Were I to write myself as a character I’d be a supporting character – a best friend, good employee – but really rather… beige. Recent events are forcing me to come to grips with the fact that I am, in point of fact, anything but beige!

In my defense, I don’t go looking for drama. I really don’t! It just seems to stalk me. For instance….

My trip back to Kabul (ya, I know let’s not talk about how NOT beige or boring living in Afghanistan actually is…) started innocently enough. I got up on time, only to find that a major storm had hit that morning. Rain was ripping down in violent swaths of destruction. Less than 1/2 a mile from the house I encountered my first tree down across the road.

Okay, this really has nothing to do with me. I don’t control the weather.

Nearer the airport nearly some 30 trees had come down across the road, entirely blocking the south bound traffic. Just beyond that a police officer came flying up behind me, passed me and pulled over the truck in front of me.

So far so good. I’ve managed to avoid the drama…

Made it to the airport. Even managed to repack my bags so that I could travel with all that I’d packed. Then the drama began…

Weather in San Francisco was so poor that my flight was ultimately delayed by more than 3 hours…part of that time spent doing lazy circles just north of our destination. So, though I was planning a lovely lunch in Frisco… I ended up running from one terminal to the other to make my flight. I was the last person on the flight… found my seat and then made the fatal mistake of asking a flight attendant for pretzels.

I’d been traveling all day on United Airlines… ALL DAY! It was 2 p.m. and I’d not had so much as a peanut. (Heaven forbid they provide peanuts on 1.5 hr long flights! Though they’re now charging $25/per checked bag for national flights.)

With a massive bag-o-pretzels behind her, the flight attendant’s answer left me in tears. May have been a bit of an over reaction on my part,  but I was starving and come on, they’re freaking pretzels!

The rest of the trip was mostly uneventful – aside from an angry Italian man banging on the stall of the bathroom door for no apparent reason. (3 minutes doesn’t seem unreasonable to me!) Then I landed in Kabul. Everything was great until I hit customs and found out that my visa had expired.

In my defense the expiry date was 6/3/10 – which I of course read June 3 rather than 6 March. Oops! Fortunately I had a lovely Chief of Immigration on duty. After informing me that he could DEPORT me – tears welling up in my eyes and me nearly melting into a little puddle at his feet – he let me leave the airport.

…but, wait, there’s more!

I had three bottles of wine in my bags – and come to find out, you’re allowed only two. The security officer must have felt sorry for me (I’d been stuck waiting in Customs for 45 minutes) – and after telling me “3 is a problem” a couple of times (my reaction being the best innocent damsel in distress I could muster) he waived me through.

So, storm, no food, expired visa & too much alcohol – all this on top of the fact that I was flying back into Afghanistan…. just gonna have embrace it & wear it with pride. I am a non-beige drama queen!