E is for Egregious

“Travel,” they say. “See the world,” they say. See the world, eat the food, speak the words and become a dazzling example of a well-traveled polyglot.

No. Polyglot doesn’t mean someone with a lot of glots.

It means you can talk-talk in many tongues and dazzle your friends at parties.

Travel, I say, is overrated. I’ve traveled. I’ve been yelled at by airport security in many foreign lands and foreign tongues. And frankly, I hate it.

Arriving is nice. I enjoy arriving. Looking at other people’s trees. That’s nice. Although my own trees are quite fine too. But traveling . . .

Traveling is the third circle of hell, especially if you must pass through the purgatory of the Atlanta airport.

On our most recent visit to the third circle of hell . . . oops . . . er . . . I mean the world’s busiest airport our connection was tight. Let me explain, a “connection” is an impossibly short amount of time to both urinate in a toilet and run to the opposite end of the terminals—thus our connection was tight.

So tight, in fact, that we had to slam our way through the throngs of other poor souls milling about in search of a toilet without twelve people waiting in line. We raced for the train/tram/cattle car. It was packed.

My husband fearing that we would miss our connection shoved me onto the already jammed cattle care . . . er . . . um . . . I mean cool, modern, convenient public mode of transportation.

He yelled, “Get on.” And then kicked me forward with his foot.

The doors closed—not rebounding—because they don’t. The voice on the announcement was happy to explain that the doors would not rebound. The doors did not rebound. They closed. My husband did not make it. I slapped the palms of my hands against the windows, staring at his shocked face, as I moaned, “No. No. No.”

I turned to face the jammed cattle car . . . er . . . um . . . I mean complimentary public transport. The crowd of squashed travelers glared back at me with narrowed eyes and frowny lips. I moaned again.

He had the tickets. He knew the gate. He got on the next train. It was empty. He texted me the gate number. We stumbled onto our connecting flight. My life shortened by 3.7 years.

I believe strongly that I was treated egregiously and that traveling is wildly overrated.

When our youngest daughter was little, she had crazy curly hair that she would constantly zip into the tent zipper when we went camping. I’ll never forget finding her zipped into the tent, one more time, as she said, “I want to go home where we belong.”

Ditto.

That’s how I feel when I travel. “I want to go home where I belong.”

Linda (Homebody) Zern