My mother told me to title this entry “The Journey Begins.” But she is a happy and optimistic soul. I responded with an alternate title: “The Journey Attempted To Begin But Then It Got Beotch-Slapped In The Face By The Forces Of Evil, Inclement Weather, And Bureaucracy.” The foreboding signs were present from the very beginning. Our driveway became a snowy deathtrap overnight, the entire family was forced to participate in a hasty snow-shoveling session, and I broke a nail.

One canceled flight, a five hour wait, a delayed flight, a missed connecting flight, and four hours later a bedraggled troupe of 11 Seattlites-who-didn’t-quite-make-it-onto-the-Auckland-flight stood stranded in the Air Canada line. They called themselves “the line of forgotten toys” (I assume this was some reference to Christmas’ island of misfit toys). I can usually gauge the severity of a situation and the competency of parties involved in said situation based on my mother’s reactions: if she’s radiant and loudly verbose, things are good; if she’s upbeat and only relatively chatty, we’re likely a step away from total disaster. Today, she actually frowned and uttered the word “bullsh–” This is a new low. Bad customer service. You might’ve just made the naughty list this year. Tensions started to rise between some of the forgotten toys and the ticketing agents. Squabbles broke out. Now, I have a very low tolerance for disharmony in my environment. In this situation, my coping mechanism involved a mix of meditating in the middle of the airport floor (at this point, honeybadger Lindz don’t give a shite what the side-glancing patrons think of her) and pacing whilst muttering in a British accent. All this in an attempt to hold back the frustrated and angsty tantrum-monster threatening to erupt from my chest, Alien style.