Whoo! I barely survived my holiday.

The flight, she was hard. I made the mistake of not really knowing how to fold up the stroller until the moment I was supposed to fold it up and cram it through the security detector thingie while holding a 25-pound child. Fortunately a nice bald man figured it out for me and also helped me off with my jacket as I sweated profusely under the stress of holding up the line. The security folk at the airport employ this technique when telling people what to do: tell them each step separately so when they get all settled they can start shuffling around again and panicking. Case in point: the unpleasant security dude said, “You need to take off your jacket.” Ok, after much wriggling and shifting of child, I got that done. “And the baby’s jacket.” Dammit! “And your scarf.” KILL ME. WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE SAID PLEASE REMOVE YOUR JACKET AND SCARF AND YOUR BABY’S JACKET IT’S THE SAME NUMBER OF WORDS.

Besides the elevator being broken and me having to maneuver a stroller down roughly two thousand stairs at the Dallas airport, the only noteworthy thing that happened was that I sat in front of a talkative liar who, naturally, ran his mouth the entire flight. If I had been alone, I would’ve taken notes, but I was trying to entertain someone who had just peed up his pants and so I was just trapped listening to the dude talk.

His lying patterns were these:
a. Original story.
b. Pause.
c. Filler words.
d. Revised story.
e. Repeat of revised story.
f. Saying, “Yeah, I liked it when [revised story] happened.”

He was telling his seatmate about his high school football career (he played every position! offense and defense! he was always on the field! he was awesome! he won awards! he liked it when he won awards!), how he has a rare eye disease (if he mates with a lady without 20/20 vision, his children will be blind*), how his little sister cried and cried because he was going to go spend Christmas with his dad and wouldn’t be with her and so he had to let her sleep in his bed with him last night (his seatmate asked, “Aww, how old is she?” Answer: 19.). People three rows ahead of me kept turning around to look at him. Now look, you gotta talk pretty damn loud to drown out an airplane engine. But I guess rare eye diseased football stars with unhealthy relationships with their sisters are special in more ways than I was originally aware of.

The trip home was good, but it was waaaay too long. I got there on Sunday, Larry came on Wednesday, we went to my dad’s on Friday, and we left on Saturday. People. There is a reason I go home once a year. Please help me remember not to do this again.

*I am mean and just looked up his disease. Ok, fine, yes, it’s hereditary, but his children will only inherit said eye disease if his mater also carries a gene for it.