Greg and I took a short end of school year vacation alone to gear up for the family version of the end of school year vacation beginning later this week.

We flew with an airline claiming to be Direct; in their name, their slogan and their bargain basement pricing but not in their cryptic way of communicating delays to their customers.

They were anything but direct. In fact, we chose this airline specifically for convenience, to quickly arrive at our sunny destination without the headache of changing planes, running out of snacks, layovers and a longer than necessary journey.

Upon arriving at this “airport” we were greeted with a message over a loud speaker that said this Direct airline was delayed and that no further details were known. So we waited, noting this was the first flight of the day and already delayed. How? We watched families squirrel through their daily snack allotments in the first hour of connected bench row seating in the airport waiting room and I was thankful to become fully engrossed in the live coverage of the Casey Anthony trial being broadcast on the only television in the building. Sadly, the volume was set at a generous 2 so if I squinted, turned my head and did my best to read lips on the statuesque row of zombie travelers reflected by the t.v., I could almost decipher if the witnesses’ tears were lies to help the case for the defence or the prosecution.

I didn’t have to take anyone to the bathroom, pretend to enjoy pointing out lines (and counting them) on the tarmac, guys wearing brightly coloured vests, pylons and very little other barely visually stimulating scenery to get me through the morning.

We finally boarded the Direct flight to our destination and were told we would be flying instead to Myrtle Beach. Different state altogether but really, what did I care? I didn’t have to siphon off droppers filled with 5mL’s of apple juice to have enough to get my kids through the flight and to show them liquid evidence the rations were being fairly distributed.

In Myrtle we walked to a second plane, waited once again and questioned the different layout. We were unaffected, assigned seats A and B but anyone with a D on their boarding pass, sorry, there were no “D’s” on this plane, you will have to shamefully hide your now useless piece of paper and find any seat that is available.

And so began a long, narrow, pissed off sweaty game of musical chairs with people jockeying for position, especially those with young families who hoped to sit together. I cracked open the first book I’ve started in the better part of two years, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and made it three hundred pages before arriving at our final destination. Sadly, the next three hundred will have to wait another two years.

What should have been a simple 2.5 hour flight ended up an all day affair but I learned a few things along the way.

1. Don’t pay to check a bag. It seemed we were the only ones who weren’t prepared to wheel our bag on board, steady it above our heads and ram it into an already overstuffed overhead compartment, bursting at the latch, eagerly anticipating falling on someone’s unsuspecting head as they pass the 300 page mark on their first book in eons.
2. Don’t travel with children. It’s too risky, it takes too long and you’re only permitted three ounces of liquids in your carry on. It’s simply not enough apple juice to get them through a full day of unplanned plane change travel.
3. Snacks. Greg laughs at me when I pack a bag of almonds or a couple of granola bars if we are traveling alone but guess who was nosing around my knapsack at the three hour mark looking for a fix.
4. When you rent a vehicle upon arrival, be specific about what their definition of a mid-size is. We were assigned the Nissan Versa which was quickly and affectionately nicknamed Lab-Rat for the duration of our stay. Someone actually stopped us and said, “Nice car,” which was confusing since neither of us was a sixteen year old girl in clown school with a horn to match.