On the comeback

I don't remember the last time that I was this tired. I've been on 7 flights covering some 12,700 miles and 30 hours. Two out of the last 3 nights I've spent sleeping on an airplane and the night in between saw me in my hotel room for all of 4 hours. Sleeping is a bit misleading though because it's not like I was sailing across the night sky on a pillow top mattress under a down comforter, and snuggled up in 800 thread count sheets. On the contrary, I was sleeping in the equivalent of a large dresser drawer with my arms on two cold metal armrests as I lie under a gray, airline issued comforter that more closely resembled a moving pad than a blanket. On last night's flight I had to spend an inordinate amount of time on my left side, facing the window, since the guy next to me was a little too close for comfort and I wasn't quite up to taking in any more of his morning breath than I had to.

I was so tired that at one point, I noticed that I had not even managed to get through a single paragraph of the book that I was reading (Three Cups of Tea), and that was before I had even reclined the seat. When I woke up to find myself still holding open the same page, 45 minutes had passed and I was so disoriented that it took me a minute to realize that I was on a plane hurtling through the sky over South America at 530 mph next to a man that I to whom I would not utter a single word for the next 8 hours. With such an auspicious start to that flight, I just knew that I was a shoe in for being the creator of a joyful noise as I would surely be snoring in Z Flat all night long as the drool dripped from my lips, slid on down my cheek, ran down to the tip of my ear and on to that thing they're passing off as a pillow. But it was not to be. On these flights I learned that it's a good thing that I'll be dead before taking my place in a casket because it is way too cramped for me to loosen up and go to sleep, just like the fully reclining business class seat on this Boeing 767 was.

When I finally did make it home I still wasn't quite hittin' on all cylinders. Trying to get ahead of the perennially slow baggage claim process at the Oakland International Airport, I walked right past the baggage carousel and out to the Park n' Fly shuttle. I figured that I could go get my car, drive it back, park in short term parking, and then walk back into the airport just in time to see my bag coming around. That would've been fine except for one minor detail. I forgot that I had left my car keys in my luggage. It's not totally my fault. I had been carrying on luggage until that 7th flight. When I bought some wine from the Duty Free Shop in Santiago, I carried it on to the flight on the way to Dallas. What I discovered, however, was that I could either surrender it or check the bag for the flight home from Dallas to Oakland. I was just too sleepy to take a mental inventory of what else might've been in there. So I ended up taking 2 additional shuttle rides. On the bright side though, my luggage was right there just like I predicted when I returned.

I squeezed in a little power nap before having to dash off once again to celebrate my dad's 64th birthday at a Thai restaurant in San Jose. When my alarm woke me after about 90 minutes, I was once again totally disoriented. Although I never fess up to suffering from such things, I guess I'll give jet-lag some respect here because I am one tired hombre.