My alarm rang at 3:30am because my flight Heathrow to Chopin was at 6:30. AM. Cab came exactly as scheduled, at 4:15.

The signage in the terminal at Heathrow was a little confusing and I went up an escalator and then had to go down again. And while trying to wrangle onto the escalator pushing one overweight bag in front of me and pulling one overweight bag behind me, I lost control of the one in front... and it went tumbling down the escalator and actually tapped the legs of the only other person crazy enough to be in the airport at that time of morning.

Seriously, the freakin big orange suitcase bumpitied down the steps of this two-story escalator and juuust touched the legs of a lady almost at the bottom.

And she looked up at me... And I'm screeching "Oooh! Oooh! excuse me... sorry." And she didn't even acknowledge... which in a way could be a good thing, because while she didn't wave as if to say "no problemo", she also didn't start yelling as if I was the biggest American idiot ever to grace the escalators at Heathrow... which is what I felt like, so perhaps she knew I was already being punished.

I have waking nightmares about what would have happened if I'd lost control of the overweight orange suitcase I'd been pulling onto the escalator behind me... would I have lost balance of myself and both suitcases and the whole group gone bumpity down two flights of grooved metal steps, crashing into the anonymous lady in front of me... I've had serious escalator PTSD ever since!