Me and John Traveler

Thanksgiving morning, I arose early for my cross-country flight. While waiting to board the plane, I noticed a monitor that said "If you are flying standby, your name will appear on this list: Traveler, J." and thought to myself "Heh, that's funny. That guy (for some reason, I decided that the J stood for John) is flying standby and his last name is Traveler. And he's traveling! Get it?"
I got on the plane, and slept most of the way on the first leg of my journey. When I awoke, I immediately felt some hunger pangs and rued my decision not to load my bag with snacks. I was scheduled for a long layover, and as soon as I landed in Los Angeles, I made a bee-line to the first food establishment in sight: Chili's. I pulled up a seat at the bar and scanned the menu. Quesadilla. I looked around at the other patrons and took a quick survey of their beverages. The woman next to me was drinking a margarita. It looked good. The man next to her ordered a Bailey's and coffee, and the bartender offered to make it a double for two dollars more. He took the deal. An elderly couple sipped glasses of merlot. I opted for a margarita, and the woman next to me told me that she liked hers and we began chatting. She was friendly, around 40 with streaky blonde hair and lots of eyeliner. She had moved to LA from Missouri sixteen years ago and was headed back to visit her family. She asked me what I did and I told her, and when I asked her she told me that she worked in the entertainment industry. (My first thought: OMG, porn!) A man sat down on my other side and joined the conversation. He was a political science professor from Green Bay. We watched some of the Lions - Packers game, and I learned that it was only 10:45AM. So here I sat in the Chili's at the LA airport, drinking a margarita and watching football with a possible pornographer and a professor, and it was not yet 11AM. Happy Thanksgiving, America!

Okay, back to John Traveler. I decided to try and hop an earlier flight to San Diego and went to check myself in as a standby passenger. The monitor said "If you are flying standby, your name will appear on this list: Traveler, J." Wow- John Traveler is on my flight again! What are the chances? That's hilarious! Suddenly, the monitor blinked and my name, along with the names of a couple other standby passengers, appeared on the screen. Turns out that J. Traveler is not a real person, just a name used as example. I'm blonde, by the way.

I made it to San Diego and enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and lots of pie. Mmm....