A Few Random Thoughts

Sometimes I really just like having fun in my car.  Every now and then, if I have an errand to run after work or something, I'll take a back way home that keeps me away from the freeway and on a much less crowded and more windy road.  There's one particular part of the road where I come up over a hill and then the road kind of drops.  If I get going fast enough, I can almost catch a little bit of air.  I'm sure it doesn't look nearly as exciting from the outside as it feels on the inside, and I always feel bad about what I might be doing to my car's shocks, but for the second when I'm flying over that hill, I feel like a movie stunt woman or a race car driver.

I had to leave work early for a dentist appointment a couple days ago.  I kind of thought it'd be fun to wear a suit to work that day and then tell people I was leaving early for a "dentist appointment", just to get a rise out of them (dentist appointments and doctor appointments were the classic cover up for job interviews at Chrysler).  I decided that might be pushing the limits a little too far.

What's the deal with airport bathrooms?  If you've ever traveled alone with half a week's worth of luggage as your carry-on, airport bathrooms are a little preview a what hell might be like.  First of all, you sit there at the gate area trying to decide if you should go before they start boarding the flight.  You decide you probably should.  You hoist your mega-backpack into place and go traipsing to the nearest bathroom.  When you get there, you find out that the stalls are just big enough to stand straight in, but with the backpack on, you can't close the door, turn to either side, or even remove the backpack.  You start thinking maybe you should have just found some trustworthy-looking person to watch your luggage back at the gate, but right then the announcement comes over the loudspeaker that due to heightened security concerns, you should neither leave your luggage with anybody else, nor accept luggage from anybody else.  So even if you had found somebody to watch your luggage, after that announcement, the only people willing to watch it would probably have had some kind of alterior motives.  But as the straps to your backpack swing into the toilet water because there's nowhere else in the stall for them to go when you turn to flush, you think maybe it would have been worth the risk.  And, even though you did your best to do your hair and makeup and arrive at the airport looking like a decent traveler, when you get to the sink to wash your hands, with your backpack dripping toilet water, your hair dishevelled and stuck under the straps, your coat tucked between your legs so you can wash your hands, and the rest of the travelers staring at you like you just crawled out of the toilet, you realize that airport bathrooms were invented to make single travelers rethink ever leaving home.