Inflight Entertainment

I was on a plane and I was bored with the movies and sleep doesn’t come easily any more, as my mother would say,” too much guilt.” Anyway as part of writing better resolution thing I took at the beginning of the year, I wrote this because there was nothing else to do…

There is something about travelling that I will never understand. Well actually I do understand but I just can’t accept it. Why is it that whenever I pack a bag, it never comes out right?

If you have ever seen the movie the Accidental Tourist there is part in the beginning where the protagonist tells the audience the art to travelling is to carry just one carry-on bag with the minimum of clothing. The best combination will be one jacket and two pants socks, shirts, socks, underwear and a good book or at least a large one that will tell people that you are busy and help keep them away from you.

I used to try that. In fact I was quite good at it. The last time that I went to London I had a small bag with just the right amount of clothing for long week-end. I laughed at my friend when we met at Heathrow We had departed the US from separate cities. He had with him a large almost steamer trunk like wheeled bag and a smaller one that hung from his shoulder. I asked him if he was the one who had actually decided to carry the kitchen sink with him. I hadn’t known at the time that he had decided to buy out half of London and then turn to my credit cards when he had run out on his.

The other thing that I didn’t know was that once I was back at Philadelphia I would be subjected to questioning by customs and immigration and then further questioning by customs and immigration once they took a look at my at my carry-on and told me that it was much too small an amount of luggage for someone to be travelling from Europe with and just what exactly had I been doing there, who with what and when. Of course he irritated me, but I tried not to show it which failed and we both started circling each other as men often do when they want to show whose dick is bigger. When I told another friend what happened, he said that if it had been up to him he wouldn’t have let me back into the country.

So this time I’m heading to Rome for the weekend and I’m writing this on the flight and I’m wondering why is it that this time I have a bag that I thought that I would never be able to fill and yet it is? Why is it that I have so many more things with me than I need but I’m also starting to make a mental list of the things that I forgot to pack or didn’t even think about? I mean really, do I really need to travel with two cameras, lenses, this computer and an iPod. Well in all honesty I don’t go anywhere without the iPod, I’d rather lose a limb than that. And why is it that in a row of four seats in between the two aisles of the plane the woman next to me feels the need to spread herself out and takeover not just hers but both the of other unoccupied seats? Doesn’t she feel or think that I would like a little room too.

Maybe I should just get some sleep before I start to notice the difference between those passengers that are used to flying and those that aren’t. Like that man over in there diagonally across from me as he tries to curl forward on to some sort of flat pillow pressed against the TV screen in the back of the head rest in front of him. Poor fellow probably doesn’t realize that his seat can lean backwards and thus have less chance of a crick in the neck which he will have when he leaves this plane.

This has been more of a ramble than I thought it would have been. Oh well I’ll post this tomorrow when I arrive at the hotel I guess, unless I collapse from exhaustion.