If I thought my luck had changed, yesterday was the perfect reminder of why I friggin’ hate flying. Actually, the flying part is not so bad, but there’s something about actually getting to the flying part that I seem to have lots of trouble with. Sometimes it’s weather, sometimes it’s missing crew members. Sometimes it’s six hours on the tarmac for no real reason at all. Yesterday, it was bad brakes. The brakes on the plane were broken. As in, had we taken off, you’d have seen our landing on the news. And as exciting as all that sounds, I don’t want my fifteen minutes of fame to consist of local TV broadcast hysterics. So, we didn’t take off and I got to spend five fun-filled hours in the international terminal of the DFW airport listening to screetching children and (totally not kidding) watching an old man dig stuff out from under his toenails.

The moral of this story is, if you see me waiting for your flight, you’re not going anywhere. Except maybe Chicago, where you’ll be diverted for an overnight stay in a Comfort Inn & Suites. 

The best part is, it only got more colorful in the air. My seatmate, a hairdresser in his late twenties, was clearly tweaking. With jerks and stutters, he handed me an ear bud so I could share some tunes after which he launched into a heartwarming tale of Why Gay People Make the World Just Really Uncomfortable.

“You know?” he said, scratching the heart tattoo on the side of his neck.

“No,” I said. “I really don’t.”

I searched for a name tag one hundred percent certain he was some kind of bigot missionary, flying the friendly skies, recruiting for the cause. Not a bigot? Join us! We throw great parties. The conversation was less the confortable, but I told myself just to go with it. Why not? It might be worth the entertainment value. But just as I was about to ask for a take-home tract on how to hate your neighbors, he got to the part in the story that referenced the size of his penis.

“I’m a big guy,” he explained. “I mean, I’m big all over..”

At which point he raised his eyebrows and nodded in the general vicinity of his crotch.

“So I just, you know, put it out there and I’m like, in the bathroom of a GAY BAR and it’s all mirrors everywhere and the GAY DUDES are all like, STARING at me.”

Having had enough of colorful for the day, I gave the tweaker a sheepish smile, excused myself and pretended to fall asleep. Next time, I’m totally going to pretend not to speak English.

This weekend, my sister came up from Austin for a visit and we did lots of important things like watch The Princess Bride, lounge by the pool, and eat stuff not sanctioned by the American Heart Association. A hard knock life, I tell you. And even after she and her boyfriend drove off on Sunday, I carried on the noble tradition of sloth and gluttony with a nap, fajitas, and a viewing of Up* – all in all, a  fine, fine beginning to Birthday Week Oh Nine. 

Yesterday morning, I got out of bed at the normal time (ok, let’s not pretend that 5:55 is normal, but it’s the current standard), put on my workout clothes, sat down on the couch to put on my shoes… and woke up at 7:15. The best part is, I was sleeping so hard that the cat was curled up on my lap taking a snooze. One big happy! Anyway, I don’t have to tell you that starting off like that doesn’t make the best day. It took a good forty minutes at work for that Just Awoke from a Six Year Coma feeling to wear off. I just sat at my desk feeling spacey and disoriented, sipping coffee and typing and retyping the same words over and over because seriously, is it really i before e except after c? because that just looks wrong. Then things proceeded to get awesomer and awesomer with a dead battery and the flaky maintenance man not showing up again and computer viruses and such, that we were forced (forced!) to medicate with margaritas, mexican food and Johnny Depp. Which brings me to:

By some crazy miracle, I found a spot on the ground floor of the parking garage and pulled in. The thermometer on the dash read 105 and the scowl on my face read What the hell, Texas. I’d had the air vents trained on my head and neck since I left the apartment and the idea of stepping out into the heat, even to make a mad dash to the shiny glass doors at the mall, sent a drop of sweat rolling racing for my butt crack. It’s a good thing I’m stubborn, because had I not been on a very specific mission, I’d have stayed in that car until the gas ran out. I do not do butt sweat.

But, as the elastic on the strapless bra I was wearing was about six years past its prime (I’m pretty sure I remember wearing it to a Fourth of July barbecue in Boston in 2001), I’d decided it was high time to take that boulder holder out to the barn and give it the Old Yeller treatment. Out with the old, in with the Buy One Get One 50% Off. I won’t lie, Macy’s is making this recession exciting.

I got sidetracked only once. Passing by the Junior’s Department, I sought to rectify a sin of omission. The other day, I realized I must be the only woman in the whole free world who doesn’t own a maxi dress. But right then I discovered there’s a reason I don’t own a maxi dress. Not. Flattering. The magic of the maxi dress seems to be a whole lot of fabric bringing a whole lot of attention to the least attractive areas of my body. When I do finally find a dress that highlights my cheek bones and shiny hair, I will buy it in every color. But as for the maxi, well, I took my pear shape and beat it out of there as fast as I could.

In the intimates department, a smiling Eastern European woman (let’s call her Magda) pulled out the measuring tape and some advice to make sure I didn’t leave that place with a lemon. You know how they say that nearly every woman on the face of the planet is wearing the wrong size bra, and how every episode of Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style shows some hapless femme in a 36B given the beautiful gift of learning she’s actually a 32C? Yeah, not me. No magical extra cup size intervention here. I’m still a 34B. And now I’m a 34B who owns two very nice strapless bras that pass Magda’s Flip Test.

“Go like zees,” she said, bending at the waist. “And if zey don’t fleep out, it fits!” I laughed as Magda explained that she’d once wore a bra that did not pass the Flip Test. That’s what I call taking one for the team.

At the register, while keeping one eye on the TV monitor in the corner and another on my purse, I learned two things in rapid succession. I sent out an SOS text.

Sarah Palin resigned, and I lost my keys in Macy’s. One of these things is bad.

Palin was on the TV, but my keys were not in the dressing room, or next to the clearance rack I’d ransacked. Not even in the compartments in my purse they usually are when I “lose” my keys. I knew they were really for real lost  – downstairs in the Junior’s Department, among the maxi dresses that made me look like a boa constrictor who’d just swallowed a goat.

I’m telling you, I almost let them stay lost.

Ah, the travel bug. As far as recurring afflictions go, this one is a gnarly beast. It sneaks up on me, slowly, over a few months or so when regular life is plodding along and the things I’ve put in the Looking Forward To column are far away and a little less than grandiose. Like, the work trip to Vegas in a few weeks. It’s Vegas! But it promises to be hot and schmoozy – two things I can manage with any amount of grace for very short periods of time. Disney World and all its awesomeness is all the way in December, which, because I am six, is too many months away to seem real.

It’s probably a good thing I let my passport expire.