Rookie Errors

What is happening to me? I have been making the lamest travel errors lately. As much as I hoped it was just a strange symptom of contract break fatigue, it was not. As a traveler, I am regressing. Let's hope it stops here.


Take, for example, the R&R I am currently en route to, sitting in Entebbe airport. (Though, bear in mind my original plans were thwarted at the last minute - well, it was kinda building up but became impossible at the last minute - by rebel strongholds in the park I was planning on spending my time in. I mean, come on, I wanted to see gorillas, not guerrillas… har. har. har.)


I am now going to the Kenyan coast to lay by and swim in the ocean. 
I forgot my underwater camera case and razor in Ango. 
I forgot my sun hat hanging on the wall in Bunia. 
I just checked my bag in, forgetting my Kindle is in the top part of my backpack, perfectly placed to 
     1) be broken 
     2) be stolen. 
Note to self: only post this after you've safely landed in Nairobi with bag and contents in hand. 


So, that said, there are 18 passengers on this plane… I hope that somehow makes people feel less anonymous when handling luggage. One thing 18 passengers on a DC-9 given free-for-all seating does mean is that everyone vies for the "first class" seats, crowding next to each other and leaving all seats in the back totally empty. Usually I am stoked to have the seat next to me free, but I don't know what to do with 80-something of them. I should have brought my laundry to dry or something. 


I wonder when this airplane was built, and who owned it before Fly540, the torn interior looks vaguely familiar. The pilots are yelling at the ground crew. 


Is it strange that after 14 months of my primary transport being bush planes that I feel markedly less safe in jets? I mean, I currently am about to lose hearing in my right ear because they have started up the engines and the door is still open with the stair case up against it for anyone feeling the need for a last minute mind-change. Shouldn't that be closed by now? At least I know the procedures of small planes, I can trust my bush pilots and I can see when they are smiling while going through a storm or throwing their maps on the floor next to them, lost. 


I want to move farther back, it is safer back there, right?


I was asked to stay up front for the safety dement ration (?) (damn you autocorrect) demonstration, then told I could move to the back as we started taxing. 
Exit row never looked so good, thank you. 


It smells like vomit already. Oh my gosh, the oxygen masks have dropped… oh, that was just because we landed. 
Stellar.


How is it that I like flying less and less the more and more I fly? I am regressing as a traveler. This does not bode well for how I have pictured the continuation of this life. 


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Afterward: All non-forgotten articles mentioned in this post have made it safely to Nairobi and are tucked into a massive empty electricityless house. Bonne nuit.