Yeah.  I went to Ireland.  That’s me and my mini-monkey Blue chillin’ in a yard at a castle.  I threw him around a bunch to let him roll around in the grass because it was so lush and green.  I have a picture of me “Monkey bowling” that a new friend of mine took over there.  If I look fat it’s because I had on two pairs of pants and four layers of shirts. it was fucking COLD.

So I’ll start this week off with the beginning and the end.  I was scared shitless.  I booked the tickets under Julie Jones because that’s what my passport says.  As long as your ticket matches your I.D. you’re fine, I worked for the airlines so I knew this.  What worried me was that I have an arsenal of medications I take and you have to bring all the bottles so they know you’re not a drug smuggler and those are under Julie Maloney.  I brought both I.D.’s but had no idea if I’d get in trouble or not.

So I head out to Ireland and it’s easy-peasy.  Hop on the plane, take pills and sleep for eight hours.  Go through customs and tell them I’m headed to The Morrison hotel to party with my friends and he says “Have fun” and I go on about my business (I’ll probably tell a story or two this week, I was funny).

It was coming back that terrified me.

I walk through the first security checkpoint that is just for the general Dublin airport and oh my gawd so those people have it easy.  Only have to take their shoes off if they have heels.  I grab myself one last awesome latte (I became super spoiled over there with the coffee) and I listened to The Beatles as I waited for my gate to be put up on the board.

Suddenly it said U.S. passengers had to go to U.S. pre-clearance.  Yeah.  I start to panic because I always panic and I headed on down there.  I waited in the long customs line and did the stuff we usually do when we land in the U.S.  They do it in Ireland so when I landed in Chicago I didn’t have to do anything, that part was cool.  What freaked me out was all the searching they did at the three different access points I went through each time.  I was convinced they’d grab my pills and then I’d either have them all taken (I had extras at home but still) or I’d get arrested because I have a tendency to overreact and that was where my mind immediately took me.  It’s why I need the pills.

That’s what I get for being a Jones.  It’s like everyone automatically assumes I’m traveling under a false name which I technically was but I used to be a Jones so screw them.  The second I went through and got my passport stamped it was like a regular U.S. airport.  Shoes off and all that jazz.  The guy looks at my passport and boarding card and looks at me and then looks down again.  He keeps my things and sends me off to another guy.

Now I used to work for the airlines and I dealt with this shit all the time.  I normally wouldn’t have cared but I hadn’t slept, I was all fucked up from the time difference and I was terrified that I was about to go to Irish jail in a paddy wagon.

The guy sits me down and starts asking me all these questions.  What my name was, how long have I been there and where am I going.  He asks if I’m hungover and I say no, I don’t drink I’m just very tired because I wanted to be sure I slept through my long flight back so I stayed up late the night before.  He then asks to go through my bags and I give him the go ahead.

He gets out the little wand I was already familiar with and rubs it all over the place and puts it in a machine.  Then he rubs it all over the inside of my bag.  Then on my hands.  I kept wondering if my Xanax was going to make it go off even though I was trained on how to use those machines and knew that it wouldn’t.

He tells me I’m all set and to enjoy my nap and I thank him and head to my gate.  At boarding time I had my boarding pass over to the lady and she looks at it, sees that there’s a hole stamped in it and puts me over to the side and has another gate agent pat me down.  I’m sweating now but no one can tell.

I get cleared to go and at this point you don’t even see the holes in my boarding pass because it was ripped off but just before I get on the plane there are two guys standing there and I get stopped AGAIN and asked to see my passport and they search my bags.  At no point did they pull out the pills.  I’m not sure if they were wanting to sniff my panties or what (I shoved all my panties in my boots to consolidate the space so they missed out) but those fuckers put me through the ringer.

I finally got on board the plane after over an hour of checkpoints and searches, popped three Xanax and told the guy next to me I was likely going to be sleeping but poke me if I don’t wake up when the plane lands.  He gave me a look like he thinks he should have the flight attendant search me but as soon as he saw my monkey he seemed to calm down a bit.

Thank you Blue for saving the day.  Maybe he’s what got every crazy guard off my back, who knows.  I do know this – from this point forward, Blue is going to be my travel companion.  Most pictures of castles and scenery are mundane and boring but a picture of Blue looking at castles and scenery makes it all the better.

So that’s my story of my terrorist pill name changing flight.  I’m sure to have more shit to sling your way as I remember all the fun things I did on the trip.  I have one for sure that will leave many people I came in contact with remembering me as the “Fuck ‘em” girl.

I’m awesome.

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