The Journey of a Thousand Miles

I think it was the Chinese that said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” That’s well and good if you live in China where you might have to walk a thousand miles, but not for me. I think a truer statement would be “the journey of a thousand miles begins with deciding where you want to go and what to pack.” That’s what I call a good saying.

To begin with you need a journey a thousand miles away. A thousand miles from Chicago would be New York City or Denver Colorado or Dallas Texas. I’ve been to New York and I don’t plan on going back…willingly. So that leaves Denver or Dallas. I’ve been to Denver. Nice place to visit. Too high though and the air’s too thin. Or it could mean Dallas. Can’t stand the heat and cockroaches down there and that funny accent. Or my 1000 miles could mean somewhere in Canada. Canada. Let’s see. Isn’t that the northernmost suburb of Chicago?

Okay, so let’s say this hypothetical journey I’m taking is to Denver. Denver. Seems like I knew a pastor in Alaska named Denver. I’d rather go to Alaska than Denver, but this 1000 mile journey just ended up being 3000. We can’t change the Chinese proverb over that, can we? Why I would want to go to Denver is beyond me, but let’s just assume I want to go to Denver. I pop online and buy a ticket from one of those slick dot com companies. They say it’ll only take seconds to save money but I totally disagree. Hours for me. They want personal information about me, my spouse, and my firstborn. Too much hassle so I call the airline of my choice. Full fare? In your dreams. Okay, I’ll worry about that later, later being 13 days before the actual flight, assuming I’ll be flying, and assuming I’ll want to pay close to full fare, and assuming I want to give all that personal information online again. That sure is a lot of assumptions just to get to a place I didn’t even want to get to anyhow.

Where was I? Oh, Denver. Can’t say much about a city that has a Bronco for a football team or the name of a mountain range for a baseball team. Why was I going to Denver anyhow? Somebody refresh my memory. Oh, that’s right. It’s about that first step thingy. So, I have my ticket in hand (well not actually, since I grudgingly bought it online and they issued me an E-Ticket…well, they didn’t issue it, but the theory is the nonticket will be waiting for me at the airport ticket counter, whatever that means. Perhaps they should name it a non-ticket counter since you don’t actually get a ticket). I’m waiting until that big day when I can jump on the El and get right over to O’Hare and wait in that everlasting security line just so I can take off my shoes to prove that I don’t have any bombs there, and after having gone through all of that find out that my flight is out of Midway. But before they lay a hand on me to frisk me, they run my bag through, the bag that I was supposed to pack way in advance.

Packing. Did I mention that I wait until the day of to pack? Some people pack days before. Not me. I throw my stuff together and inevitably I have overpacked. Big deal. I call it Power Packing. Pack ‘N Go. Procrastination Packing my wife calls it. What does she know? She’s from Minnesota where they pack a year in advance for any trip longer than 3 days. And they take half of Minnesota with them when they go. Swedes. That’s all I’ll say about them.

Oh, excuse me, I’ve got to run. My flight is tonight. I need to go and pack. Sorry I rambled so long about this journey thing. Perhaps I’ll learn to pack in advance. Probably not.

Maybe the Chinese were right after all.