STUPIDITY

I'm back in Greenville now after a long day of traveling, having woken up at 4:30AM, caught up with the sisters and mom (Dad's in Canada again), and napped. Greenville's really good for napping. You really don't miss anything while you're out, and the quiet is amazing. I fell asleep after a late lunch and woke up to the sounds of dinner. The family had saved me a plate. See, you don't miss a thing.

I have a couple of things to share about my trip today, both involving stupidity (one incident is the fault of book publishers in the world, and the other incident belonging solely to me). I had a one-hour layover in Atlanta, and whenever I have time to kill, I always stop by the Bookstore Cafe in Terminal B. The sandwiches are shit, but the book selection is decent for an airport, and they sell everything at cover price, so I'm not getting ripped off. Well, except on the tax, I guess. Whatev.

Because it's summer and I'm faced with the prospect of a slow, slow time at home, I figured I'd buy a few books to tide me over until I can come up with a few alternate hobbies (current considerations: eating beans, collecting Beta videotapes, building a treehouse). I started perusing the shelves, and then I realized with growing disdain that for every half-interesting book, there was an abominable pink-and-purple paperback cover staring out at me, adorned with some fanciful caricature of a woman. These books bore titles such as "Shopaholic," "Angels: A Novel," "My Fake Wedding," and "What's a Girl Gotta Do?"

I was horrified. Look, I'm not saying that I'm some unfeeling hardass. I'm a girl. I know I am. I own both the book and movie versions of "Bridget Jones's Diary". Sally Field's monologue in "Steel Magnolias" still makes me blubber like an idiot even though I've seen that movie a million times. (I know Shelby dies, but damn, it still tears me up inside.) I like to think about boys, shoes, and clothes, but not always in that order. And I understand that, on some small level, the birth of chick lit did a good thing in making women realize that their neuroses are shared by millions of other women, and that single-dom should be embraced, not avoided like the plague.

Still, if you think for a second that I am going to load my arms up with a bunch of books touting a lame story line about how a girl fumbles her way through life and is turned around and down by boy after boy only to realize that her only true solace is in chocolate and shoes, you've got another think coming. I was angry at the book publishers for thinking that I, a 25-year-old single woman, would fall into their clever little marketing ploy. So, in protest, I marched to the counter clutching the following books:

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins
The Chinese in America: A Narrative History by Iris Chang
Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

The last one was more for laughs than anything else, because honestly, what is more different from talking about makeup and boys than talking about dead bodies? So far, I've finished Nickel and Dimed, which is total crap, but that's another story.

The second stupid, stupid incident can only be explained as karma for my pretentious attitude in the bookstore. I've been a little out of it the last few days, if for nothing else because, after failing to manage the administrative crap in my life for the past nine months, I am suddenly operating like I can't figure out how to use a can opener. I've lost e-mail addresses, gotten unnecessarily nervous in ordinary situations, and generally just been a bumbling fool.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that today I did one of the top 10 stupidest things in my life. Realizing that I had about another 20 minutes to kill before boarding, I called my pal S to catch up with him. While Shane and I were planning out my weekend in DC later this summer, I noticed a line forming at my gate. I told Shane that I'd call him later, and hurried to the gate.

Have you ever gone to an airport and wondered what would happen if you just got on another plane to, say, Bermuda, instead of where your boss was sending you (i.e., Akron, Ohio)? Well, I found out today. As I boarded the plane, the flight attendant stretched her hand out to look at my boarding pass. It was a tiny plane, and I was tired, so I became a little petulant when she began flipping through my little envelope to find another boarding pass.

"I'm sitting in 3A. 3A," I said emphatically. "That other pass is my ticket from Austin to here."

She looked at me with this you-think-you're-so-smart-but-you've-got-another-think-coming look. "Um, miss, this plane is going to Fort Wayne, Indiana. You're on the wrong plane."

Oh. Right. I knew that.

I'll tell you something. There have been quite a few walks of shame in my life. I've sneaked out of dorms the morning after, I've been called to the front of the room for talking in class, and I've even been called out for eating my lunch at 10AM. But I have never had -- and I hope you never have to either -- to walk myself BACK into a gate after accidentally boarding the wrong plane. As I walked back up the breezeway, a Delta worker came running towards me, holding what appeared to be the other half of my boarding pass.

"GSP?" she inquired, saying the three-letter airport code for my hometown. I nodded. As if I was in the third grade, she took me by the arm and led me back into the waiting area.

"Sit there," she instructed, pointing me to an empty seat in the front. I laughed, but was mortified all the same. I had just been assigned a seat in the airport. Jesus.

It turned out that I was flying out of a "Delta Connections" gate, which meant that flights left on a regular basis from C33 every 30 minutes or so. I'd simply misread the list of flights leaving and timed my departure incorrectly. Could've happened to anyone.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself. Besides, I hear that Fort Wayne is very nice this time of year.