We are home from Denver. We got in last night after a 2 hour flight. Our seats on the plane were at the back so we boarded 30 minutes before scheduled take off! For a person with my hyper characteristics this was not ideal. Not only am Ione of those people who needs to go for a long walk or run before sitting for a long time, I am also the kind of person who has to make sure I pee right before committing to a difficult to "get out of" situation, like the middle seat on an airplane. I did walk around the airport and I did pee before boarding the plane, however, I was belted into my squishy seat 1/2 an hour before departure!!!! I was already uncomfortable just thinking about how awkward it would be if I had to pee before we even took off, are you even allowed to use the latrine while the plane is on the ground? I mean the seatbelt sign is lit up....
I had bought two gossip type magazines in the airport and a sandwhich. I was eager for the plane to get in the air as I wanted to read and eat and I was determined to make myself wait until we were flying before diving into the magazines and the food. This is part of my strategies for making myself sit, if I have stuff to read and snack on, I don't get fidgety as soon as I would if I had NOTHING to do! It seemed like we were sitting on the runway forever with no sign of moving as other passengers continued to file onto the plane. I had already learned that the lady next to me was from Wisconsin and she was flying into Calgary for her daughter's wedding which will be in Banff on Saturday. I learned that she was worried someone would put thier bag on top of hers in the overhead compartment, as she had a wedding veil packed in her bag and didn't want it squished. I had already stood on Marty's knees (he always gets the aisle seat 'cause his legs are longer,) to check the status of the wedding veil bag when I had run out of thing to entertain myself. Then, out of desperation, I checked my "seat pocket" and found...."The Air mall," great, in order to save my juicy gossip reading for the flight I was going to kill time by flipping through the "Air Mall" magazine. Actually this turned out to be pretty entertaining. You should see some of the stuff they try to sell in that thing. I saw a sort of litter box for dogs. It was a tray with fake turf on it to trick your dog into thinking he was peeing ont he lawn. It claimed it could hold several litres of liquid and that it was simple and easy to empty, ewww! There was a "port hole," a glass bubble window, you could attach to your board fence so that your dog could see through to the other side. Are you kidding me? Oh and I can't forget the steps that could be turned into a ramp in order to help older and arthritic dogs climb up into YOUR bed, or onto your couch. What? This "Air Mall" catalogue was proving to be quite amusing, and dare I admit that some of the "inventions" seemed almost tempting, like the telescopic table you could fit into your laptop carrier. This table folds up small enough to fit in your computer bag, but the legs can be stretched out full size so that you can work comfortably on your lap top anywhere, without balancing your computer on your knees, like I am currently doing, so that I can write while sitting in a lawn chair in the sunshine. Still it was 6:08pm and we still hadn't taken off, our original departure time was 5:57pm so I was starting to get anxious and that is when I became "that guy." You know the guy, the guy whom you are sure is trying to read your magazie or book from his own seat. The guy whose eyes you can feel on your page, but when you try to use your peripheral vision to catch him, he diverts his attention? Well, I became that guy. The lady next to me, the one from Wisconsin was reading a book. The book had big print and I could read the title of it across the page that was closest to me, it appeared to be called "Finding Your Inner Fish." Ok, that was interesting, in a wierd enough way, that it peaked my interest. I kept trying to figure out what the hell this book could be about. I glanced down at her page every few minutes and I noticed that one of the chapters was called "fish fingers and wrists." Strange! I knew she could tell I was looking at her book by the way she was glaring at me with her peripherals and by the way she kept turning towards me really fast. I was kind of hoping she would engage me in a conversation about the events in her life that turned her towards a book teaching her to find her "inner fish," but she never did. Eventually our plane started rolling down the runway, she closed her fish book and I dug out my "OK" magazine. The next two hours involved only 2 trips across Marty's knees to the bathroom and the successful cover to cover exploration of Hollywood's finest gossip!