Stuck at Denver International Airport

My flight to Albuerque has been diverted . . . back to Albuquerque. Our daily 2:00pm thunderstorm sent my flight in circles above DIA until it nearly ran out of gas, and had to go back to its place of origin (must have had SOME gas left). Now delayed three hours, I pound angrily at the keyboard as one of my children nervously warms up in an Albuqerque pool and two prepare for their last swim meet at home.  I am a mom without a pool, not fulfilling my roles as coach and cheerleader at either location.

The delay compounds a misery that began in security.  Confronted with the dreaded 360 – degree x-ray scanner, I heard the security staff telling folks to empty their pockets “until they contain nothing but air.”  I paid little attention, since I didn’t have any change in my pocket, just a tampon and a driver’s license. So I went into the x-ray machine with only a faint shred of doubt that I was “airy” enough. Sure enough, the security worker called me over as I exited the machine and told me she had to pat me down in the “lower back area” (location of my pocket in workout skorts). I explained in a whisper that it was only a tampon, but she said without a flicker of expression that I had to remove it so that it could “go through the x-ray machine.”  It didn’t seem like the first time this had happened to her, and that was my only consolation as I watched her place my bright pink tampon wrapper in a bowl (with another bowl on top of it for modesty), and then roll through the machine, no doubt to the amusement or confusion of the man watching the video feed. When my suitcase inevitably got called for further inspection, I had to tell the man to wait for me as I reclaimed my tampon. A double security threat, I suppose.

So then I read O Magazine and hung on every word of Martha Beck’s article, “Reversal of Bad Fortune: Accidents are never pleasant. But if you choose to see meaning in them, they can be useful.” It’s not the first time Oprah and Martha have guided me through a bad day, people. I commend them to you, folks stuck in airports and ladies condemned to a pat-down because of Aunt Flo. At least I wasn’t one of the hapless passengers stuck flying from Albuquerque to Denver . . . and back . . . and back again. That will be Sunday’s misadventure….