Giant Dwarf vs. The Spazz

First, I need to change a few pseudonyms. A. has requested to no longer be referred to as "Chatty Cathy" and stated his preference for "Spazz." I wholeheartedly agree. Spazz, I'm sorry I called you Chatty Cathy. Spazz is much more suitable.More on that later.

Also, it pains and embarrasses me greatly that I referred to my youngest brother as the "Prince." While this is somewhat accurate, given that while he attended school in Amsterdam, my family dubbed him the "Prince of Prinsengracht" (which was the street where he lived) AND he was also accused of princely status by a guy on our bus who saw my mother and I loading our bags while my brother stood around doing nothing, his newest and most accurate moniker is "The Thinker." What amazes me is that, while I was talking about pseudonyms for my blog and announced that my brother would be the Prince, neither he nor his fiance bothered to correct me and remind me of his more fitting nickname.

The Thinker is so famous for this name that we have sent him photos of the famed sculpture, as well as taken multiple photos of him in the "thinking" position. We even bought him a baseball cap from the Albert Einstein exhibit that reads "Thinking Cap." He is so famous for being "The Thinker" that it was pure folly for me to call him by any other name.

However, my other brother remains "The Golden Child." That won't change. He never reads my blog anyway so I don't have to worry about protest or alternative name requests.

So back to Spazz. I like it with two "z"s actually. Isn't that how they spelled it in Meatballs? In any case, when I wrote about New York, back in July, one of my blog fans (who also happens to be my best friend) expressed discontent as to having been omitted from the chronicle of my vacation. So I'm going to tell you about what the vacay was like BEFORE New York. In fact, this entry is about just getting to the East Coast without losing my mind.

Spazz and I have been together two years. There's a whole backstory to that, but it's not the time for that now. The vacation we took in July was our first real vacation together involving air travel and more than one overnight. Bless his heart, Spazz was excited and happy about the trip and never expressed any anxiety or neurosis. I cannot say the same for myself.

I have been flying on my own since I was 15 years old (as a passenger, of course). I am prone to anxiety and neurosis, am aware of it, and thus turn into a raging control freak when I travel. When I travel alone, this bothers no one. When I travel with others, I feel the need to warn them. It's only fair.

Here is what I do on my own: For Southwest flights, I arrive to the airport 1.5 hours ahead of time. If I have a bag, I stand in line to check it (and let me publicly thank Southwest Airlines for continuing to offer their one-bag-flies-free policy). I determine which gate I need to go to, I get in line to be validated by the first set of TSA agents, then I get in line to go through the xray machines. Usually it takes two pans for my things, and I take off my shoes at the most opportune moment right before going through the body scan but doing my best not to hold up the line.

This is what you do right? It's not unusual. And, like most people, but not ALL, I do not chat with anyone. Not other passengers, not the TSA agents. I am not here to make friends. I am here to travel.

After I am cleared out of xray, I hit the news store to buy a People magazine. I do not love People magazine; in fact, over the years, it has become increasingly insipid (though nowhere near the level that Us has sunk), but this is my ritual and I stick with it. If I'm at LAX, my next stop is usually the McDonald's for the yogurt parfait. I then take my stuff, find my gate, sit and eat my parfait, then read the magazine until we board.

We board. I sit on the aisle because, no matter how long the flight is, I have such a tiny bladder that having easy access to the bathroom is more important than the view. I check the safety card. Yes, I do this. It's another long-time ritual and I know on United Airlines that the child in the illustrations has been drawn with one truncated leg.

Once the row is filled, I pull out either the flight magazine, the People, or my book (Giant Dwarf's Life Rule: Always Bring a Book) and read. I do not make eye contact with anyone in my row. I do not talk to them. I do not want them talking to me and my body language is quite clear in sending that message. It's not that I'm unfriendly; in fact, people who know me may even be surprised that I would be so reserved. It's just that this is one of the few times when I have time to myself with few distractions, so I just want to read and, when the pilot says I can, listen to my iPod.

That is how I travel. I just want to be left alone and get from Point A to Point B. And from Point B to Point C, if that's the itinerary.

As you can imagine, Spazz, by virtue of his nickname, is not a silent traveler. In fact, he is rarely silent at all. The Spazz has a rather large reserve of unbridled energy and has difficulty sitting still, let alone not talking.

I anticipated that this would be a problem when we traveled together.

I warned him several times prior to our trip. I instructed him, probably not delicately (I'm not known for that....friendly, yes; delicate, no), to please not talk to me while we are flying. I informed him that I travel in a very particular way and that I was not to be disturbed if he also wanted to have a nice vacation. I hated to do this, but I knew that I could not take 5 hours of flying and conversation....with anyone.

(A few years ago I flew with a relative on a 3 hour flight and was reluctant to give these instructions. I will never get those 3 hours back.)

Now, the way Southwest set up the itinerary, our first flight went from LA to Las Vegas. From there, we had exactly 30 minutes to switch planes for our flight to Providence. If you thought I was anxious about my quiet space, you should have seen my downright near-breakdown in anticipating this short time to get to our next flight. Talking to me while I was contemplating how to move through an airport I didn't know was NOT A GOOD IDEA.

We boarded in LA. Already, Spazz was making fun of me reading the safety card. I anticipated this. Everyone makes fun of me for this. At least I know where my emergency exits are.

The short flight to Vegas was peppered with the Spazz interrupting my reading, poking me and otherwise PURPOSELY annoying me. I barely got through the book reviews in People. I thought to myself that if he is like this on the next flight, if we even make it on the next flight, I will have to kill him.

Now bear in mind I am also traveling with a bum knee. The plan was for Spazz to run ahead of me to the next gate and make sure they're aware that I am limping behind him. We deplane in Vegas and head to our next gate. We have less than 30 minutes. The next gate turns out to be only two gates down. We had plenty of time. The Spazz has taken many opportunities to remind me of how much of a complete spaz I was with all my worry and hand-wringing. I deserve it, but how could I have known it would actually be easy?

We board in Vegas: the plane was connecting from a previous departure city so it was pretty full. You know what that means, right? It's Southwest, there are no assigned seats and the only seats available were NOT TOGETHER! I was walking ahead of the Spazz and silently, in my head (I hope), screamed "Yes!" and pumped my fist.

The Spazz, of course, made friends with the lovely older couple sitting in his row and chatted with them during the ENTIRE flight. And I flew peacefully, book in my lap and iPod buds in my ears.

If I wasn't in the middle seat (foiled!), the flight would have been perfect bliss.