I travel a lot.  I'm not a military brat; I don't move around so I've had seventeen homes in as many years.  I just have very spread out family and a dad with lots of frequent flyer miles.  I'm currently sitting in an airport terminal, fidgeting to make sure my butt doesn't fall asleep (it isn't working) and fighting for the remainder of my sanity.  It's about eight in the morning (I know, it's not early.  just keep reading) but I left California at ten thirty last night.

Because I travel a lot, I've become a master of airplane sleep.  I just pull down my shades (oh yeah, sunglasses indoors at night.  I'm a BAMF) shove my headphones into my ears, and I'll nod off in a few minutes.  However, I'm convinced that the government has released a federal mandate that there MUST be a wailing child on every single airplane.  Not just the airplanes with ME on them; I'm not that paranoid (yet).

Generally, a wailing child that I could probably drop kick out of the plane isn't a problem.  Remember those headphones buried in my ears?  Crank up the volume of the stupid songs (probably Disney.  Yes, I know, I have the musical sophistication of a four year old) to drown out the screams.  Well, my usual medium of music is my computer, because my IPod is nonexistent, and the music over the airplane radio is crap.

You know how the airplane staff give you drinks?  sometimes they give you a can of whatever, sometimes they pour it into a cup FULL of ice.  Side note: who really needs that much ice?  It's overkill.  They could save so much money by not putting as much ice in the cups.

Back to my point.  Sometimes they give you the can, sometimes they give you the ice with a splash of soda, and sometimes they give you both.  As you might be able to guess, I find the cup o' ice extraneous, so I ignore it and chug the caffeinated beverage straight from the can.  However, after a while, that cup o' ice turns into a cup o' very cold water.

I had plugged in my music, pulled my BAMF shades down, and was half asleep when the cup o' very cold water decided that it didn't think life was worth living anymore, and jumped off my little tray table.

Straight into my lap.  

I know, right?  What a jerk.  Well, the cup didn't really jump into my lap, but it gave a valiant try.  It sort of toppled over, but the end result was the same thing.  I looked like I had peed my pants, and I swear, that hasn't happened in a very long time.  At LEAST a year.  Kidding, I haven't peed my pants since diapers.  I swear.  Seriously.

Anyway...my computer also happened to be resting on the table that suddenly turned into a small swimming pool.  Because I'm a teenager, I immediately thought to save my computer, and stowed it in my backpack at my feet.

Well there goes my music.  That kid was still wailing, and she wouldn't stop for a VERY long time.

Wait, that's not true. She stopped very often, and I would breathe a sigh of relief.

'Silence,' I would think, 'Finally!'  and I would start to fall asleep again.  Then my ears would get raped by this unearthly scream.  Honestly, I think whoever first encountered a banshee really just ran into an angry kid.  This process happened over and over and over and o...you see hwere this is going.  On a four hour flight, I got twenty minutes of very bad sleep...and this was a red eye.

Oh well, I'm not at my final destination.  I should be fine.  Catch a few 'z's on my next flight, and I'll land in tiptop shape.

Riiiiight.  First, I had to survive long enough to get on the plane, and it's looking very doubtful that will happen.

I sat down on the floor next to a trashcan because the seats next to the outlet were taken, and started internetting and stuff.  All was well until it was about 7:30 (I landed at about six AM) then a bunch of flights started boarding, all within 15 minutes of each other.  Three different women, all with some sort of thick accent, started repeating the same useless information over and over and over and ov...do I need to keep going?

I can deal with twenty minutes of sleep.  I can deal with wet shorts.  I can deal with heavily accented women telling me things I already know.

I can't deal with all of them at once.  I've been smashing my head into the trash can next to me for the past ten minutes.  I've got a big red mark.  It hurts.  A lot.  I'm fighting to keep from breaking down in the middle of the airport, because it was really embarrassing the first time.

The Day that Never Ends (It goes on and on my friends and if you...)

So, I went to Summerfest yesterday.  Summerfest is one of the biggest music festivals in the world, and it just started this week.  I went to see Civil Twilight and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and I left with two and a half albums, and an extra shirt, and I was there for about seven hours.  As you might expect, I sit in front of my computer most days, so standing and walking for seven hours is...painful.

Honestly, the small bones in the bottom of my feet felt like they had bent from straight lines into something resembling a squished spider.  Afterwards, as I got my weight off of my mangled feet, I contemplated a way to get out of ever having to walk again.  I've been reading science fiction lately, so I starting contemplating the classic jetpacks.  Y'know, the backpack that lets you fly?  But, I tossed the idea aside, mostly because I am not science-minded, and therefore have no real idea as to how to create an accessory that has the means to overcome gravity, and a fuel source for said means, and be light and stylish enough that people will want to buy it.

Yea, I totally plan on making money for this stuff.

So, I threw away the jetpack idea because there was absolutely NO WAY that I could make it work.  Instead, I turned to the black arts.  What if I could cast a long-lasting and controllable levitation spell?  That would certainly fit the bill, and it looks cool to boot.  Unfortunately, I am not a mage, or a druid, so I can't actually defy gravity for more than a second or two.

But wait...I can create energy by sucking it from the souls of young law students.  What if...no...it couldn't work...yes it could...YES!!!  A plan has come into being inside the cookie masquerading as my brain!

Step 1: use my magicks (Yes, I did try to make it look cooler by adding a 'k') to create a sustainable energy source about the size of a tennis ball.
Step 2: secure said energy source into a metal container, and pass it off as science.
Step 3: hire a bunch of smart guys to build the rest of the jetpack.
Step 4: sell it at Summerfest and make a killing
Step 5: Retire young and buy a castle in Scotland with lots of really cool secret passageways.

Yep, this'll be awesome.  I stayed up all night concocting this plan and stealing the souls of people in law school, and got no sleep after my full day the day before.  I came out of my basement at a normal time, looking like a teenager that had just had about eight hours of sleep.  In other words, I looked half-asleep.  I went through the day normally (read 'normally' as 'lazing around on the couch') ate dinner yada yada yada.  Then came the airport.

I am bound for California, because the energy pouring from the San Andreas fault is the perfect cooking spot to create my little ball of explosions, and I got on the plane at eight in the evening.  We took off quickly, and about half an hour in, the pilot talked on his little speaker system.

"It appears that the wing is about to fall off.  We're probably going to have to make an emergency landing.  Most of you will probably die.  Have a nice day."

Okay, so that's not exactly what he said, but we needed to turn around.  We landed, back where we started, and some people in jumpsuits and armed with flashlights and duct tape came to look at the injured wing.

"So, ya," imagine a Fargo accent, "You guys are gonna have to get on another plane because this one won't fly.  However, the boys up top say that you have to wait until tomorrow morning, and we're having a whole lot of trouble finding hotels.  Good luck!"  

I had a really bad feeling that the souls of the lawyers that were nesting somewhere in my father's nose (only place I could put them without him noticing) were really pissed at me, and used their cosmic powers to screw me over.

But ha!  I got a hotel room!  One point for me!  However, it is midnight, and my plane leaves at eight in the morning, which means I have to leave the hotel before six.

Yea, I think the lawyers win this round.