bouncing in the storms

I flew across country today.
You know that feeling you have right before you are going to be sick? Where you close your eyes, and try to breath deeply, and you feel the sweat start to sting your face? You swallow often, trying to remind your body which way the system works. Food goes in the mouth, not out of it, "come one stomach, hold on there".
That is the horrible limbo, where you don't know which way the story is going to go.

And that, my friends is where I spent some hours today. The pilot said "oh, we are just hitting the tops of the clouds, so you may feel some bumps." These bumps were violent jolts in a sea of smooth air. Then later we had to circle "for 20 minutes", and then another 20 minutes. Then we landed on a 'vectored course' (which just means slowly and out of our way in pilot-speak) I was so illin' when I got off I nearly kissed the ground.

I connected to my next flight in the Charlotte Airport.
Some brilliant designer came up with the idea of setting in a row of rocking chairs along the length of the main concourse. They are kind of folksy. And certainly unique. But when you have just "hit the tops of the clouds" and bounced and giggled, and swung, and circled figure eights in a holding pattern for hours on end, and you are greeted by a row of rocking chairs is literally nauseating. It's like asking a drowning man if he is thirsty, and then lining up really interesting glasses full of water in front of him.
I couldn't even look at them. And to add to it, they sit in front of the moving walkway. So the back drop is people moving at abnormal pace in opposite directions behind a line of people in big spindly high back rockers, and bobbing at random intervals.
I ran to my next gate, and avoided the chinese food, the Chili's on-the-go, and even the Body Shop. All I needed was a big hit of some mango hand lotion and I for sure would have lost it.