Confessions of an Irritable Traveler.

If there's one thing I realize about myself, it's that I let little things bother me too much. But I'm hoping that because I realize it that it makes me a better human being. It's better than pretending everyone else has the problem, right?

I was in North Carolina this week attending a conference by my lonesome. Which was fine, no problemo. The problem was, I got antsy. I left for the airport yesterday at 2:00 and I didn't get home until 11:00. In that 8-hour span I must have had 16 mental breakdowns. I was acutely and painfully aware of every annoying thing that was going on around me. I was sitting waiting for my plane picking out the people that I HOPED my seat wasn't next to, most notably the girl with the Whooping Cough who should have been in the hospital, not 10,000 feet in the air. I hated her.

I didn't want to hear the kid in front of me scream, I didn't want to hear the lady behind me crack her gum and smack her lips, I didn't want the person in front of me to lean her seat back in my face, and I didn't want the guy behind me to kick my seat. I wanted to be HOME. And why does it always happen that when you are on that final leg of the trip, the light is at the end of the tunnel, something goes wrong? I was 45 minutes from home, after a 4-hour layover at Detroit Metro, we are all set for take off and the pilot slams on the breaks and the lights go out. As it turns out, we needed to de-ice. So we stopped and waited for 30 minutes while they sent the de-icing machines. Twice. That was it, that was my breaking point. I thought to myself, "What if I just went off right now? What if I just completely unleashed on these people? What would they do?" Well, I probably would have been detained at Detroit's finest prison or mental institution, that's what. I was so worked up and uber tired. My body was so tense and I know I had the world's sourest expression on my face. I was scowling. I think that was the most unpleasant I have ever been.

The most painful realization was that there is nothing I could do about it, I had to find a way to cope. It was both enlightening and disheartening. From now on, direct flights. No more monkeying around.

And since when did they do away with snacks on Northwest Airlines? I had the option to buy Pringles for $2 but I found that appalling and insulting.