So Over Traveling

I flew to Orlando for a conference on Wednesday evening.

Unless you live under a rock, you probably know what happened on Thursday.

I live under a rock, so I didn’t really start to hear details about the foiling of the British terror plot and its impact on domestic and foreign travel until it became the hot topic of discussion during lunch on Friday. As is usual in cases like this, everyone had a different story, many people were freaking out, and everyone insisted that his or her version of events and restrictions was correct.

We were seated at a table with some colleagues who had traveled from Canada, and since this is a business trip, many of us brought laptops. I didn’t, because a) I know Hyatt charges for internet access, and b) I’m lazy. Our Canadian friends were worried about how to get their laptops home, and someone who claimed to have a “very close friend” who is a flight attendant said that laptops were prohibited on ALL flights, regardless of origin or destination, and that we’d be smart to Fed Ex our laptops home. At this point I’d watched the news on a few channels and skimmed our complimentary in-room copy of USA Today, and I hadn’t seen anything about laptops being banned from domestic flights or most foreign flights – just flights to and from the UK. But, whatever, Very Close Friend Who Is a Flight Attendant evidently thought laptops were banned. I’m guessing that would be a big deal on the news if it were true, so I didn’t think much about it.

I was most worried about getting through security in enough time to catch our flight.

Okay, actually, that’s a lie. I was second-most worried about getting through security. I was most worried about making sure I got all of my lip glosses out of my purse before going to the airport.

You may have heard that I’m a total lip gloss addict. This is true. As you’ll see over there on Flickr (eventually, I’m lazy), I had to remove 8 different varieties of lip stuff before flying. I continued to stress that I might have missed one, and would have to throw it away at security. That would have been horrible. I lost my Nars Orgasm lip gloss sometime in the last few months, and I was about as upset over it as I might have been if one of my cats ran away from home.

I’m sure you’re relieved to know that my sense of perspective is as strong as it ever was.

So anyway, I took a bunch of crap out of my purse, realized that the only thing left was my wallet, and just packed the whole damn purse in my suitcase. And we got to the airport, which was chock-full of stranded UK travelers, but our airline was uncluttered and we made it through security fine and we got home and everything was fine.

Except that my suitcase broke a wheel on the journey. This sucks, because I bought this lovely new set of luggage at Target in October, and it was on sale for $60. Now I see why. The largest suitcase broke a wheel the second time I flew with it, and so did the next size down. It’s time for new suitcases. Again. Any suggestions?