Planes, Cabs and Revolving Doors

I'm a little tempted to write about how Republican I'm feeling today (and for me it could go either way on any given day). Or about how Nancy Pelosi needs to go to a collegiate sorority rush workshop to learn how to stop talking at the appropriate time in a conversation. But, that would potentially upset us.

So, instead, I will discuss my most embarrasing moment/worst travel story. January 1998 and I am on a plane coming back from spending Christmas in Japan with my father. That in and of itself is a long story which I will sum up by saying that he was teaching there and yes, my parents are and always have been, married. I was a bit...emotional...when I boarded the plane. Truth be told, I couldn't see for the tears and missed that there were two entrances to the plane and if you went in the wrong one, you were basically screwed. Of course I went in the wrong one and had to wait with a very patient Japanese stewardess until everyone in the entire plane was seated and I could walk around the plane and scootch past knees and apologize for my big American self and finally get my seat. Which was, of course, approximately 4 millimeters from the bathroom and 6 centimeters from the galley. And was directly beside an older (and very stoic looking) Japanese woman who was obviously taken aback by my snorts, sobs and gasps of saddness over not being able to see my father for months to come. Obviously, she did not come from a very "emotive" family.

Shortly before take-off, an American stewardess comes flying out of the galley with a big ol' pitcher of OJ for the first class passengers (which I was definitely NOT) and runs into a toddler in the aisle and spills the entire pitcher all over me. It's in my hair. It's on my clothes. It's in my shoes. I'm stuck on the plane for however many God-awful hours it takes to get oneself from Japan to New York. Not. Good.

Somewhere over some ocean, I fall asleep (smelling like a long night of screwdrivers). It's freakin' freezing on the plane. I was wearing my Clemson class ring on my ring finger. It's already loose and the below freezing temperature only shrinks my finger further. I wake to find the ring gone. It is never recovered and the b^@tch of a stewardess refuses to make an announcement, insisting that I will find it in my things. I don't.

Upon our arrival in Detroit, I am stopped by security. I am carrying a symbolic New Years arrow (no point on it- just a feather thing on the end of a stick). I am a security risk and must not be let on an airplane without relinquishing the "weapon" and being questioned. I blame the OJ for making me look "unstable."

Finally, I arrive in New York City. I am spending the night there and will catch a flight to SC the next day. I am starving. I am exhausted. I am lonely. I look like a homeless person. I stink.

I catch a cab to my hotel. When we arrive (at 1AM), the cabbie unloads my bags onto the curb but, understandably does not care to leave his cab on the street while he helps me into the hotel. I had not yet learned the virtue of "packing light" and had souveneirs and gifts and Christmas presents to boot. I had some bags. Lots and lots of bags.

I schlep myself, laden with luggage to the hotel entrance. Only to find... revolving doors. In my defense, the sidewalk was darker than you would wish a NYC sidewalk to be at 1AM and the only doors I see are revolving ones. I did all a girl could do. I loaded my bags into the first pie wedge, shoved the door a little, loaded myself and a bag or two more into the second pie wedge (did you really think I would leave my bags on the sidewalk?!) and shove on in.

And get stuck.

Ten minutes later, I am still stuck in a damn revolving door, grossing myself out from my own stink, trying not to imagine what I must look like, trying to yell to the bellboys some direction that might be helpful in getting me out. Tourists have stopped on the street outside and are shoving from their side of the door, which unfortunately, only served to wedge a suitcase strap even more firmly between the door and the frame. Reinforcements (more bellboys, and perhaps even their leader) are called in. I am freed.

The head bellboy asks me after I literally fly out the other side why I didn't go in "there." Off to the side of the building, big as life, there is a "normal" door. I blame the OJ.

I remember very little of the check-in procedure. Just that the staff yanked my bags from me as soon as I popped out and I didn't see them again until I entered my room. I don't think they thought I could be trusted with them. I summoned what pride I had left (precious little) and gimp up to my room. Did I mention that my shoe heal was chipped at this point?

My mother suggests when I finally call her from my room that I might feel better if I shower and then go have something to eat. I reply that I have already showered but if she thinks I am leaving my room for any reason at all before the next staff change, she has lost her mind.

The next day, I enjoy an enormous breakfast in the restaurant, recognizing no one from the night before. I proceed on my merry (and uneventful) way to Columbia, SC.

To this day, I still hate orange juice and revolving doors. Ask The Scientist.