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Country Girl

There was a little... miscommunication, shall we say? regarding the dates of my upcoming travel. Thankfully it was resolved before my brother went to the airport at 5 this morning to pick me up from a flight I was not on.

Contrary to popular belief, I am not currently in California.

Also contrary to popular belief, I am more nervous about this trip than I really ought to be.

I've not travelled much on an airplane. Road trips? I know and love, even despite getting sucked into the Cantwell Vortex. I hardly blink an eye at a last-minute, six-hour road trip.

But all of my airplane trips -- save one from Fairbanks to Anchorage -- have been with other people, usually chaperone-type people.

I am often reminded of my country-bumpkin upbringing: a teeny hick town in Alaska as far as one can get away from civilization while still being connected to a road system.

Public transportation confuses me, and I just recently learned that highways Outside have a rhyme and a reason to they way they are numbered. In Alaska, we have a different reason for numbering our highways: the first highway is number 1, the second highway is number 2.

I worry about gettling lost in large cities. Perhaps sillier, I worry about getting lost in airports.

Intellectually I know that there are plenty of signs and the best way to find my way out of the airport is to Follow The Crowd, but there are tons of people in airports. Perhaps more than the number of people in my hometown.

What if the Crowd doesn't head toward the security point for me to get Out? What if I follow the wrong Crowd? What if I don't see Damon and end up crying in front of a million strangers? What if I miss the one sign I need to read because of being so overwhelmed by all of the other signs I don't need to read?

I get visual overload in WalMart, people. WalMart overwhelms me.

This is the point where my mother would say, "I never would have tought you would be so funny like this. You were always so confident! Then you got to college, and... what happened?"

Thankfully, Damon will be at the airport (and he had better be there, dammit, because there is NO WAY IN HELL I will let him live it down if he makes me find my own way from the Airport to his apartment) (hint: pain, man, lots of pain) (also, I don't even know where he lives. Me to cab driver: "Um, could you take me to my brother's little apartment in Tracy? It's right downtown, five minutes from the Thai restaurant and a block from the dry bean festival. He'll totally pay the fare.") to meet me at the sercurity checkpoint and walk me to baggage claim while holding my hand.

And carrying my luggage. Because, dude. Don't be an ass.