Abigail M. Schilling

My latest nervous habit recently became checking my checking account every four minutes. See, last week I bought a plane ticket from your friend and mine, United Airlines. After booking the ticket online, I was redirected to a page I had never seen before. A page that instructed that I call United to confirm my booking. So I called "Michael"* in India and confirmed my booking. I received all the confirmation emails and the website said I was all ticketed but I was never charged for the ticket. And thus began my addiction to checking my bank account to see if they would ever charge me. (*I highly doubt his name was Michael but that's what he told me.)

Today, eight days later, they finally charged me. I was a little disappointed. Afterall, I thought I was going to pull one over on United and then I might even say something nice about them on my blog. Oh well.

Here's the news, good or bad, depending on how you look at it. The flight, which I'm taking today, is to Redding, California. It's not to New York as originally planned. I won't be at TequilaCon. To make up for it, I've promised to have my share of MGD and bull-riding, but it won't be the same.

It will be fun, though, and Heather and Matt have already paved the way, scouting out places like Outdoor Outfitters and we'll be making a journey to the family farm in Oregon. Pictures of me shooting guns pending. In fact, you might say that we'll being having fun to the max (TMX).

Unfortunately, I'll have to get back on a plane to get there. Two planes, actually, neither of which turned out to be free. And one of the planes? Made in Brazil. It's crusing speed? Only 343 mph. It's range? 1,008 miles. It will seat about 20 people and one flight attendant. And one of it's features is, drum roll please, a pressurized cabin. This is going to be fun.