I don't travel for work. I have friends that do. I don't.

I did do a little trav

elling for one of my jobs, maybe 10 years or so, maybe a little longer. I think
I flew twice for work.
One time I, alone, flew to Arlington Virginia for work. Did some network wiring
for them, set up a router and a few other little things. They were gracious enou
gh to let me wander around and get to see some of the war memorials. Seeing thos
e is a whole other story, I'll save that for another time.
The other time I traveled, we flew to Dayton Ohio. We being myself and my co-wor
ker John. He was friggan smart guy and excellent with computers. Very detail ori
ented. I rode his coattails for a while at that job.
On the flight back we had a storm delay our flight. I remember sitting in the ai
rport for a couple of hours while waiting for the flight to land. We caught that
flight and then had to swap over. If I remember right the first flight was a sm
all jump to a larger airport, and it was there that we were dashing for our flig
ht back to Boston.
Where was I.. oh yeah the storm and the layover. It was a small jet, 2 seats on
eah sie, so rows of 4 maybe 60 people? We're standing there with our carry-ons,
because this was a 3 day trip, and we are standing out on the tarmac they're ref
ueling the jet, you can smell the aviation fuel.
I hear this noise, a *chk* *chk* *chk* noise. A woman standing next to John is t
rying to light a cigareete. I poke him, "hey, dude she's trying to kill us." Joh
n, always much better at phrasing things than i was, tells the woman she's going
to blow us all up. She stops her attempt to kill us all.
We boarded the plane, i read a book about a marine that threw himself onto a gre
nade, saved everyone, but he dies. That's kind of grim to drop into the middle o
f a plane travelling story, but too late to take it back, anyway...
We hop off this plane race for the next one. We can see the door and the airline
lady closes it. It closed with a thud. It made a thud that had a finality you o
nly hear in movies. Like when they sealed indiana jones down with the snakes. ye
ah, that kinda noise.
Airline lady says no more allowed on the plane. once that door is closed, no mor
e people. The woman next to us throws a shit fit. She cries, says that she's goi
ng to miss her daughter's wedding, which of course, I believed, because you alwa
ys travel the night before with only minutes to spare before your daughters wedd
ing. I believed her 100%.
They tell us they'll put us up for the night and we're out on a 7am flight the n
ext morning. They say there'll be a courtesy van picking us up and taking us to
a hotel, should be here shortly. this is about 10pm. Why is that important? beca
use afer 90 minutes we're still outside waiting. Sure we went in and talked to t
he flight people several times, still, after 90 minutes, still no van. gripe gri
pe gripe, they have someone show up. It's a little old man, who I'm sure, they h
ad to wake up to come get us.
He drives us to the hotel. We get checked in and have to walk through the bar to
get to the elevators. John grabs a table and I go to the bar and order him a be
er and myself something a bit stronger. The bartender looks at me and says, "las
t call was 5 minutes ago".
I blink stupidly, I don't understand what he's saying, that was moonspeak. he mi
ght as well have said it in Greek for all the comprehension I was having at that
moment. My brain had litterely stopped functioning for a few seconds. No alchoh

ol? no one could be that cruel.

I must've looked absolutely pathetic, because he said, "ok, what do you want?" i
ordered two of each. The poor bastard must've thought I was about to burst into
tears on him. Which I was. There's a time and a place for eveything. Pitching a
fit over missing a flight is not the place. Missing last call by minutes is. I
didn't, but I would have. We got our drinks.
They provide us with a room for the night and we head out the next morning. Gues
s who's there next morning? Shit fit lady. Who they got bumped up to frist class
. Whatever, she can cry up there.