#56 Bad "Ash"eville Adventure

I'm sitting at the Asheville Airport waiting for my flight back home to Tampa. Sipping on my fifth Diet Pepsi of the day, feeling slightly wired, I was feeling antsy and jumpy. The waiting area was overly packed since many of the planes had been delayed during the day. The seats were hard and the air was stale.

I passed time talking to my seatmate to my left, who told me she was trying to get to St. Peterburg -- and her plane had gotten as far as the runway before they realized something was wrong and turned back. That was 5:30am and it was now 2:30pm. Needless to say, she was not a happy camper. Definitely not as happy as the two women who came wobbling by, singing an unintelligle song and swaying broadly back and forth. The woman sitting next to me remarked with a raised eyebrow, "They have been at the bar since 5:30am. The. Entire. TIme".

Suddenly, the guy sitting to my right wearing a black hoodie covering his face let out a big sneeze. I said, "Bless You" and he replied, "Thank you for that. I appreciate it". What an overreaction to a simple common courtesy, right?

But as I looked down, I saw he was wearing the coolest black tartan with global peace sign Chuck Taylors I have seen. I told him how much I liked them. He put down his hood, and told me that his sister had bought them for him for Christmas and he loved them more than anything.

What a cool guy he turned out to be. He is in the process of moving down to Miami from North Carolina. He started out as a lawyer, but said that he didn't feel comfortable in law, and he moved into landscape design and construction. He and his doberman used to go to nursing homes to provide pet therapy until his dog passed away in January.

He asked what I do for a living and I told him that I work in the senior living field. I will never forget his words -- "Miss Beth. Thank you for doing that work. Our older people don't get the respect and care they should. What you do is so important". What a kind thing to say.

I offered him my cheese crackers. He offered me a tangerine. It was an airport friendship made in heaven.

Then the fun came. He mentioned that he had been sitting in his chair since 11am that morning and "I don't have much padding on my backside, so these chairs are absolutely killing me". I pointed out the couple of padded lounge chairs in the waiting area, and mentioned that a flight was getting ready to board so he might be able to grab one.

At one point, I saw a padded chair become vacant and quickly I told Felix (that's his name) to "Run! Get over there and grab the chair. I'll bring your stuff to you". He jumped up, but realized that the previous occupant was still holding the chair with their baggage. Darn it.

But not that much later, I glanced over and saw the holy grail of a padded, recliner chair open. I jumped up, yelled, "Felix, there's a chair. Grab your stuff!", and I ran over to jump on the comfy chair to save it for my new friend. He was so happy that he said, "Do you mind if I give you a hug" and gave me a big old squeeze. A really nice person like that shouldn't have to put up with a hard plastic chair, right? My new badass friennd shouldn't have a sore ass, amirite?

Those are some of my most favorite adventures lately -- making friends with random people that I would have had no connection with except happenstance put us in the same area.

While in Asheville, we had just enjoyed a delicious meal and fun camraderie with 12 other colleagues, when a few of us happened to see a red double decker bus in an alleyway. We went to check it out and found out it was a coffee bus. Um...yeah!!! The funny thing is, the coffee bus opens at 10am and doesn't close until late. I asked why they don't open earlier in the day and she replied, "Well...I don't know. People around here don't tend to like getting their coffee in the morning". Um........ok.

While we were waiting for our drinks, three people came up and seemed to get a kick out of us. We asked them to take come photos for us, and then to jump in the pictures too. They invited us to join them at a concert they were heading to, and as we were walking away, one of the guys yelled after us (I think unironically): "Make good choices tonight". Good advise, dat.

The conference was wonderful. We hit some great restaurants -- and my favorite was the night my boss Jill took her team out for dinner. The tapas restaurant served the most delicious octopus I have ever had in my life. And Jill did a heartwarming speech that signaled out every person in the team. There wasn't a dry eye.

I had an amazing time getting to know my colleagues -- all of who are incredibly talented and fun to be around . I leanred a ton-- and I did my own presentation without throwing up. I call that a success!

Plus they had Bit-O-Honeys at the table.

And I got a new water bottle -- with stickers to decorate it.

Life is good.