What a Pain in the…

Funny thing happened at the airport this morning.  (NOTE: We all know airports are hotbeds for humor.)  So there I was, sitting on my seat in the plane, all settled, ready to push back from the gate and begin my journey home.  I powered down my phone and my iPod* and reached to my laptop bag to dig out the book I am reading.  I checked the back pocket, where I always keep my books when I travel.  No book.

I checked the front pocket, where I never keep my books.  No book. (NOTE: Duh. I just said I never keep them there.)  I checked inside where the laptop is.  Just a laptop and chargers/cables.  No book.  I checked the other zippered pocket in the laptop case, where I keep documents / receipts/etc.  No book.  I bent down and looked all the way under the seat in front of me, in case it had fallen out of the pocket.  Lots of smegma, but no book. 

I checked the pocket on the back of the seat in front of me.  No book.  Looked on the seat beside me.  No book.  WTF?  I must have left it on a chair at the gate.  All other passengers were on board, but the door was still open.  I got up and asked a flight attendant if I could go out and check real quick.  Since I still had my boarding pass, it was allowed. 

I ran up the jetway and to the seat I had been sitting in.  No book.  I asked the people sitting there if they had seen it.  They shook their heads.

I hurried back to the plane and went straight to the overhead bin on the other side of the plane, where my travel bag was stashed.  No book in the side pocket of my travel bag or floating around the bin.  I resigned to sit through two flights with only an iPod to entertain me.  I would have to buy a new copy of the 557-page novel I was reading.  The novel I read roughly 350 pages of.  The novel I had been looking forward to devouring for the next several hours.

I turned around to face my row.  There, on my seat, was my book.

Yes, it had been under my bony ass the whole time I was looking for it on the plane, and when I got up to check the gate I didn’t bother to look down.  I don’t blame this little mishap on the fact that I woke up at 5am this morning for my flight.  Or on my urgency to get home after cancelled flight on Tuesday and an extended stay in Atlanta. 

I blame it on the fact that airplane seats are so uncomfortable that you can’t tell if you are sitting on a f*&%ing 557-page novel.   

*Yes, I still have my iPod.  Although I am getting a new laptop (NOT a Mac) and it may get flushed (the iPod, not the new laptop) in the very near future when I try to sync.