I said goodbye to Kitten just before 5:00 this morning. We said a tearless goodbye, knowing not only that we will meet again one day, but that the other is never more than an IM away.

A strange emotion welling in my breast, I took my place in the long line for the security checkpoint – just in time for at least a hundred harried passengers to turn around and stampede out like spooked cattle.

Due to a security equipment to malfunction, the flow of the security checkpoint for terminals D and F was diverted into the checkpoint for B and C. This caused something of a jam as twice the normal amount of people were forced through the same security bottleneck. Every man, woman, and child in line was sweaty, tired, and understandably irritable.

All except myself, actually. I was feeling rather cheerful about the whole thing, grinning like a fool and feeling no pain, due in part to the extra-special dose of anti-anxiety medication coursing through my veins. I'm more than aware of how I usually react to being forced into tight enclosed spaces with several angry, sweaty individuals, and I was more than happy to spend my time smiling gormlessly at the people on either side of me, no matter how situationally inappropriate. I spent my time getting to know the ladies in front, who mostly ignored me outside of the suggestion that one of them should pretend to be twelve so they could get in the priority line, and the fellow behind, a young man bound for California who had been near the front of the other line when the malfunction occurred and might be accurately described as “righteously cheesed” in relation to that fact.

It took over an hour to get through security, but at least I had a smile on my face.