In which universe tells me not to bother

So immediately after getting all holier-than-thou on my last post, and wildly galloping around on my high horse, I decide it is time to delve into some very important research:

Aircraft seat width and pitch.

Yes, in a little over a week I'll be off to sunny and warm (I think and hope, since I haven't actually looked into the situation and am going purely on stereotype here) Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America. To visit my best friend from Mexico, Gringa, and her husband.

I'll also be lunching/having coffee with the lovely Kim of Helitrollop, unless she decides to back out. She still might, and well, I can be scary. Especially if one focuses on that weird jumping video on the Blog Camp blog in which I may or may not be threatening to kill someone. I have no recollection of making said threat, but there it is on tape. Scared Kim?

Anyhoo, in order to get to Albuquerque from Johannesburg I need to sit on a plane for 16 hours, on the first leg of the journey.

Let's take a moment to hyperventilate. And utter in a tone of incredulity: "for fokken six fokken teen fokken hours?"

As you all well know, my traveling karma bites, and sucks, and blows, and likes to kick me especially when I'm already delirious from lack of sleep and have not eaten in days, or at least for hours, and when I haven't packed any painkillers or my toothbrush in the hand luggage. Traveling karma also sneaks up on me when my credit cards have expired, I have no money on me, and no working and/or charged phone.

But the one thing that it all boils down to, the one thing that makes traveling on an airplane hell for me is the seat. I have come to realize that in the end I can take a multitude of crying babies, dead-goat smelling people, being ignored by the wine-dispensing flight attendant, and all other kinds of evils related to air travel as long as I can sit comfortably and read my book a little bit, before sleeping for the best part of the journey.

So I decide, this time around, at least I can be prepared and know where I'll be sitting, and in what kind of an aircraft.

Hence the search for aircraft seat width and pitch.

This is where my day and my desire to be prepared take an ugly, ugly turn.

After reading a few pages, I start to panic. I count the days left before my journey. Then I enter a different Google search:

buttocks thighs smaller in 10 days

I get in my workout gear and put on my sneakers, while almost simultaneously hopping on the elliptical machine that has stood completely immobile since it was unpacked from the container upon the arrival of our stuff to South Africa.

I begin to push with my feet.

Nothing happens.

I push a little more, and finally a screeching sound emanates from somewhere in the machine. I push still a little more and slowly get the pedals to move amidst a concerto of metallic sounds coming from the belly and the joints of the machine. The display, however, remains completely dead.

I push a few buttons. Nothing happens.

I knock on the display. Nothing happens.

I get off the machine and kick its side. Nothing happens.

I circle around the machine in search of a more efficient spot to kick, and then I see it. The display takes batteries.

I run downstairs to find batteries. "This is sorta like exercise, right?" I think whilst I rummage through drawers and drawers filled with items I did not realize we own, until finally I unearth some batteries in the kitchen.

I attempt to remove the plastic back of the display to get to the batteries. The plastic doesn't move, but I break a nail.

I attempt to remove the plastic covering the batteries again, this time with a key. The back opens and I manage to hit myself in the cheek with the key. After the initial shock resulting in giggles, I realize that I missed my eye by half an inch. Suddenly I don't feel like laughing so much anymore.

I forcefully remove the batteries from the display and replace them with the new ones. I hop back on the machine without bothering to replace the cover, which turns out to be okay, because I have stuck one of the batteries in the wrong way round and need to hop off and turn it around.

Finally the display comes to life with various beeps.

I hop back on the machine and begin to push with my feet. The display flickers 0.00 and I push harder. Again, the machine creeks into motion.

I begin to set the intensity level when the loudest sound so far startles me. It is coming from the joint of the right pedal.

As the right pedal slips out of its supportive upright shaft I lose my grip and plummet alongside the right pedal. And as gravity does its job, landing painfully on my hands and knees, I hit the ground.

And this, my good folks, is when I finally come to understand that the universe is telling me loud and clear not to bother.

It's only for 16 hours, right?

But I only eat this stuff, dangit!

Have a lovely and injure free weekend! I'll see you on Monday again, if the elliptical machine doesn't put me in the hospital meanwhile.