Saturday, April 21, 2007

Thank God for iPod: The Long Way to Texas

The long day's journey into night began at 6:15am this morning in Shreveport, took me to Houston, back to Shreveport, back to Houston, then to McAllen, TX and ultimately to the fine little village of Hidalgo.

A planned 38-minute trip to Houston took six hours. Instead of arriving to the comfort of my airport hotel at 10:30am as planned, I finally put keister to king-size mattress at 4:30, with a whopping one hour of chill time before I had to hit the road again.

Anticipating several trips like this over the spring and summer, I caved in to impulse and bought an iPod. Then, I obsessed for a week about loading songs onto it. I have 1275, all of them chosen by me. God Bless my wife, who surprised me a couple of weeks ago with some Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Today, as frustrations mounted, I was Easy Like Sunday Morning, baby. Sweet music, my own world, no interruptions. People left me alone. I think they did, at least. The noise was cancelled. I couldn't hear a thing I didn't want to hear.

It occurred to me along the way that I had been walking around, sitting around and occasionally napping with five hundred bucks' worth of stereo equipment stashed in my pocket and strapped onto my head. It's worth every cent, I can now assure you without reservation.

We can't blame Continental Airlines. In fact, they were just outstanding when it came to helpng with all the unexpected changes. We actually started our descent into Houston when we were sent away because of dense fog. By the time we got back to Shreveport and took off again, more than a dozen planes were stacked up at Shreveport Regional. Glancing through our windows into those of our neighboring planes, we all seemed to have that glazed-over "what the heck?" look. Finally, the fog lifted and off we went again, Deja-vu style.

I will turn around and leave in about 14 hours. It struck me that God or my iPod (or both) must have a sense of humor. I have to tell you what song was playing on my iPod as I stepped out of the McAllen airport: SuperTramp's "Take the Long Way Home."

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1 comment:

Workman said...

Welcome to the fold, Brother Darrell.

I love my iPod very much. The Bose headphones are a must-have, especially if you travel. I don't know how I endured long flights without them.

I am glad that you now know the joy that so many of us feel every day.