FLIGHT OR FIGHT?

YAY!  Mama is home!

Dearest Darlings,


I am sitting here in my queen-sized bed, feeling all snuggly thanks to my faux mink bedspread, cup of freshly-brewed coffee and my two precious angels, Baby and Lil Sister. And speaking of those adorable creatures, I am, as they say, sick as a dog! Now I am not sure when or where this particular turn-of-phrase came into being, and if we are being completely honest, I have never liked it, but it does immediately express just how awful I am feeling. My head is throbbing, I feel like I have been gargling with broken glass, my nose won't stop running and my entire body aches. I am in Hell, but it's Hell with faux mink and DirecTV, so no need to alert George Clooney of my plight. Although if Sarah McLachlan wanted to sing a sad song over a slide show of me blowing my nose, rubbing my temples and wincing while swallowing -- that would be fine by me. "Please call the number on your screen..."


So, let me tell you how life works. After performing two amazing, sold-out shows in the beautiful city of Boston, I was to return home to my aforementioned fur-balls. After the show Saturday night, I came back to where I was staying and got out of drag, removed my makeup and then had to pack -- which, thanks to a particularly successful day of thrift store shopping, was quite a creative challenge! But I got everything off and in and then finally climbed into bed around 1 AM, knowing that I would be up again by 5 AM for my 7:20 AM flight!


After a few hours of sleep, I woke up and headed to the airport. At 6 AM I swiped my credit card at the American Airlines kiosk and got the following message: YOU CANNOT CHECK IN FOR YOUR FLIGHT BECAUSE IT IS NOT WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. Huh? I rubbed my bleary eyes and re-read my itinerary and was shocked to discover that my flight was actually for the next day -- Monday! Needless to say, I felt like a complete idiot and I almost burst into tears. Instead, I took a deep breath, decided to face the problem head-on, and got in line to talk to an American Airlines rep. Well, to make a long story short (too late!), the oh-so-helpful agent was no help at all. I don't know how they do it, but American Airlines always seems to find employees with that rare combination of robot and rudeness: "Does not compute... Bitch!" Despite the tears welling up in my middle-aged man eyes, I guess it was pretty damn obvious that I was indeed trying to pull a fast one on the company by showing up a full day before my actual flight and "pretending" I had merely made a mistake. After all, if they put my ass in one of those empty seats on that flight, American Airlines might just go bankrupt, right? So it would cost an additional $535 plus a $150 change fee. Any emotional moisture in my eyes evaporated the moment I heard those numbers and with the bone-dry eyes of a corpse I stared right through that bitter cyborg and said, "Fuck that shit." It felt good -- for about five seconds -- then I was struck with the harsh reality of being at an airport at 6 AM on the opposite coast of my home with no flight.


I ended up buying a one-way ticket to LAX on Virgin America. It cost me $550, but you know what? The people were friendly, the ticket agent waived my checked bag fee (hey, it's SOMETHING!) and the the plane was nice and new and clean and pretty with comfy seats and my own little TV and great snacks. I was back in LA by 11 AM and with my gorgeous girls by noon! And that's when this cold/flu/black plague thing hit me. I puttered around the house all day, took a hot bath, had some soup, watched part 3 of "Mildred Pierce" on HBO, guzzled some NyQuil and passed out.


Imagine my amusement when I woke this morning to find several voicemail updates from American Airlines on my cell phone! Turns out that my flight from Boston to LAX and been cancelled. What!? That would be horrible news... if I wasn't already home, that is. Subsequent messages informed me that I had been re-booked on an 11 AM flight to Miami, and I am still waiting to hear when my flight from Miami to Los Angeles is.


So you see, had I not fucked up yesterday I would be killing 4 hours at Logan airport -- while sick as a motherfucking dog! And then I would just be in Miami and be looking at 6 more hours of travel -- on one of American Airlines old, uncomfortable planes with the previous passenger's wadded up tissues and candy wrappers still in the seat pocket in front of me, a crappy selection of overpriced food and beverages (that they always seem to run out of by the time they reach me!) flung at me by one of their bitter animatronics.


And now, if you will excuse me, I have daytime TV to watch and phlegm to cough up...

Baby enjoying the luxury of mama's faux mink bedspread!