The sticky widget was the connection.  The layover in Detroit was only 30 minutes.  Perhaps they were just being kind by moving me out of Detroit as quickly as humanly possible.  If that was their intention, then I tip my hat to them.

For the flight out of Seattle, I was seated next to an outspoken woman in her sixties, and an outspoken woman in her thirties.   They had managed to bond in the ten seconds before my arrival and welcomed me into their sisterhood, even though I usually make a point of ignoring all people on planes.

They had just switched seats out of mutual preference, and when I took my seat in the middle (imagine, no one wanting to trade my seat) they were quick to cheerily ask each other and me, “Which would you rather be?  The person who is inconvenienced, or the person who is inconveniencing others?  I’d rather be inconvenienced.  Definitely!”  They each nodded in agreement, affirming their mutual self-sacrifice.

What is this, I asked myself, Girl Scout tryouts?

Before I could respond, the older lady turned to me and said the usual, “Where are you traveling?”  After I replied, like clockwork, she exclaimed, “Me too!”

Fantastic.

“Weren’t you thrilled by the fares?  I mean, what a steal.  Isn’t Delta the absolute best?” she inquired further.

Maybe it’s just me, but one does not typically compare airfare once airfare has been purchased, because most people understand that ticket prices fluctuate by the hour, and one is sure to either feel terrible about her own price or make someone else feel terrible about their price.  This woman did not know this.

“Actually,” I replied (because why not make her feel a little remorse for starting this conversation?) “I am traveling for a funeral, so I had to purchase my ticket just last night, and I paid three times as much as you.”

“Oh!” she gasped.  “Oh I’m sorry.  Well did you at least take advantage of Delta’s fantastic bereavement program?”

Again, why ask this question when the opportunity for me to take advantage of it has already passed?  What could possibly be gained?

“Um no, I’m afraid not,” I replied.  “I called another airline who said they don’t offer those types of discounts, so I didn’t bother calling for Delta’s.”

“Oh that’s such a shame, because they do.  They do!” she said.

I reached for my People magazine.

Four hours later we were about to land, and she turned to me and said, “We only have thirty minutes to make it to our gate, and I’ve already checked the map of the Detroit airport and it’s going to be quite a haul.  So we’re really going to have to make a run for it.”

We?  Did I fall unconscious at some point during the flight and say in my sleep that I needed a travel partner?  I smiled sweetly and agreed that it would be close.  As soon as the plane landed, she barked at me to get my bags, and then we filed out of the plane.  I didn’t see her for a moment, and thought I’d be able to navigate the airport in peace, when I looked ahead and saw her up the galley waiting for me.

The walk that followed was ten different kinds of awkward.  Since she set the standard by waiting for me, I had no choice but to stick with her the rest of the journey.   And it was a journey.  Long walk, moving walkway, escalator, air tram, escalator, moving walkway, escalator.

At every escalator or moving walkway, we’d do this horrifically awkward shuffle of not knowing whether we should get on side-by-side and openly acknowledge each other, or whether we should split up and each take our own, pretending we were not really together.  Please don’t forget that in this whole “traveling companion” exchange we had not even learned each other’s names.

To add to the unbearable awkwardness, we had to keep up this fake I’m-waiting-for-you-but-I’m-acting-like-I’m-not charade.  She’d fall behind, and I’d walk like a sloth until she caught up.  We had to navigate the tram system together, with each of us telling the other where we thought we should get off and where it would lead.

One doesn’t realize how intimate these minute traveling decisions are until one has to perform them with a stranger.  We’re actually pretty vulnerable when we’re in an unfamiliar place, and suggesting the wrong route or acting more calm than you feel is something we usually only share with those in our inner circles.

After about a ten minute walk/ride/sprint through the Detroit airport, we approached the last escalator.  After doing what was by now our practiced dance of choosing which escalator to ride, we chose separate ones.  We couldn’t see the top of the staircases, and there was only one major sign that said the escalators lead to our B gates.

All of a sudden, the few men in front of me started getting shorter.  That’s weird, I thought.  Are they all bending down…no, instantly I realized my escalator ride was ending much too soon.

I looked over to my traveling companion and she was already ten feet above me.  She saw what was happening too, and shouted, “I’ll turn around!  I’ll come back down for you!”

Suddenly all of our faking and subtlety and aloof attitudes were proven to be the lie that they were, and I was shouting back, “No!  You go!  I’ll find my way!  It’ll be OK!”  Desperately, she yelled in response, “I’ll hold the plane for you!”

At this point everyone around us knew for sure that I was an absolute idiot.  Who doesn’t realize the escalator only goes two floors?  To which I might reply, how often does this happen?  When on earth are two escalators literally side-by-side, and one stops halfway up?

Immediately it was quiet and I was left standing in a much smaller space than the one I was sure my friend was walking onto, and I searched to no avail for a down escalator.  I found an elevator and it opened to reveal several handicapped people.  I felt like an absolute jerk as I interrupted their ride for my one floor gain.

As I exited the elevator and walked toward my gate, I realized my view of my seatmate hand changed.  I couldn’t believe a stranger would embarrass herself by shouting in a public place, all for my comfort.  Sure, she probably knew that I could find my way to the gate alone, but she acknowledged that together we’d gone ninety percent of the way there, and she didn’t want to let me walk that last ten percent alone.

After I arrived at the gate with minutes to spare, she found me and said, “You made it!  Terrific.  I’m going to go get a snack.”

And that was that.  Our journey had ended.  I sighed with relief that she probably wouldn’t be sitting next to me on the ride to Bethlehem.  We would no longer have to overcome Lewis and Clark-esque challenges.  I also realized, a little sadly, that no one would be by my side the rest of the way.

One of us did this intentionally.  The other did not.

Both of us didn’t get caught. 

Here are our stories.

We were walking around the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, exploring the decorative arts (read: furniture) of the 16th century.  There were several-hundred-year-old chairs and beds, expansive red-velvet hangings and silk bedspreads.  I was enthralled with the idea of seeing how people actually lived in their homes, as opposed to just seeing what they’re famous for (their works of art, for instance).

Mike was walking a room or two ahead of me (medieval home furnishings not being a topic that makes him gasp with excitement), and I had slowed to look at a particularly ancient carved wooden chair.  I started thinking about all of the hundreds of people who had sat in that exact chair over the last 500 years, and it gave me little goosebumps.  Those little goosebumps took me straight back to being eight years old, at any of a number of historical sites with my mother.

“Abby, think about it, George Washington LIVED HERE.  This was HIS ACTUAL BED.  You have to touch it!  You have to touched what he touched!  This is HISTORY!”

So, inevitably, I would touch it.  I touched everything I could get my hands on, particularly in Williamsburg, and always at the urging of my mother.  She and I shared a special history-obsessiveness, and touching things was the only way to separate us from the throngs of passing public who merely looked at each exhibit. 

As I stood in front of the chair at the V&A, however, I failed to account for the nineteen years of museum technology that had occurred between my preteen illegal activity and now.

I looked around the room.  Empty. 

For just a split second, I reached across the rope and put my hand on the armrest of the chair.  Satisfied, I started walking to the next room.  It only took three seconds for the alarm to activate.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.

I jumped at the sound and started walking faster toward Mike, who was far enough away not to hear the sound.  By the time I reached him, four guards had appeared at the scene of the crime and were walking around looking for the perp. 

But I was too smart for them.  I’ve watched cop shows, I know what to do — the opposite of what a law-breaker would do: talk to the guards.

I walked up to the nearest guard and explained that I was looking for Da Vinci’s drawings.  I expected a quick answer that would dismiss me from suspicion, but apparently I chose the one guard who had been looking for his chance to show that he knew every corner of the museum by memory.

“Da Vinci is in room 24, which follows a series of rooms that explore several artists’ significant contributions to…” I glanced at Mike in misery that we had just been trapped, as the guard continued, “…or alternately you could take the Asian exhibit route which would show various periods of dress from the seventeenth to…”  This was never going to end.

Luckily, it did, and I never brought up my little dalliance with the law with the husband.

Until…

Five days later we were at the Musee de l’Orangerie in Paris, appreciating Monet’s enormous murals of his water lilies in Giverny.  We decided to venture downstairs to the temporary exhibits, because we had yet to see any of Picasso’s work while on our trip.

We noticed as we walked room to room that there were small metal rails blocking people from getting too close to each work of art.  But the odd thing about the rails was that they were only 12 inches off the ground, and they were extremely sharp and squared off on the ends. 

When we found the Picasso area, we moved slowly around the room, looking at each piece of art.  Without Mike realizing it, I left the room and moved into the next, and as he glanced up and saw that I was gone, he turned too quickly and jammed his leg right into a rail. 

He immediately lost his balance and gave a shout at the pain, and tumbling forward, he smacked his hand against the wall for support.  Only his hand didn’t land on the wall.  It landed on a Picasso.

Cue the alarm.

Suddenly Mike came hobbling toward me with the look of an animal in the crosshairs of a hunter.  He was grabbing his leg and reaching for the bench I was sitting on.  He pulled up his pant leg to reveal a three-inch gash on his shin.  But he didn’t care about his leg.

“Oh my gosh I just smacked the Picasso.  Oh my gosh.  Oh my gosh.  Look at the painting, I just smashed my hand into the glass.  Did they see?  Did they see me?”

Just then a female guard came running, literally sprinting down the hall toward the Picasso.  She stopped directly in front of it and started waving her arms around in the universal “Who did this?  Who did this?” gesture.  She turned around several times, as if the idiot who assaulted the painting would be standing there ready to be escorted out.

“Keep your head down,” I said to Mike.  “And stop grabbing your leg!  She’s going to put two and two together!”

The woman circled the area once more and then threw her hands in the air in exasperation, as if she had conducted a full investigation and come up empty.

“I can’t believe I just set off the alarm.  Who does that!?” Mike asked me.

I decided the only way to make him feel better was to come clean. 

“Well…” I began.  “At least you didn’t do it on purpose…”

It dates back to my childhood years of poking my meat with a fork to check for veins or other signs that my entree used to be a live animal.

I wish I was past this.  I wish I didn’t care that there are things in chicken like fat and “gristle” (a word that still makes me shudder).  Mostly I just wish I was a vegetarian.

But then I couldn’t have steak or fish, both things for which I salivate.

So.  The chicken.  I deal with it on a semi-weekly basis because it’s easy, cheap and the husband enjoys it.   I usually just cut it up and cook it with some simmer sauce.  But do I like it?  Unclear.

Recently I’ve been flipping through various cookbooks and the same recipe keeps jumping out at me: whole roasted chicken.  Every single recipe taunts me with how easy it is, how low-maintenance, but they all seem to forget one little tidbit:  I have to TOUCH the chicken to make it.

So, without actually touching it, I managed to get this 4.5lb chicken from its packaging to my chicken-only cutting board.

Ten minutes later, the chicken still looked like this, because I was pacing back and forth in front of it after reading the following in my cookbook: “Remove organs from cavity of chicken.”

Surely there must be some other way.

I finally decided that without rubber gloves I was going to have to resort to using a paper towel.  I wrapped my hand in the paper towel and stuck my hand into the “cavity.”   It only took about two seconds for me to realize that I could not feel a thing, nor could I move my hand to grab at anything.

I was going to have to do this the hard way.

I took off the paper towel, counted to three and dove my hand in so fast I convinced myself I wouldn’t feel a thing.  But I did feel a thing.  His organs.  How do people do this?!

I promptly threw them in the trash and then washed my hands within an inch of their life.  Only I should have kept reading because it wasn’t long before I was rubbing salt and pepper all over the bad bird and then shoving a lemon up his rear.   Good times.

I became a huge fan of rosemary in the process, because I quickly discovered that I can jam it into the chicken without ever touching the slimy flesh.

My jaw really hit the floor when the cruel authors of the cookbook demanded that I lift the skin away from the meat with my finger and put whole garlic cloves underneath. Excuse me?

I put the whole thing in the oven and instantly realized why people love cooking chicken this way: you can walk away for an hour.  This, in cooking, is priceless.  Usually when I cook chicken, it’s stir-fry style and I have to stand there and move the chicken pieces around for twenty minutes.  With the whole chicken method, I’m watching Bethenny Getting Married and having a glass of wine.  Why didn’t I know about this sooner?

The resulting bird was really a thing to behold: all golden brown, perfectly crispy on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside (and by inside, I mean the meat…not the “cavity”).  Mike was astonished that such a thing of beauty would come from the work of my hands, especially since he knows about my aversion to poultry.

So now I am caught in a bind: do I make the chicken more often, considering how easy it is and how much Mike likes it?  Or do I banish forever the image of my hand up the backside of a bird?