Day 14: Goodbye, Jordan

Our flight is a 2am deal, so we're at the airport before the midnight hour. It's going to be one long day, that day we fly: we have a five-hour flight back to Amsterdam, a six-hour stopover in the city, then another seven-hour flight home. I'll be in the house before dinner, local time.

But right now I'm in Queen Alia with super horny James, whose lover has fondled him the entire drive here. To answer your questions, yes, I was staring out the backseat window for the whole drive. James and I have said goodbye to Raj, who will be coming home all of two hours after us, via London, and have done the airport procedure thing. We have checked in, had our luggage weighed, gotten our seats and gone through security.

Security for James was going through the beep thing, then being scanned up and down by a portly gentleman. Security for me was the portly gentleman pointing me to a large, metal-like tent about 50 feet away where, once I passed through the heavy tarp curtain, a woman veiled from head to toe probed me with her giant magnifying glass. I was okayed to leave, and that I did that oh so quick. Didn't need to see Stage Two of the process.

With some time left to kill, James and I did what all people do when they are bored in the airport while waiting for their flight: we shopped. Queen Alia actually has a pretty decent shopping section, with a lot of imported everything from everywhere. James fell so in love with a blue Energie shoulder bag, or as he calls it, a "Murse" (men's purse), I got it for him as his early birthday present. I fell in love with plenty of things, but only bought breath mints. I'd had a silver slaughter that morning, after all.

Almost time for our flight, but we're still bored. We had to occupy ourselves, and so James choked on a mint while I plastered my greedy face against the frosted glass of the Crown Class lounge. Sheikhs, gold money clips, Eames chairs. No naugahyde here.

When it was finally time to board, I got redirected to yet another metal tent, heavy tarp curtain, and ninja security lady #2 who probed me with an even bigger magnifying glass. What the hell? With all these checks and probing, I was seriously happy I hadn't worn my Punk Royal pants with the logo across the bum for the return trip home. I passed the test and she waved me out, but my luggage was another story. Up onto the metal table went my carry on where smiling, mustachioed guard unzipped, poked through and then recoiled in horror. He'd found the most sickening thing, the most dastardly contraband ever found in any suitcase, anywhere: Travel Scrabble.

That's right, I got to hold up an entire plane full of people because of Travel Scrabble. Dude didn't stop at taking it out either, he had to open up the whole bloody thing and even go through every tile. Individually. There are 100 tiles in a Scrabble bag, and in the travel version, they're as big as Tic Tacs. After fucker was done with Travel Scrabble, he took out the next illegal thing: the holy water from the Jordan River. Apparently, it had the same size and shape as a pipe bomb, didn't you know? He even uncapped it to have a sniff.

Ordeal done, I took my bag back, swore at the guard in a language he couldn't possibly understand, and stormed onto the plane with James. We found our places, I stuffed James into the window seat, took the middle, and prepared for takeoff.

This is total cheese, but whenever I'm sitting in a plane on an airport runway about to take off, I think about the place I'm about to leave. I think about everything I've done and experienced, and, if it applies, the difference it has made in me and my life.

Needless to say, it usually applies. And so, here was my Jordan prayer:

Raj, thanks for the invite.
Myself, to save enough for the ticket.
Mummy and Papi, your hospitality. I'll never forget you.
James, you're one of a kind.
Marco, if I was a goddess for only an hour, it was because of you.
Zuzu, march on.
Jerash, peace of mind.
Ocean waters, my heart.
The desert, my soul.
Amman, I'll be back. But in the meantime,
I'm ready to go home now.

Takeoff was very smooth. We got a meal shortly after, I'll assume it was eggs, and after dozing off for a couple of minutes, I woke up with a man's hand on my boob.