How Early Is Too Early?

This is a great question.  One that you can ask about so many topics.  How early is too early to break out your fall gear?  How early is too early to get up on a weekend?  How early is too early to put up Christmas decorations?  Or, if you had the day I had yesterday, your question would be this:

How early is too early to drink entirely too much and get on an airplane?

And before anyone makes any snap judgements around here….no….we are not talking about me.    We are talking about a crazy woman I had the absolute pleasure of sharing a flight with and the answer, in case you are wondering is 9:30 AM.    (Unless, of course, you are flying to Vegas, at which point all bets are off.)

So yesterday, I get to the airport only to find out my flight to Austin had been delayed by an hour and I would probably miss my first appointment.    I was in a fairly crabtastic mood already and the only saving grace when we were finally allowed to get on the plane was that it was pretty much empty.    I took a seat on a row by myself in front of a guy who looked fairly safe in terms of noise level…sort of vanilla looking and mousey.

You can imagine my shock when my intense reading of US Magazine (Jon and Kate split up???) was interrupted with the shrillest and most valley girlest (if that is a word)  “OH MY GOD!!!!” I have ever heard in my entire life.  Also, these words were shouted directly into my ear as she fell over the back of my seat trying to get to what I can now only assume is her mousey boyfriend based upon the wet slobbery noises I heard immediately after.

Yeah, so…we weren’t off to a good start.   It got worse though.  She started talking.  Really loud and without pause.    Apparently, she was on a 7:00 am flight that had some engine trouble and demanded a beer that she immediately slammed because she was scared.    Having actually been through an emergency landing myself complete with a row of firetrucks and guys in hazmat suits, I can sort of understand her emotion here.   However, upon landing she headed directly to the bar (it’s now 8:00 am…which gives new meaning to the old saying “It’s 5:00 somewhere!”  because really, it’s not) and proceeds to down a Bloody Mary.   Deciding that it was yummy, she upped the anti with a Spicy Bloody Mary.   And proving that you can never  have enough alcohol early in the morning, she capped it all off with a Vodka Tonic with lime…because after all that tomato juice, you want to make sure you get fruit into your diet as well.   It’s all about balance people.

How do I know all this you ask?  Because she was having a slurring stream of conscious conversation that was a verbal trainwreck and I was powerless not to listen.  That’s how.

Here’s something I didn’t know, early morning drunkenness leads to an excessive use of the word “like”.     Like this:

“So I was all like, give me a beer, and the flight attendent was all like whoa it’s only 7:00 am and I was like, do you think I, like, care?  And so she like gives me the beer and I chugged it in like a minute which OMG gave me a total buzz.   Also, did I tell you I like talked to my sister yesterday and she was all mad at me, and I was all like WHAT-EVER, so I like called Mom and was like O…M…G… what is with her attitude?  Oh wait, here comes the flight attendant, ‘Hey, do you like have any cold white wine????’”

So now you have a visual in your head of a drunken teeny bopper chugging wine at 9:30 a.m. right?  WRONG. Girlfriend was 40 if she was a day.

The rest of the flight continued on in much the same manner and I quietly prayed for God to take my hearing so I wouldn’t have to listen to anymore.  Thankfully, He did not and the flight was only an hour so I escaped with only mild emotional trauma.

Sure I could have moved, but miss blog fodder like this?   No freaking way.

Hope you guys all have, like, a totally fab weekend!