Random Notes From the Road

Debating whether to pay $7.95 for what will amount to 15 minutes on the Internet before I catch the second leg of my flight, and marveling that it wasn't that long ago that wireless access in an airport terminal wasn't possible. When I travel on business, I always feel a bit guilty when I'm not fully connected. But since I can use my phone to check e-mail and surf the web, the debate over whether to spend the extra money is for the convenience of speed.

My husband is much more anal about staying connected than I am, and always asks me to bring my laptop on road trips so we can stop at the wi-fi hotspots along the way to check in. We were sitting on a runway last summer, caught in a ground stop, when he snagged my computer and discovered that he could still log on. After checking his e-mail -- nothing new in the twenty minutes since we'd stowed the computer in the terminal -- he went to CNN to read the headlines. Again, nothing different from the complimentary USA Today they gave us at the hotel. After a few minutes of current affairs, he surfed over to his favorite on-line poker site, which is when I realized that he wasn't on the Internet because he HAD to be, he was on the Internet because he could be.

My favorite thing about flying is that the airlines make passengers turn their cell phones off during the flight. I can't count how many times I've seen people cheat, and I read somewhere that the FAA is revisiting this rule. It will be a sad day, indeed, when they allow unlimited chatter in the air. My second favorite thing about flying is that I have uninterrupted time to read. The busier I get, the more precious these hours are. I've never understood my fellow travelers who would rather watch the lame in-flight movies than crack a good book.

My husband's kids are coming to visit again this weekend. It's been a month since we've seen them, and he's worried that if we don't see them more often, they'll forget to include him in the big things in their lives. He's commented more than once that they don't check in with him as often as he'd like or that they take their time returning his calls. They did this when we lived in the small town, but because we were close, we often came home to find them lounging on our couch, watching our TV, eating our food, and drinking our beer -- all without calling first. It's tempting to think they miss our stuff more than they miss us, but I know that's not true. I'm glad they're coming this weekend -- I'll feel less guilty about taking a girl's night out on Sunday (gotta love those dead Presidents for giving me Monday off!) after leaving my husband for three days this week.

Enough. They're calling my flight. Happy trails.


The Wife Who Knows