The Southwest - Part 1

Ok Readers, due to popular demand (and my own crushing guilt) I'm going to actually follow through on my promise and put my adventures through the Southwest into print.

Apparently   the unwashed masses  the lowly plebs  my esteemed readership will not be satisfied with incoherent ramblings, toaster elves and toilet humour.  Who knew?

The strange thing is that I feel somehow obligated to reward this mutinous behaviour.  And there are like what, five of you?  God forbid I ever get famous!

So without further ado, I shall play to the gallery.  More bread, more circuses, and more pie. 

August 20 - The Departure

Travel Tip #1 - Never, ever travel with my father.
Travel Tip #2 - No, seriously.

My family (or elements of) have a very special gift.  They can bend the space-time continuum.  They exist in some kind of temporal bubble such that no matter what time it is in the rest of the world, it is perpetually an hour later in their little piece of the universe.  I try not to think too hard on it.  It is a paradox for greater minds than I.

Let's just sum up by saying that my parents* live in a world where being late is a competitive sport, and they play for keeps.  How they survive in a world with deadlines, last calls and (this is important) airplane boarding times is beyond me.

*my parents on my father's side that is.  Yes, for those keeping score I have backup parents.  That means twice the presents (just kidding, hippies don't do presents) and having to justify your life choices to four different people. 

So an hour and fifteen minutes before takeoff we decide to head to the airport.  Then an hour before takeoff we actually head to the airport.  Dashing through the airport lobby (something security generally frowns upon), we get bogged down in a customs line longer than a Soviet toilet paper queue.  Apparently getting into the US these days requires everything short of some seminal fluid and a stool sample.

Our actually catching the flight can only be explained by  my step-mother literally standing in the doorway like some civil rights activist forcing them to wait for us  divine intervention.