Blood, Sweat, and Wet Pants

My spring travel season started last week and I am pleased that my level of awkward encounters is rivaling the extreme episodes that took place last fall. I began my spring journey with my traditional struggle though the revolving doors at the airport and I managed to successfully make it all the way to Charlotte, NC without being an embarrassment to my family. Unfortunately I had a three hour layover and I should have known that my cell phone and my good luck would both eventually run out of battery life. I always plan my trips in a fashion that forces me to eat dinner in airports. I pretend to be upset about having to eat fast food or a “lunchable” from the magazine stand, but secretly, it is my favorite part about traveling. Maybe because my parents always insisted on packing mushed up peanut butter sandwiches and stale crackers for family trips. If I ever have children, I will be a little more considerate of their stomachs. Lunch is one of the top 3 more important meals of the day. As I got off the airplane, I went on a search for the perfect dinner time snack and eventually I settled with a BBQ sandwich and a huge bottle of water. I celebrated adulthood and the fact that mom had not picked my meal . I knew that BBQ was a bad idea considering my history of elegance and grace and that mom would have been correct by picking a cleaner option. I was feeling particularly courageous though, and to my surprise, I survived the entire sandwich without smudging any sauce onto my cleanish white shirt. The water bottle however put up an unexpected battle. I was sitting at my terminal and directly next to middle aged man with incredibly thick glasses. I removed the plastic wrap from the tip of the water bottle and I was eager to lift the nozzle and enjoy the watery greatness inside. When I gripped my fingers around the pullup nozzle though, I couldn’t seem to pull it open. Determined not to let the water bottle to get the better of me and ruin my good spirits, I placed the bottle under my right armpit to free both of my hands, allowing them to work as a team to pull the nozzle of the wretched bottle. Just then, in the peak of my struggle, I noticed the arrows on the top of the water bottle, signaling me to twist the cap up instead of the vertical pull I have been failing at for the last five minutes. Excited that I had finally cracked the code, I twisted the nozzle open quickly, forgetting that I was still squeezing the bottle with my armpit. I watched as my water squirted out of the bottle and covered the nearly blind man next to me. I think everyone has been a victim of a bad case of the giggles in an inappropriate time, but it happens to me a lot. Uncomfortable in silence, I often break into laughter in churches and hospital waiting rooms. This is one of the reasons I make a reasonable effort to avoid both of those locations. Anyways, as the blind man looked at me in fury, in search for a non-bladder related explanation for why his khakis and graph paper gridded shirt were suddenly wet, I broke into uncontrollable laughter. I tried to give a heartfelt and sincere apology for spraying him, but the harder I concentrated of holding a straight face, the more theatrical my giggles grew. As tears were rolling down my cheeks and snorts were escaping my nose, I decided it best to just leave the situation. I gathered my belongings and moved to the other side of the terminal and prayed that that man would sit next to me on the plane. Welcome back travel season, I have missed you!