SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH MY BROTHER

Yesterday I was surrounded by people for 16 hours.

Not just people around me, or at the same event of meeting - I mean besieged on every side, encircled by strangers (or, as I see it, friends I haven't met yet) to the point where my personal air space was constantly and continually being violated in a fashion that would have drove most people to hand sanitizer, running shrieking out the terminal, or Valium.

Yes, you are correct, sir - I was flying.

At airports, the polite waiting-in-line-at-the--bank line is suddenly compacted by a factor of 9. As drivers do, the shuffle-up-the-moment-the-light-just-MIGHT-be-thinking about turning-green-again forces you to stand with your nose on the shoulder of the person in front of you, while your carry-on bag is constantly pushed forward by the person behind you.

I tried to maintain what for me was a proper and respectful distant distance while in line, but shortly succumbed to the directed glares and significant grunts of those convinced that the additional 2 cm. move would make a SUPREME difference in getting to the luggage scanning machine.

That same frantic sense of go-go-go-go compels everyone to almost-run pace, dodge in and out of traffic exactly like the red convertible that simply has to get ahead of you until he is stopped at the red light right next to you.

I'm not old and/or grey enough to garner the respect for the elderly, but I am forced to walk at a slow pace because of my breathing problems. And much like the 'classic' Toyota from the eighties, you can stomp on that gas pedal as much as you want, but it ain't gonna get you into the fast lane.

The entire experience would be out of the question for your normal germaphobic, claustrophobic or any social disorder person.

I may soon begin putting my name in those actual categories. Mr. Monk and Howie Mandel, say hello to your new best friend.

SLEEPING ON THE CORNER

There are a few disadvantages about going to Oahu. The biggest is the six-plus hour plane ride from Los Angeles.

I had already been sitting on my big old fat butt for the two hours driving to the airport in Tucson - then the one-and-a-half hour flight to LAX - and then waiting for three hour there before the flight left.

It's difficult to do laps at an airport terminal (dodging passengers and luggage) although running backwards on those moving sidewalks has a certain surreal effect I do enjoy.

And I can't browse through the inflated-price shops without either bursting into tears because I find the most perfect laptop case that have ever existed for only $145,000 - or breaking into loud, raucous laughter at $34 price tag on a Wal-Mart item worth 34 cents.

So normally when I have more than twenty minutes to wait in an airport, I find the cleanest corner I can (usually an obscure corner either right AT the gate, or the furthest away), curl up with my luggage straps wound around protectively around my wrists multiple times to discourage any possible threat (although why a thief would even bother looking at my dirty-banged-up travel carry-ons for anything with actual cash value is beyond me), and go to sleep.

One of the great advantages of being partially deaf is if you sleep on your GOOD ear, the rest of the world disappears (or is at the least seriously muted).

No, I take that back. The ONLY advantage of being partially deaf is that.

Perhaps LAX has higher standards, or they just recently passed a law that no-good-bums-homeless-people cannot sleep in public places where it might-look-bad-to-the-tourist-flying-in-to-go-to-Disneyland. I figured since I obviously had already gone through all the security check points, and clearly WAS a passenger, no one would bother me.

However after dozing for just a few minutes, I was jolted awake by a female flight attendant who deliberately unlocked a fake-line-creating-random-column-holding-strips-of-seat-belt-like-material (that's the technical name for it) and allowed the automatic-fling-back-into-the-column mechanism (ditto) to SLAM one metal object (the clips-thing) into another metal object (the metal pole), creating a non-slumber-allowing KA-BOON.

It didn't break the sound-barrier, but to someone who was almost asleep, it was extremely painful.

While she didn't exactly smile as my groggy and exhausted body flung itself automatically into an upright position as my subconscious mind reacted to the sound and my dozing-trying-to-sleep mind careened together, causing all of my fifteen brain cells to slam into each other, it was obvious she enjoyed the reaction.

Then she calmly reconnected the fake-line-creating thingies back, and walked off.

I was pissed-off enough that I stayed awake the entire flight until we landed in Honolulu.

THE MAGIC OF THE INTERNET

A package left my house yesterday morning, went through Tucson, then Memphis (Memphis? Why Memphis? To pick up above-average barbecue sauce? Is there any other reason to go to Memphis?), then Honolulu... and THEN this trip got interesting.

At the Honolulu International Airport (which actually is, despite many rumors to the contrary, an airport in American), our package, now disguised as a See's candy pack, was stopped by the ADS Sugar-Police, and was patted down in the continuing effort by the American Diabetes Society to lower the sugar intake on an island whose main export is pineapple, sugar cane and sunburned tourists.

Seizing a momentary hesitation on the guards part (while he was musing "do I begin with the carmels or the mint chocolate first?"), our package ducked under the roped border of the search area and leap onto a passing wheeled-suitcase in the confusion.

Which resulted in our package being delivered to the North Shore of Oahu. Determined to make it to the correct destination before the 3 p.m.deadline, the package underwent another costume change and became a Papa Johns Pizza (knowing that the recipient would refuse delivery of Pizza Hut pizza and counting on the 30 minute delivery guarantee)., and was left on the correct doorstep at 2:15 p.m.

Story told. And amazing to me that this was READ.