Gyro Bowl / Fake Travel Budda

Tomorrow I leave for San Diego on a red-eye flight. It makes me think of the first time Lucius and I traveled together. We had a wonderful opportunity to travel to St. Barth so of course, we couldn’t pass it up. I’m sure y’all have surmised that I am not the easiest person to spend your life with. I am very high strung, continuously doing 3 things at a time, function on 4-5 hours of sleep, suffer no bullshit, and have an intense need for things to run the way I think they should. Obviously, this would make someone assume I am horrible to travel with.

Surprisingly this is not true. I become very patient and relaxed when I’m traveling. I think it’s the fact that I realize that I have no control when I’m on a trip. The fact that I in no way can I control traffic or flight plans puts me at ease. Unfortunately, Lucius didn’t know this and instead prepared to prove himself the best traveler ever. Here we are trying to nap on an airport floor while every annoying walk of life surrounds us and he is all like the Dahli Lama. Everything I would point out that was wrong his response was, “it’s fine,” “it will all be okay." I couldn’t even get him to make fun of the Frito eating snorer that decided to camp out next to us. As the minutes ticked on and the annoyance grew he became creepy calm.

“What do you want for breakfast?”
“Anything will do.”
“Do you want a smoothie, yogurt ...”
“ I will enjoy anything.”
“ Look at these idiots clambering at the gate when they know it’s scheduled boarding!”
“ I'm sure they are just excited.”

You know what’s more annoying than a controlling, freaking out traveler? A creepily calm person that refuses to join in with your snarky remarks.

We finally board our plane and set out to the big airport to hopefully make a jumper plane to our small island. As I sat there thinking about his behavior (we all know how much thinking a woman can do) the more annoyed I got. We land and it’s a shit show. The terminal bus is late, no one has answers to when it will get there, all the instructions are not clear and they are herding us like cattle up random escalators, never answering our questions. My annoyance was increasing and his calmness was boundless.

We finally got ready to board this tiny plane that looks like it can only jump a puddle and I lean over to Lucius and say, “look at this thing... these employees all look stoned -it’s like the beginning of a movie where you have to choose who to eat first after you cut off your own arm pinned under the wing.”  Him- “I’m sure it will be fine”

That’s it! I couldn’t take it anymore. In front of all the passengers about to get on our tuna can of death, I let him have it. “You know what, this is bullshit! No one is this calm when this much shit goes wrong! Listen, Fake Buddha, screw you!”

I storm up the stairs into the plane and turn to him and announce, “you stay back here, I’m sitting by myself. At least I appreciate my witty remarks and doomsday banter.” Needless to say, I managed to make a plane full of people horribly uncomfortable and Lucius decided that his trying to be not crazy was amping up my own. He stopped. We enjoyed the rest of our trip. I did get him back though.

As we were leaving he started his "Fake Buddha" behavior again. Freshly relaxed I decided, why get mad, when I could get even. So as we waited to check our bags I started nagging him, the only way a life partner can. Oh, he tried to stay calm but I know all his buttons. Inch by inch I crawled his nerves till Fake Buddha couldn’t take it anymore and threw one of the most superb fits you ever did see. There was even stomping. As all our fellow passengers turned to see what happened, I first say out loud, “Geez honey, calm down, it will be fine” and then whisper to him “whos the calm one now?” 

I’m sure our fellow travelers who took both trips with us were thinking, “how sad, that poor couple is so messed up” but they don’t know that now we travel great together. He is no longer Fake Buddha, we people watch and bitch together and both know if you can’t control your situation might as well try to find your inner sarcastic asshole Buddha to deal with it.