It’s The Getting There That I Hate

I like to visit places, but I don’t like the traveling it takes to get there.

This past weekend, I took the train to Chicago and then hopped a cab to the hotel for Cubs Con. Now, driving to Chicago, I don’t mind. Last year I drove and stayed in the hotel and all was groovy. Not knowing where I’m going sometimes gets me riled, but most of the time, I breeze right through it. But taking the train and taking a cab, that makes it more of a trip. Control has been wrenched from me. I now have no control over when I make it to town. I have to rely on someone I don’t know to drive me to the hotel and then pay them for it. It raises my level of anxiety.

Airplanes are no better. I’m impatient. When I get on and sit down, everyone else needs to sit the hell down, and the show needs to get on the road. Or in the air, as the case may be. Same when we land. Get your shit and get off the plane. It shouldn’t take you twenty minutes to get together your shit. It didn’t take that long to stow it, dammit. And God help the world if I ever get on one of those planes that get stuck on a tarmac for more than twenty minutes. There will be blood.

Once I’m in the air or on the train, I’m good. I plug in my music (or in the case of flying, I prefer cartoons), read or write, and mostly relax.

Once the plane lands or the train pulls in, the anxiety comes back and doesn’t abate until I get to the hotel. Once I’m at the hotel and get through the whole checking in process and get to the room, I’m good to go again. And while I’m there doing whatever I came to do, I have a great time.

The anxiety starts all over again when it comes time to go home, starting with the checking out process.

I admit it. I’m kind of a bratty traveler. I’m not bratty to the other travelers (usually), but I feel kind of sorry for anyone traveling with me. It’s kind of like entertaining and reassuring a two-year old (hence the need for cartoons while flying). My tantrums are quiet ones and I can be quite short with people and I might murder the other passengers in my mind many times over, but for the most part, I’m kind of a whiny handful.

Traveling on my own, there’s nobody to wrangle me, so I’m on my own to behave myself.

By the time you read this, my trip will be over. But I’m typing it up the Thursday before. So you won’t know if I survived (or got arrested) until tomorrow’s post, I suppose, because I should be writing it today.

If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow, start getting together the bail money.