tired
drarwenchicken carried two small figurines of Ganesha could make one a believer. Every time we had to catch a shuttle somewhere, there’d be one waiting for us at the stop. Our planes left on schedule, and due to favorable conditions, both arrived slightly early. When we got back to Portland, our checked baggage beat us to Baggage Claim by a few seconds. Truly awesome.The only glitch in our travel was on the way back. My new cell-phone holster is leather, but there must be a metal clip inside it. If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have thought to remove the whole thing from my belt, but it triggered the metal detector and won me a free TSA screening. Drarwenchicken sat with my shoes and carry-on bag while a trainer supervised a trainee in the procedure. When they saw me, they must have thought “Oh, good. He’s Harmless,”* as the whole thing felt more like a classroom exercise in the order of the steps than an effort to actually find anything. And while this bit of Security Theater set us back a few minutes, we had plenty of time to get some food before getting on the plane.
I guess there was one other imperfection. As a pregnant person, drarwenchicken is more sensitive to odd smells and aromas. The first hotel room we tried, in Historic Downtown Sonora, was in an old building, and we theorized that room reeked of scented cleaning supplies as an effort to cover up something less friendly. Within a few seconds, drarwenchicken was queasy. Fortunately, the hotel people didn’t seem to take it personally when we said we couldn’t stay there, and we weren’t charged for the minute that we had the room. The second place was farther away, but satisfyingly less aromatic.
If all travel was so easy and pleasant, I could possibly be convinced to do it more often. I might even get a Ganesha figurine or two. Just in case.
*Regular Readers know that I’m more accurately described as “Mostly Harmless,” as both an homage to Douglas Adams, and to acknowledge that I can deliver a potent Disapproving Look when properly provoked.
