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Why Mama always said to be sure and wear clean undies

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Well, my time in Charleston is coming to an end, and without any blog worthy stories. We had a wonderful trip, and I considered for a moment, asking my parents to travel with me on a regular basis, (they are retired, you know), as they seemed to keep things “normal”. But then I realized, without crazy stories, this blog would have to die before it gets started, so I’ll continue to fly solo for now.

But, in honor of Charleston, I decided to drag a couple oldies but goodies out of storage from my previous time in South Carolina, to share with you. There were two that were both so good, I couldn’t choose, so you get a “two-fer”.

A couple years ago, I was traveling to SC on a regular basis. On one of these trips I had the pleasure of flying out of the Greenville airport. This airport is one of those airports that you can show up for your flight 30 min before it leaves and still be ok.

And one of those airports that does not have TSA pre-check.

So I find myself in the regular security line. With all those people who do not travel often. Directly in front of me are two such people, in the form of the Two Lovely Ladies.

These Two Lovely Ladies are possibly nervous about flying, and have quite obviously been spending quite a few hours at the one and only airport bar. And have been knocking back quite a few adult libations.

In fact, I would have hazarded a guess that their actual flight may have left several days before, and they forgot to get on it and just continued to drink. Needless to say, here they were now. Well hydrated. In the security line. In front of me.

Both of these Lovely Ladies, in addition to the strong alcoholic cloud,  were toting very large bags through said security line.

Now, despite all of these factors, I really was not paying much attention to The Lovely Ladies. Until they decided to start unpacking their bags.

In the middle of the security line.

Anyone who travels on a regular basis, or for that matter, has even taken a flight even once in your life, knows this is not how things are done.

All the business travelers lucky enough to be in this security line, at this moment, are all exchanging glances and secretly fuming that this is going to ruin their personal best time of 1 min and 37 seconds to clear security.

Suddenly, Lovely Lady #1 swings around to me, gives me a quick once over and says,

“You look like you travel quite a bit”

Me: “Ummm…. Yes. A bit”

Lovely Lady #1 shoves a gallon sized bottle of perfume under my nose and says,

“Do you think they’ll let this through?”

Me: “Ummm… I’m pretty sure it needs to be 3 ounces or less”

Now Lovely Lady #2 spins around to me, holding her own gallon jar of perfume.

“Mine’s only half full. Do you think that will be ok?”

Now, I’m quickly doing math in my head, and I’m pretty sure half a gallon is still over 3 ounces, so I say,

“Ummm…. No. I still think that’s too big”

This causes the Two Lovely Ladies to hold a quick sidebar, which I, unfortunately, cannot hear. But they must decide to chance it, because suddenly everything is off the floor, back in the large bags, and we are continuing to move forward.

I assume all is well, and the worst is over.

Until we get within one person of the belt.

And the body scanner.

Suddenly, Lovely Lady #1 whirls back to face me, points at the body scanner, and says,

“Do we all have to go through that?”

Me: “Ummm… Yes”

Let me pause for a moment here to state that both our Lovely Ladies are clad in nearly identical, somewhat skimpy, sundresses and flip flops.

Lovely Lady #1 throws a rather apprehensive glance at the scanner, then turns back to me and says in a very loud stage whisper,

“But I’m not wearing any underwear!”

I blinked at her for a second or two, then I just couldn’t resist.

Me: ” I don’t think it matters. It has X-ray vision”

Somehow both our Lovely Ladies made it through security.

Their perfume bottles were not so lucky.

 

Stay tuned tomorrow for the second of the Souh Carolina memoirs.

Getting bit by a fresh water shark is harder than you’d think

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Thanks to TL and N, (names have been abbreviated to protect the guilty) I got to spend the weekend at Camp.

After talking to one of my non- New England friends, I have realized that “camp” may need some defining. I thought it was obvious, but evidently some people think it is a place people go to play musical instruments. Or to shed several pounds.

They would be wrong.

While there would be no reason musical instruments could not be included at Camp, the shedding of pounds will most definitely not happen. The exact opposite is much more likely.

Camp is a house on the water used mainly in the summer. It is a wonderful place to spend beautiful summer days reading books on the wharf, kayaking, playing cards or swimming off the boat. In other words, relaxing. It is heaven.

And when you spend the weekend at Camp with the right people, there are always lots of laughs.

There was an argument about my hair. Which I’m pretty sure I won. It is my hair after all. But TL was quite adamant I had been bald well into my teenage years. Or at least until I was 6. I happen to know baldness is something I am not likely to suffer from. I have a lot of hair. I learned this on several occasions when brushes have been lost trying to untangle it.

This required a call to my mother. Who at first said indeed I had been bald. But after further interrogation, conceded it may, in fact, have been my sister. So, like I said. I’m almost 98.9% sure I won that argument.

There was an afternoon of teaching N to play cribbage.

N is a hustler.

TL and I have both played cribbage for years. We played a few games to show N the ropes and help her catch up with us. I feel I need to point out here that I beat TL quite easily in all these games. Not because this is at all relevant to the story. But just because I want to rub it in.

But back to N being a hustler. During these learning sessions, she seemed to be quite confused and had a lot of questions. We thought maybe her playing a hand or two herself would be helpful.

So she played each of us. And beat us both.

Hustler.

I have no problem shamelessly tapping into beginners luck, however. This afternoon N and I teamed up for team cribbage and Canasta. When you are on the winning end of hustling, I can’t say it seems so bad. We are still undefeated.

And we took the boat out to the middle of the lake, moored ourselves to it, to prevent us losing it, and swam. It was lovely. And while I tried very hard to get bit by a fresh water shark in order to have an entertaining story to share with my friends, I was unsuccessful. Mostly because I’ve been told fresh water sharks do not exist. I am still skeptical. But I gave it my best shot.

I hope TL and N will invite me back at some point so I can give it another try.

 

Always close toilet lid when blow drying hair

My 30,000 foot view7 Comments

One of the perks of traveling every week is the plethora of stories you are bound to accumulate. Maybe I am lucky enough to accumulate more than your average bear, but I don’t seem to be able to leave the house without something story -worthy happening. So thanks to my wonderful friends who have said I need to write a book someday, I decided I needed a place to recored these many vignettes, since my memory isn’t what it used to be.

And maybe it can be mildly entertaining for these said friends (you know who you are) at the same time.

My first observation is that trying to start a blog over free airport wi-fi may not be the wisest of choices. I did have over an hour before my flight which I, wrongly it turns out, assumed would be plenty  of time to figure out how to start a blog and write my first post. If my flight had not been delayed, I would not even have had enough time to finish setting up my blog, with the inter stellar speeds of airport wi-fi.

But of course my flight is delayed. Because it’s New York. And it’s my travel luck. And I might actually die of shock if one of my flights actually left and arrived as scheduled.

I am in the middle of a month long trip with multiple locations and activities. Now, I am not exactly a “light packer” on the best of days, so packing light for a month long trip is not going to happen. On a normal week, I need a separate bag for my shoes alone. And then I’m in NYC. How do you spend any time here and not accumulate more stuff?

You just don’t.

I may have had to sit on my bag to zip it for this 10 day leg of this trip.

And I may have been lucky to have a bag check agent who looked the other way when the scale hit 50 pounds and kept going.

One of the “things” I have accumulated on this trip to NYC, is a new blow dryer. Not because I needed a new blow dryer when I left home a week ago, or because I forgot to pack said dryer.

No. Because I had not learned how important closing the toilet lid while blow drying one’s hair is.

Hotel bathrooms are small. This is not news. Everything is very close to everything else. This makes multi tasking relatively easy.

And I am a great multi-tasker.

Except when I am blow drying my hair.

With my hair about half dry, I realized I didn’t have my brush. Which was in my bag just outside the door. So I set the blow dryer on the edge of the sink, which was, of course, right next to the toilet.

I did not feel like turning the blow dryer off was a necessary step to take and would only slow down the multi-tasking.

And I watched as my blow dryer vibrated right off the sink. And into the toilet. Whose lid was not closed.

An important point to make here, is that the blow dryer-amazingly- did not short out, spark and stop running. Indeed it did not. It kept running. In the toilet.

So now I am faced with how to get a still running blow dryer, out of water. I have read the huge warning tags on my blowdryer. There is a risk of electrical shock and death when water and blow dryers meet. Neither of these were in my plan for the week.

I grabbed the blowdryer by the middle of the cord- far away from the plug or the actual dryer- and lifted it out of the toilet. It continued to run, and now began spitting all the water it had sucked up out of both ends. All over the bathroom floor.

Now I am holding a drowned, running blowdryer, standing in several inches of water.
And still no electrical shock or death. It must have been my lucky day.

I decided it may be pushing my luck slightly, to try to plug this blow dryer back in and hope it would still work, after surviving all of this.

So this is how I ended up with a new blowdryer in NYC.

And what has led me to share this tip with you. Always close the toilet lid when blow drying your hair.

More to come from this trip I am sure.