Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

“Arian's Adventures” is an understatement this past week. I feel like I really cheated you guys by not being disciplined enough to provide you with a play by play. It was just too action packed. Thus, I've decided to split my entries into two parts until we‘re caught up. The first part will be the current day, and the second part will be a piece of my week that you missed.

Today:

Susan and I finally returned from the Las Vegas part of our UFC 92 after party at about 4:30am (you'll have to wait a week to find out how that happened). Needless to say, I slept until about 1pm. After that there's not much to talk about. We got a lot of packing done, but we're still not finished. We finally confirmed our plans to use a shipping container instead of a moving truck. We also decided to sell our sofa set, which is a little bit of a bummer, but it's for the best. We can't get a container delivered until Wednesday, but at least we should be finished packing by then. I guess we'll be on our way out of town by New Year's Day. A little late, but whatever.


Dec 20:

First, as anyone who has ever traveled with me will attest to, I'm notoriously a magnet for unexpected hiccups in the plan. As the endless barrage of absurd challenges unfold, others always remark "nothing like this has happened to me before", and I always think "nothing UNlike this has ever happened to me before".

Before my 2:30pm departure from LAX I had three errands to run: pick up a second birthday present for Susan, get a prescription filled, and pick up a package at the post office that was undelivered because it required a signature.

Naturally, L.A. traffic was in full effect, so it was nearly impossible to get anywhere. My first stop - picking up the present - was a total bust. They didn't have exactly what I was looking for, and on top of that the checkout line would have been at least an hour. No time for that.

Moving on, I went to the pharmacy across the street. Of course, just the car out of one parking lot and into another across the street, took 15 minutes in this mayhem. Now this might sound dumb, but keep in mind that I've never filled a prescription before - why do they call one of the lines "drop off"? Shouldn't it be "order", or something? As I wanted to "pick up" medicine, and not "drop off" medicine, I got in the "pick up" line. Needless to say, when I got to the front of it they looked at me like I was an illiterate moron and directed me to the "drop off" line. Well, I figured I was really out of time for this part of the day, but I decided to see how long it would take. After another 15 minutes in that line (behind only one person!), I realized that I'd left my insurance card at home. Okay, so no time for this now.

After finding my way to one of the most cleverly hidden post offices in L.A. (thank you Google phone), I began to wait in an enormous line. I figured I'd wait as long as I could and hope for the best. After 30 minutes (and moving 5 feet), an observant postal worker noticed I was again standing in the wrong line (because I was holding a pick up card). He called me to his window, which had no line. He happily took the card and went back to the secret vault where they store undelivered parcels. 15 minutes later, he returned and informed me that he couldn't find my parcel. He took my number and offered to call me if/when they find it (note: they found it and called me as I was about to leave for the airport).

I got to LAX with plenty of time to spare - especially since my flight was delayed for aircraft maintenance. After two hours of delay, and still no certainty as to whether my plane would ever leave the ground again, I realized that there was now no chance of meeting my connecting flight in Denver. Just as well, since this was supposed to take off just as another plane was crashing at that airport! I then proceeded to wait in line for an hour to inquire about my options. I was informed that there didn't appear to be any way to get me to NYC in the next two days - which is how long I was planning on being there! I was directed to the "customer service" counter. Between my flight, and the two others that were cancelled, there were enough people in line at this desk to have me standing/waiting for THREE HOURS!!! Luckily they were able to get me on a direct flight to NYC. Unfortunately it was to JFK instead of Laguardia, which was inconvenient (to the tune of an extra 45 minutes in a cab).

The flight itself was rather uneventful (which is definitely how I prefer it), until we landed. Suddenly I felt a great deal of discomfort in my abdominal area. I was thinking dysentary. No matter... we just landed. Too bad the gate wasn't ready for us, and I had to sit on this plane for 90 minutes!

Could I hold it? Would I ever see Susan on her birthday? What else could go wrong? Tune in tomorrow, when I cover the rest of my exciting weekend in NYC!