The Midnight Hour

 I recently took a trip to Huntsville, Alabama, to attend a job interview.  Making the most efficient use of my time, as any good engineer should, I scheduled two interviews after the original interview for a total of three interviews in one day, and two of them within 3 hours.  As expected, the entire trip was a dead sprint from beginning to end, but it was successful.
 My itinerary had me traveling on Monday, arriving in HSV on Monday night, interviewing on Tuesday, and flying back on Tuesday night.  I started out driving to LAX from my house on Camp Pendleton.  That’s no small journey and can be hardened with traffic at certain times of the day.  Thankfully, Mapquest didn’t let me down, and I made it successfully.  It was my first trip to LAX, and I hope it was my last.  When I walked into the terminal I was struck by the feeling of being inside a Rwandan refugee camp.  People milled about everywhere, shoulder to shoulder, in a dark gray terminal that reminded me of an ash tray.
 The security personnel weren’t too hot on courtesy and niceties.  They weren’t too hot on English, either.  Finally I made it through the metal detector and redressed myself.  I did a final check of all my belongings and found my watch was MIA.  I looked all over but couldn’t find it.  Then I peered into the X-ray conveyor belt and saw it—stuck between two adjacent conveyor belts.  It was desperately trying to fit its ½” cross-section into the ¼” gap between the belts.  It was grinding furiously against the belt, but a TSA employee kindly retrieved it for me and I was on my way.
  I made it to the gate and onto the plane.  Unfortunately, I seemed to be traveling on the same plane as the Southern California Association for the Transportation of Screaming Infants (SCATSI).  One young SCATSI representative sat a mere two rows ahead of me.  Her little bundle failed contraception was an especially enthusiastic specimen.  After great amounts of shaking, bouncing, and ridiculous faces the child was still not pleased.  The bouncing did help create a Doppler effect that was interesting for about seven seconds.  This is when a helpful passenger a mere one row in front of me suggested that he help rock Beelzebub to sleep.  The 15 minutes of intensified pain might have been worth it, because he actually silenced the child—I wasn’t concerned how.
 After an extensive delay on the runway because of storms in the DFW area we took off and then landed at DFW, where I then had 6 minutes to change terminals and get to my connecting flight.  I’ve ran in many different outfits before.  I’ve ran in nothing more than shorts and shoes.  I’ve ran in full camo utilities with a flak jacket, helmet, and 240 rounds of ammo.  Monday, I ran in a suit.  I mean 100%, chin up, arms swinging parallel to the body, thumb and forefinger lightly touching, inhaling/exhaling every two steps…running.  I managed to get to my gate a few minutes late to find the flight had not started boarding yet because the flight attendants were late.  Having eaten very little so far, and being in the early evening, I went back to Starbucks and ordered a venti latte to suppress my appetite and a small glob of fat and sugar to help appease it.  I went back to my gate, boarded, and reached Huntsville around 9:30 PM.  I got into a rental car successfully (a Chevy Cobalt), tuned the radio to 95.1 (off of the gangster rap station that all rental cars default to), and made my way to my aunt and uncle’s house.
 The night and next morning went well.  My aunt was kind enough to press my suit and feed me dinner and breakfast.  I was especially appreciative of this, I as had planned to do it myself.  However, whenever I undertake a dry goods project that involves much more than cycling and folding laundry colors begin to change, seams unravel, and I usually manage to create wrinkles while ironing.
 All my interviews went well and I managed to make it to each scheduled stop on time.  Finally, at 5:40 PM, I left the last company and headed to the airport for my 6:30 PM flight.  I reached the airport at 5:50 PM, turned in the car, checked in, made it through security, and arrived at my gate at 6:10 PM.  With the day’s business complete and 20 minutes to spare I found the airport bar and had one final interview with Sam Adams before departing for DFW.  It went as well as I expected.  The flight home went a little better than the flight to HSV.  My longest leg, DFW to LAX, was on a 757 at about 20% capacity, so I had all three seats to myself.  I stretched out and went to sleep after struggling with how to lie on my side when my center of gravity teetered uncomfortably on the edge of the seat.  Five hours later I made it home and five hours after that I got up and went to work.