Wandr Lust

Travelling is a gift that giveth and taketh away. I enjoy it, mostly. It's nice to get out of the daily routine — start a new routine — and travel to exotic locations like Victoria, British Columbia, and then back to the also exotic Calgary, Alberta. This is a flight I make with some regularity.

Here's the typical itinerary, which I run every other month, sometimes monthly:

• Check in for my flight 24 hours prior to flying. Surprise, it's WestJet.

• Book my Uber the night before to get me to the airport the required two hours ahead.

• Wake up at 4 a.m. Do work stuff.

• Lose track of time.

• Pack, shower, brush my teeth, and feed the cats in the ten minutes before my Uber arrives.

• Uber to Calgary International Airport.

• Print my baggage tag. Ask for a priority tag.

• Do the Priority Boarding thing — belt and jacket already off, pockets empty, everything in the bin, jacket under my carry-on, hat in my hands. I'm wearing sandals, so no shoes to remove. Breeze through the scanner. Nothing beeps.

• Wait for my bag to clear while watching a lot of people experience airport security seemingly for the first time in their lives.

• Get "randomly selected." The randomness is routine at this point.

• Watch an agent root around in my carry-on, carefully removing things, wiping them with pads, testing them for stuff. What stuff? No idea. Drugs? Explosives? Cat hair? Not cat hair, obviously — that would return a reading alarming enough to shut down the entire concourse.

• Repack everything on the Repacking Table™, because I'm not a savage.

• Pick a cat hair off my eyelash and out of my right nostril.

• Walk the 500 kilometres to Concourse C.

• Sit at my usual table at Wandr. Order a black coffee and a Canadian Breakfast.

• Open my laptop. Do work stuff.

• Remember, when the food arrives, that I forgot to say "dry toast," and proceed to eat the dripping-butter-stroke-toast, dipping it into the broken yolk of my over-easy eggs with a side of thick-sliced bacon and smashed baby potatoes.

• Get an email from my doctor, who has evidently just read this, reminding me about my cholesterol.

• More work stuff.

• Board the flight. Priority.

I like to board first. I usually sit in 1D, the first row on the aisle, because it's important to stow my carry-on before the overhead situation gets ugly.

Side note: my carry-on is a small backpack with my laptop, a few of my books, some pens, five loose Advil, and a thumbdrive. It is not luggage.

I marvel at the amount of luggage people are calling "carry-on," and wait for the inevitable notification that the overhead bins are full and that anyone willing to check their carry-on can do so free of charge. I've come to understand that for some people, carry-on is the luggage, or the extra-bag-I-don't-have-to-pay-for loophole. It used to annoy me. Now I don't care, because I boarded first, pulled my laptop out, stowed the bag before the rush, and sat down to lose myself in work stuff — or, in this case, writing about adventures.

For those who say, "Dargie, you're such a snob, sitting up there in the first row of a WestJet 737-700 with your free coffee and nuts thinking you're better than everyone else," I say this. I know how I travel, and I do a lot of it. I'm a better passenger — a better human — when I have personal space. I get anxious in crowds, and waiting to deplane while surrounded by people fighting with their loophole luggage is nightmare fuel.

At the end of the flight, from the aisle seat in the first row, I can stand up, grab my backpack from the overhead, pull down my neighbour's bag if they have one, pass it over, then move out of the way so they can stand up straight instead of slouching or doing the "when can I merge" dance with other deplaning humans. It's a simple yet elaborate system designed to reduce friction and get me through the gauntlet of air travel with as little stress as possible.

My priority checked luggage is first off the plane and onto the carousel. I grab it and walk out to the Town Car pickup, and nod at the driver in the cool Professional Driver Cap. He nods back, grabs my bag, opens my door, and says, "Where to, sir?"

"Dammit, Dargie! Now you're really being a snob!" To which I say, no. Nope. Nuh-uh. Town Cars and Limos at the airport are a flat rate to most destinations and are the same price as cabs — sometimes even less expensive — and way nicer.

Sitting in the back seat, the smell of Corinthian leather wafting seductively, I look out the window as we pull away from the Arrivals Zone and absently pluck a cat hair from my left ear.