Road Warrior Alien

Jammahs is so off my Road Warrior game. I should be demoted to a Travel Rookie. A Travel Rookie with a neck roll. One who wears it all around the terminal and even into the Ladies. It all started this week at check-in at the Marriott. I didn’t ask what type of room I was assigned. I just assumed, given my elite status, that it would be a king size room. I forgot one of my rules-- never assume anything in travel. I was given a double bed room. And one on a floor filled with construction workers and their associated noise, dust and debris. I called Mr. Jammahs and started to complain and he said to change rooms--you like to sleep diagonally across the bed taking up all the space, so now is your chance. And, so, I sweetly and calmly called downstairs to request a new room and ten minutes later met the Front Desk Manager at my new room. He started to tell me about the view or the weather or something else that was totally boring, so I quickly cut him off by asking if this king size room is free because it’s invested with bed bugs. He didn’t like that joke, but politely giggled as all service industry workers are trained to do. He handed me my key and Jammahs was set. Or so I thought. I suddenly realized that I was demoted to a room directly above the pool and gym. I started to hear a banging of weights and kids screaming in the pool. The chlorine smell was permeating—it was already all over my clothes, my new Briggs and Riley, my travel sized teddy bear named Leroy and, worst of all, it was in my hair. I’d have to wash and blow out my locks again in the morning—that pissed me off. But, I just quietly resigned to my room assignment fate. I couldn’t change again. Could I? The old Jammahs would have flipped her shit at the front desk and have gotten easily 5k in points and an upgrade to a suite, but this Jammahs--this stranger—this alien—just unpacked and turned on the TV. And then, it happened again. The next day all flights to LGA were canceled—mine was on 2 hour delay. There were thunderstorms in the entire Northeast. I was already off the Nelly charts thinking that I’d have to fly through a thunderstorm in a tiny plane. I mentioned to Mr. Jammahs how I could probably switched to a big plane to EWR, but those were also delayed. Do I stay on my original flight or hedge my bets and change to a EWR flight? And, so I switched to a flight to EWR. I gave up my prime seat to LGA for a middle seat, regular row to EWR. In the end, my LGA flight ended up leaving at about 5:30pm and my EWR flight took off at 9:30pm. I’d say that one was a miss. But, I didn’t even care. I just calmly and sweetly sat at an airport bar, had several diet cokes and a salad and waited for my flight. (In my old, tough Road Warrior days, I would have had 3 to 7 pinot somethings and a meal that involved fries.) I wrote a recap about the Bachelorette (my other writing commitment), posted a status update on Facebook, gchatted with friends, small talked with some Talkers at the bar and, mostly, just waited. Calmly and quietly waited. And that was that. It felt wrong, but so….nice. Ok, ok, I admit, I had some crank in me by the time I boarded. It was 9pm and I was at the airport for about 6 hours. I was nervous for the impending turbulence and dreading the middle seat. On the aisle, I had a young chap who missed all connections from EWR to LHR and kept saying it was such rubbish. I told him, in America, we call that fucking bullshit. I got to ask him if he knows Kate. Or Pippa. Or Harry. The flight itself was perhaps the smoothest, nicest flight I have had in years. It was like little angels were escorting the flight through the air. It was like we were sitting still on the ground. I will have to discuss my newfound Zen with my acupuncturist/hypnotist. He may have made me too calm. I need some Road Warrior spunk left in me to survive out on the big, bad Road.