwork. What has changed is the price. Be prepared to pay for such a luxury such as a full sized shampoo bottle, or fingernail clippers. A checked bag at your typical airline will run you $50-$100 – more if it’s an oversized or heavy bag. If you are a family of 4 traveling to Disney World, be prepared to pay through your Mouska-ears.

If you decide to pay for your baggage to be checked through to your final destination, realize the likely hood of it actually making it there is far from 100%. Back in my novice days, I checked a bag from Detroit, MI to Boston, MA. Non stop. I made it, but my bag did not. 3 days of teaching an environmental business class in my T-shirt, shorts and Birkenstocks (which at least added an air of authenticity to my subject matter) - still no baggage. I spent hours – literally HOURS – on the phone with various airline personnel trying to track it down. I am convinced these folks get paid (or there is an office pool going) to see how long they can get me to stay on hold without hanging up, or how many times they can say “I’m sorry maam, but there’s nothing I can do” without me breaking out into a tirade of swear words that would make my navel grandfather blush.

My baggage arrived 2 days after I returned home. I consider myself one of the lucky ones.

You should also be aware that the TSA has the authority to search any bag they choose. When I do decide to check baggage, the likely hood of me opening it up upon arrival and seeing one of those blue “TSA has inspected the contents of this luggage” brochures inside my bag (usually under a bra) is pretty high. I understand that this is done for “safety” reasons, but the thought of some TSA guy fingering my unmentionables is a little disconcerting.

Being that I rarely travel for more than 3 days at a time anymore, I have long ago decided that carry on’s is the way to go. This, however, is not without its own set of problems.

First – the liquid restriction. The 3.4 oz container restriction is unfair to women. My husband can subsist for a month on 1 pair of underwear, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a bar of soap. None of these things need to go in the little clear baggie (although, soap is pretty hard to get though security…I’ll share that story some other time…). I require a whole cabinet full of creams, lotions, salves, sprays and liquids to keep me in presentable, public condition. Very few of which come in 3.4 oz or less containers. (as a side note – I am aware that hairspray comes in smaller containers, but I grew up Downriver Michigan. Any Downriver girl worth her Bob-Jo’s Frozen custard (Thanks for the correction Magikjaz - loves me some Bob-Jo's...) knows that 3.4 oz of hairspray does not even come CLOSE to cutting it for 1 evening, let alone 3+ days.)

Secondly – Plane space. I live in Madison, WI. I love it here. The downside is, almost any flight going in/out of Madison is not on a double decker 747. It’s on a 2 seat by 1 seat commuter plane. This means that if your carry on is a roller bag, you are more than likely out of luck. (bonus perk advice – if you make it through security with your carry on bag and it won’t fit on the plane, they will check it plane side for you. FOR FREE.)

Thirdly – Purses. This is also unfair to women. You can carry on a bag and a “personal item”. Most men I see travel this means a carry-on bag and a computer bag. I have a computer bag, a carry-on bag and my purse….and this is where my melt down began…

Let me state up front (in the interest of not getting blackballed from all future flights) I know that there are a lot of very wonderful people in the airline industry. I also know that the rules and regulations are not made up by them, simply enforced. I can appreciate that. So, when I was in line to board my flight and I had my computer bag, my purse and my carry-on and the gate agent said “ma’am, please step to the side and combine your articles to 2 items.” I had no major issue. I stepped aside, did a bit of creative rearranging of my (extremely overstuffed) carry-on and got back in line. As I was arranging my articles, I took out my crocheting from my computer bag in preparation for storing my computer bag under the seat in front of me for the flight. It was merely a gesture of efficiency.

I should point out here, that this bag is a VERY SMALL bag, more like a pouch really. I wasn’t making a king size blanket. It was a scarf, in the very beginning stages. This “bag” fit in the front zipper compartment of my computer bag – literally about 6” x 4”. She SAW me take it out of my computer bag, so I assume she could use deductive reasoning to figure out it would fit back in.

However, this was not her response. Her response was to get on the loudspeaker and announce, to the entire gate area, that no more than 2 items would be allowed on the plane due to FAA mandates. I heard her, I just figured that since I had already combined my items she wasn’t talking to me. When I didn’t put my offending bag away, she took action.

Putting down her loudspeaker mic, she stalked up to me and proceeded to threaten to remove me from the flight. “I told you to reduce it to 2 items. You will not be allowed to board the flight with more than that.” She then stood there in front of me, well within my personal space with her 1950’s frosted hair and marching band suit uniform, crossed her arms in front of herself and TAPPED…HER…FOOT.

I looked at her and asked if she was serious. (She was) I tried explaining that it fit in my computer bag, I was just removing it for ease of transportation. She repeated the mantra “I told you to reduce it to 2 items. You will not be allowed to board the flight with more than that.”

By this time I was holding up the line to board the plane. And the discussion began to increase in volume. And yet, I refused to relent. I was adamant that I was going to make this woman see common sense reason. (I should have just put the damn bag away). I explained to her (again) why I took it out, and decided to follow this explanation up with what was actually in the bag (maybe she didn’t believe my crochet story). Not to be swayed, This led to her pointing at each one of my bags and counting out loud.

One (point)

Two (point)

Three (point)

(tap, tap, tap with the foot)

As anyone who has flown since 9-11 will tell you, the terrorists did not steal our pride as Americans, our confidence or our sense of well being in the world. What they did steal, however, is the humor out of anyone working in the airline industry. Those folks have no appreciation for sarcasm, jest or hyperbole. AT. ALL. None. So the following, in retrospect, was not a wise decision on my part. But, in my defense, it was an O’Dark Thirty flight and I was operating on one cup of coffee. It takes at least 3 or 4 cups for my sarcasm suppressor cells to kick in.

Visibly pissed now, and realizing that my dream of injecting common sense into the situation was a complete failure, I flung my computer bag around to my front and stuffed my crochet in the front. She plucked my ticket from my fingers and scanned it in. I stomped toward the jet bridge.

I then (very quietly – under my breath) made the comment “It’s crocheting, for God sake. Not a bomb.”

Oh. Fucksticks. That was a bad idea.

I’ll spare you the details, but security was called and my bags (all 3 of them) were painstakingly searched, I was reprimanded by the police and missed my original flight.

When I went to board the next available flight (2 hours later) I walked onto the plane with my crochet pouch and my computer bag swinging happily and separately on my shoulder and my roller bag being pulled along behind me.

The new gate agent, never said a word.

Morning, Car Seats and Other Torture Devices

Let me describe a typical weekday morning in my household.

5am - My husband gets up, showers and leaves for work (he's insane)

7:30am - My alarm goes off. I hit the snooze button.

7:39am - My alarm goes off again. I swear, and hit the snooze button.

7:48am - My alarm goes off again. I swear repeatedly, and throw my phone (the source of the alarm) across the room, realize that I didn't hit the snooze button first and the buzzer is still going off, get off the bed in the dark, stub my toe on the bed frame, and dig through the pile of dirty clothes the phone has landed in. Once the phone is located, I jab at it repeatedly until I turn the alarm off. I stumble back to bed - stubbing my toe again on the bed frame in the process.

7:49am - The cat, assuming that I am awake since I got out of bed, starts meowing loudly and repeatedly because she wants food. I fumble on the bedside table for things to throw at her and realize there is nothing because my phone is still lying across the room in the dirty clothes pile. I yell at the cat because she, in fact, has food out already, but it's the dry food, not the canned stuff she really wants. This goes on for a couple minutes until I resign myself to the fact that while my cat is probably perfectly capable of understanding English, she is - in fact - a cat, so she isn't going to stop bothering me until I give her what she wants. I get up and stumble downstairs to feed her - wondering how PETA would feel about me "de-meowing" my 13 year old cat.

7:53am - The dogs, realizing that I'm awake and feeding the cat start barking to be let out of their kennels and let outside. I let them out, and then have to "assist" my Dalmatian out because it's snowing outside and she hates the snow.

7:54am - The dalmatian barks at the door to be let back in. My Pit Bull refuses to come inside because she likes the snow.

7:55am - My pit bull barks at the back door to be let in because she realizes that no one is outside to play with.

7:56am - I finally get to pee.

7:57am - My son, awakened by the barking gets up and comes into the bathroom to tell me, in detail, about his dreams of the night before and ask for Chocolate Milk and Waffles.

7:57am and 30 seconds - My son, starts crying because I haven't materialized the chocolate milk and waffles yet.

Somewhere between 7:58 am and 8:30am I finally complete the clothing process for both my son and myself, and make it out the door to my garage in order to take my son to school. And this, is where I am faced with the part of my morning I detest the most.

I hate car seats. I mean REALLY hate them. With the intensity of a thousand white hot suns. As in, I would rather be skinned alive by a dull, rusty knife, rolled in salt and set on fire then deal with a car seat every morning.

I know, I know. They keep my kid safe. And believe you me, I belong to the set that would wrap my kid in bubble wrap if it was socially acceptable. I'll do anything to protect my son. But my God. There has got to be something more user friendly then these. A strait jacket and duct tape, bungee cords, teleportation come to mind as viable options.

I am convinced that the car seat engineers are a soulless and childless bunch of sadists that go to work everyday and try and concoct the most difficult to use piece of equipment in existence.

Car seats are also roughly a million and 24 times harder to use in the winter after I've dressed up my child like Ralphies brother in "A Christmas Story". Since I live in Wisconsin, this accounts for roughly 3/4 of my year. I stuff my kid into the seat, yank on the straps, and smoosh his parka padded arms and body through the arm holes. Don't even get me started on buckling the damn things. And, ever try UNBUCKLING a car seat with fingernails of any length?

Not too long ago, the government, deciding that bad environmental policies, a spiraling national debt and taxes weren't enough torture, passed a law requiring that all children remain in a car seat until they go to prom (OK. In actuality, the Wisconsin law states that they must remain in a car seat until they are 81 lbs AND 4' 9" tall or until their 9 years old. Good thing they put the age restriction in there. I have several aunts that wouldn't meet the height requirement.)

**sigh** only 5 more years to go...

Superheros

I survived Snowpocolypse 2011, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.

Snow - in Wisconsin - in February - should be no great shock to any of us living in the great white north. But, this past week, some of Michigan's hysteria rubbed off on us, and Wisconsin shut down for a day and 1/2 due to the impending Death Storm. This included my son's school.

We couldn't play outside, for fear of losing my son in one of the 5 foot snow drifts, so we spent a lot of time watching TV. Since I have a 3.5 year old child with a Y chromosome, this means one thing:

Superheroes.

We watch them all: Superman, Batman and Robin, Iron Man, The Hulk...but the favorite - by far - around my household is Spiderman. The past several days, I've seen just about everything Spiderman related including all 3 Spiderman movies and the Spiderman Cartoons (all versions). I was ambivalent about most of these screenings (mostly because I've seen them all so many times, I can recite them to you by heart), but yesterday something caught my eye that gave me a new appreciation for 1960's cartoon culture and our favorite web slinger.

Me thinks that Spidey has been doing some butt crunches.

Betty Crocker is a Liar

I never profess to be the perfect mother. On the contrary, I often revel in my seeming prolific inadequacies (drinking wine, working full time, being a night owl, having to look up more than 1/2 of the names of the characters on Sesame Street...) but when I found out I was bringing a child into this world, I vowed that there would be one thing that he would not want for in this life.

He would have a mother who baked.

I saw in my child's future, afternoons spent measuring sugar, sifting flower and licking batter off of cake beaters. Joyful times, filled with laughter, that would last forever in my childs memory (and never add a pound to my hips - this is how we can tell it was a fantasy.)

Now, the teensy, weensy problem with this outlook of nirvana, is that it overlooks the fact that I don't know how to bake. To be more specific, I CAN'T bake. I can cook. I would even go so far as to say I can cook well, but the art of baking completely eludes me. My cookies are dry, my cakes are burnt, my brownies are always raw in the middle of the pan, and let's not even think about pies. My pie crust would land me straight into mothers prison - no possibility of parole.

Fortunately for me, I live in a society that sees fit to exploit all possible weaknesses and fix them easily, quickly, and with ingredients that can fit into a 8" x 2" box. (sans eggs, milk, oil and water).

I used to love Betty Crocker. I saw her as this older, grandmother like figure who knew my baking inadequacies, but instead of exploiting them, she devised a plan to help me disguise them so none would be the wiser. This angel of mercy would see me wondering through the cooking isle, in search of the bake sale fairy that would somehow bestow enough baking knowledge upon me that I wouldn't have to spend the afternoon scraping off the letters "O - R - E - O" from a package of cookies in the hopes of passing them off as my own.

The woman was a cooking genius! Chocolate cake, yellow cake, rainbow sprinkles, red velvet...you name it, this woman could make it. She even was so kind as to put the frosting in tubs along side the cake boxes, so you didn't have to try and pass off a tub of cool whip as vanilla frosting in 95 degree heat. Sure, I felt a little sheepish when I compared my end results to the picture on the front of the cake box (hey, I MEANT to make my cake look like a mutant bear with the mange. I'm eco aware. Get off my back.) But, no matter how it looked, I could count on the taste to be spot on. Follow directions 1 -3 on the back of the box, and get edible cake at the end. Hell, even I can do that. The directions to open my box of wine are more complicated then Betty's no fail directions.

Today, I discovered, Betty is harboring a secret jealous streak. She's tired of the masses baking with her mixes and then passing it off as made from scratch. I imagine that she's running around her kitchen, streaks of flour in her hair, smears of rainbow chip frosting on her cheek yelling like a Banchee hopped up on estrogen and Meth - "I just want some fucking credit! Lying bitches. I'll show them!"

I decided to make some Angel Food Cake. I decided on this for 2 reasons: 1.) You only have to add water, and 2.) Angel Food Cake is fat free. Seriously, Fat free. Although, after my experience, I wouldn't be surprised if she was lying about that too.

As I said, I enjoy baking with my son. Although, it has called into question his legitimacy status, because he outright refuses to eat cake batter, but have you ever tasted angel food cake batter? It's odd. Like eating baking soda mixed with sugar.

Anyway, I flip over the box to find out if I add the water to the cake mix, or the cake mix to the water (because for some fucked up reason in baking - this matters...) and at the bottom half of the directions the following catches my eye:

"Fun Snack-Time Cupcakes"

Well...who the hell could resist that? I look over at my 3 year old who is gazing at me as if I am the bestest mommy in the whole wide world, and ask him "Do you want to make a cake or cupcakes?"

"CUPCAKES!!!!" is his jubilant reply.

Well, alrighty then. Cupcakes it is. I read the instructions. And I quote....

"Place paper baking cups in 30-36 regular size muffin cups"

It's important to note that I followed the directions. Because, if I had come to that conclusion on my own, all that would have been accomplished is a reinforcement of my non existent baking skills.

I prepared the batter, put it into said muffin cups, and baked for the time specified. They smelled awesome, and much to my amazement, looked EXACTLY like the cupcake displayed on the back of the packaging. To give you a visual, they looked roughly like this (sans frosting)

Pretty Right?

I thought so. I was pretty damn proud of myself. And that's when that Bitch Betty got her revenge.

My son, geeked at the prospect of cupcakes, was patient while the things cooled (read: lie in wait) I picked out the prettiest one, and attempted to separate it from it's paper wrapping. This is roughly what I ended up with.

The Damn things would not dislodge from their wrappers without committing a self disembowelment act.

I tried again, and again with all 36 of the messengers of evil, only to be met with the same fate each time. I swear I heard Betty laughing in the background.

I'm still searching for my bunt pan.