Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-BDL

At this time of year, you tend to hear a lot about traditions and how they make the holiday season so memorable. Although I have many cherished traditions with my friends and family, there is one in particular I’d like to break and it has to do with flying to Connecticut with E around Christmas.

Last year, as you may recall from a previous post, we encountered pure hell on our flight home when we were diverted to Green Bay, Wisconsin and ended up driving ourselves home on an unlit highway. I neglected to mention, however, that this trip started with me breaking a couple of toes. As we were leaving directly after work, we had packed the night before and I had stupidly left my suitcase out in the middle of the bedroom. When I got up in the morning, I walked right into it and managed to break my second and third toes on my left foot. True to form, I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal, popped a couple of Tylenol and put on socks so I wouldn’t have to look at my feet. By the time we got to CT that evening, my toes were bruised and about twice their usual size. Luckily, E’s mom is a doctor and was able to bandage me up and play apothecary from the family’s well-stocked personal pharmacy stash.

Here we are in 2011. You would think that last year’s luck would guarantee us smooth sailing this year. So far, we’re batting 1000.

Thursday, I visited my doctor who suggested I get a Tetanus shot since I couldn’t remember when I’d had my last one and they’re only good for about 10 years. Sure, why not; let’s plan ahead. The nurse told me (after the shot, naturally) that my arm might be sore for a couple of days. Fine. Well, come Sunday morning (yes, Christmas Day, also known as the best day to require medical attention), it was not only still sore but was also red, hot to the touch, and absolutely throbbing (I had noticed this going on for the past few days as well but, as mentioned above, thought that ignoring it was the surest way for it to disappear on its own. I may have to revise my views on self-medicating.).

Thanks to Walgreens for being open on Christmas Day.

Although my MD mother-in-law came to the rescue again, diagnosing me over FaceTime and finding a Walgreens that was actually open to which she called in a couple of prescriptions for me, I realized that with the pre-flight-to-CT-physical-ailment-requiring-a-doctor already taking place, I was now on track for a repeat of last year. Drat.

The next day, we were off to the airport bright and early because of course we would choose to fly the day after Christmas for no real reason with every other holiday traveler on the planet. Good planning. The two things working in our favor were our propensity for showing up quite early on notoriously busy travel days and the promise of an already-confirmed upgrade to first class. Not to mention being able to jump the security line with a status card (E now thinks I’m magic).

So other than the flight attendant dumping some (luckily NOT scalding) coffee on E (“Don’t worry, he’s a lawyer!” I helpfully chirped to her), the flight to Bradley was uneventful and filled with delicious Bloody Marys. Yes, plural.

Safely ensconced on the East coast, I can only hope  our flight home does not come with any rerouting.