My more astrologically minded friends tell me that Mercury, planet of travel and communication, went retrograde on 27 July.

Wicked Stepchild ‘2, aka GirlKit, and I got up at 5 am on 27 July and went to Bush Intercontinental Airport for a 7 am flight to Atlanta. We went in and had our bags checked and got in the bag dropoff line at 5:34 am.

At 7 am we were still in the bag dropoff line, along with at least 6 other people from our flight. Cue Mass Unhappiness (also retrograde regret that I did not march outside and shove our bags at the skycaps). We were, through extensive use of “ma’am,” “thank you,” and “please,” immediately rebooked (unlike the yelling folks) onto flights that put us through Detroit, leaving Houston at 1:00 pm and getting us into Manchester at 7:30 pm (3 hours later than originally scheduled).

We called Mr. Dingo Jones, who retrieved us from the airport and brought us home. GirlKit went to bed. I had several cups of tea, a long grouse, and a knit.

Back to the airport. Bags checked, through security in 10 minutes. Flight slightly delayed. The woman who rebooked us put us in “economy comfort,” which meant we were in a row alone together with a bit of leg room.

Our 1 hour layover in Detroit actually lasted 4. Our gate changed 3 times. Number of announcements about gate changes: 0. Feelings about Delta Airlines: negative. GirlKit, who had purchased a Boy Magazine filled with stickers, took revenge for Travel Horrors by covering my phone in stickers that say things like “Future Mrs. Bieber.” I felt so bad that I agreed to keep said stickers on my phone for the duration of our trip. We played many games of hangman (no one won any of them).

We finally goddamn got on the goddamn plane, sat around on the goddamn runway for a goddamn while, and eventually goddamn took off. The flight was bumpy. We landed in Manchester, NH, at 11:00 pm, got our rental car, and were on our way around 11:45.

Oh planet Mercury. How could you?

I know how to get from the Manchester airport to the house. But there is a new toll road, and it was many hours past my bedtime, so somehow I got not on I-89 but I-91. Eventually I started seeing signs for towns I know, but none of them were signs for our exit.

When I got to the exit for Thetford, I knew I was too far north. So I got off at that exit, thinking that we would find the advertised gas station and get advice.

No.

Also, please remember: cell service in rural Vermont is sketchy at best.

After some nervous-making driving around in the dark, I saw signs for highway 132, which I know very well. 132 was the road near our house that was washed out in tropical storm Irene. I KNEW I was close. I even knew that somewhere along the line I needed to turn left, but the left turns I kept taking were dead ends.

GirlKit was understandably freaked out, but handled it admirably.

At 1:45 am, having turned around several times and with NO idea where I was, we came to a place where the bridge was washed out. I saw that I had ONE bar on my cell phone and called the house. Unbelievably the call went through, and my aunt answered. Thank heaven she knows the back roads around there like the back of her hand and told us where to go, up a vertical dirt road that would take us over the mountain past the washed-out bridge to the mine road, where the house lives.

She stayed on the line with me until the signal faded. About 10 minutes later we saw a car with NY plates screech past us, then slam on its brakes.

“That was so weird!” GirlKit said.

“It’s probably my aunt, but I’m going on ahead!” I shouted.

We got to the house at 2 am, and my aunt returned about 5 minutes later. The whole house was awake and waiting for us, bless them.

GirlKit expressed an understandable skepticism about cross-country travel.