shame is so in this season

LAX -> EWR

flight 84 (red eye)...

seat 13 A: hot guy, asleep.
seat 13 B: hot guy, asleep.
seat 13 C: hot guy, asleep.
[aisle]
seat 13 D: self-proclaimed "jersey cowgirl", complete with a leather fringed vest, pink cowboy hat and shih-tzu sidekick - incessantly baby talking to her dog. and to top it off, the damn dog kept growling at my food. my mom packed me a yummy in-flight snack and i couldn't even take it out without that squish-faced flea-ridden under-biting beast jealously drooling in my direction. now i'm normally a sucker for all dogs, but this one was undoubtedly part gremlin.
seat 13 E: an older gentleman with shoulder-length white hair - puts on his bose headphones and quietly polishes his pool cues. takes each piece out of his bag, polishes it, and puts it back. takes another one out, and repeats steps 1-3. over. and over. all the while staring at the seat back in front of him. slightly phallic and totally creepy.
seat 13F: me - ipod out of batteries - uncomfortable and unfortunate.

but that's not all!

finally exiting that hell ride of a flight, i get to the baggage claim and try to call the shuttle service. just my luck - it it's not running from newark, which means that i'm relegated to taking the bus into midtown. whatever - at this point i just want to go home and sleep. so i leave my prime spot at carousel b to buy my bus ticket and come back to find that my perfect corner position has been viciously usurped by a foreign family of fourteen, all of whom apparently needed to stand directly in front of the carousel, flush with the edges, taking up the entire short side of the oval. and they had those stupid carts too.

now if you don't know the etiquette of the baggage claim, this is how it goes: if you're in the front row, you stand approximately 3 feet from the edge of the carousel, allowing for people in the 2nd or 3rd row to swoop in and grab their bags if they see it. people in the 2nd and 3rd rows should stand 3 feet from each other, allowing for maneuverability post first bag acquisition. if your load of luggage requires a cart, there are probably at least two people in your party, so one is designated "getter" and the other is "receiver," who should stand with the cart behind the last row of people. and that, my friends, is how you play the game of life.

but this foreign family of fourteen didn't get the memo. or they did and chose to do the exact opposite of the rules. either way, they made the next 30 minutes of my life total hell. two of the kids were on some sort of whine inducing drugs while the third and youngest one was nursing his can of pepsi like it was the nectar of gods. his mom tried to take it away and he immediately became a screaming banshee. then there were the grandmas, who both insisted on pushing the cart until one of the sons broke up the near cat fight experience. and lastly, the sisters, who could not remember which piece of black luggage was theirs, so they picked up almost all of them and peeked inside the front pockets. it's a good thing that my little green bag wasn't the last one to come off the plane. in fact, it was second to last. yeah, good thing.

an hour in and out of consciousness later, i get home only to find that my roommate's non-boyfriend had puked in the bathroom (a step up from puking on the front door, which is what he stellarly managed to do last time), so the apartment was afoul with the smell of regurgitated shellfish sandwich. i proceed to lock myself in my room and cry myself to sleep.

january 2nd - worst. day. ever.

posted by erica @ 3:19 PM