Fruit of the Vine - Bloody Sock

Fruit of the Vine - Bloody Sock
"Live the life you love...and don't take it all too seriously"

Date:	2009-06-14 14:53
Subject:	Bloody Sock
Security:	Public
Location:	Witchnest
Mood:	sore
Tags:	jay, travel

This week’s installment of Witch Travel Fail is brought to you by a blood-soaked sock.

After jaylake and the_child dropped me at PDX–yes, after we had checked the flight status online and checked the monitor many many times, verifying that the flight was on time–I went through the very, very crowded security line–well, scratch that. “Line” implies there was some sort of order or organization to the huddled mass of confused and frightened souls that swarmed the security area….

Anyway, I got up to the point where you have to take yourself apart and become many separate pieces that all have to be accounted for–shoes, computer, liquid things, purse, backpack, etc etc–all spread out and put into bins and sent through the x-ray, whilst you go through your own x-ray. All good. My parts and pieces came through the other side and I began to gather them. People were coming through behind me, impatient, reaching for their own stuff; I travel a lot, I know how to do this efficiently. I’d already felt a little smugly self-satisfied at my ability to take off my boots without leaning on anything–just standing one-legged. Yay yoga.

So I grab my boots and I grab my laptop and I grab my backpack, and here comes my big carry-on, and I reach for that, and my laptop slithers out of my grip and BANG bounces on my foot and clatters onto the floor.

A small part of my brain was watching in horror as my computer likely died, but most of my consciousness was absolutely insensible with pain. I managed to get the computer, drop the purse (handed to me by the guy behind me), and hobble to a sitting-place. I sat there, clinging to my stuff and shuddering. Blood starts leaking through my sock. Oh my god.

The thing landed squarely on my first two toes and a bit on the third, I think; at that point, I couldn’t tell, it was just all pain. It’s the second toe that was bleeding and a little swollen, but the big toe hurts worse.

Other than the purse-picking-up, nobody offered to help or asked if I was okay. Not the TSA folks, not other passengers.

After a few more minutes, I was able to think clearly enough to realize I had to get those boots back on, put everything back together, and hobble to my gate, since we were supposed to board in 5 minutes.

I did so. Thanking everything in the universe that I had, at the last moment, decided to wear different boots than the ones I wear 99% of the time, with the pointy toe-box, and instead went for some square-toed ones.

The gate was the farthest imaginable. The escalator was broken.

Fortunately, by the time I’d gotten there, they’d announced the obligatory delay–"45 minutes to 4 hours". There was a little bar; I went and sat there, asked for a cup of ice and some napkins, and iced my bloody foot a while. Turned on my computer–it works!

Hobbled back to the gate after my toes were nice and numb. It was totally crowded; the only seat was next to a woman who was crying. Turns out her old college boyfriend (from 20 years ago) had recently contacted her on the interwebs, and they’d just spent a lovely weekend together and were now going back to their lives. Sad, and sweet. Then I watched her stuff while she went off to buy a bottle of water and was gone so long that I began to wonder if a smashed-up foot was going to be my worst problem of the day…but, she came back.

We boarded and took off only 45 minutes late. Win!

And, other than the massive, intensive, legendary, epic, almost-pulled-over-to-cry-a-while parking fail once I got home, that’s been my day!

____________

I promised I’d link to jaylake’s health update post when it was available: here it is.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

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User:	jaylake
Date:	2009-06-14 21:57 (UTC)
Subject:	(no subject)

Oi, I swear to you that visiting me is not supposed to be hazardous!

:: worries about operant conditioning ::

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User:	calendula_witch
Date:	2009-06-15 15:48 (UTC)
Subject:	(no subject)
Keyword:	Green

Next time, you come down here, mister. :-)