Leaving on a jet plane and packing some main character energy

If I hadn’t been snowbound so much lately, you might have seen me out looking for striped boxer shorts — pinstriped, actually.

Apparently, this is an important fashion distinction, and as I’m sure you know, I am nothing if not fashionable.

I am preparing for two weeks in Florida to visit my BFF (best friend forever, for those of you not as cool as I am) and pin-striped boxer shorts are this season’s ‘musthave look’.

Don’t laugh. Think about it. They are very light-weight to wear and pack, have elastic waistbands and are designed to show nothing whatsoever of the shape of your shorts region.

What’s not to like?

SPRING TRAINING

I know what you’re thinking. Like many of us, I have been known to assert that I have no desire to ever visit the States again, but in fairness, we can’t blame a whole country for the craziness of half the country and I love my friend and quite like ‘her American’ as she used to call him, and they’ve asked us to come visit a couple of times.

A few weeks ago she sent a picture of them holding a Blue Jays spring training sign and I started counting Airmiles and looking at flights.

It’s not that going to a couple of spring training games made the trip more attractive, though there’s no point in trying to pretend it isn’t a bonus.

The big factor was that she is not a cruel woman and would not have sent me that picture unless she really, really wanted me to come.

When push comes to shove, Newman doesn’t want to travel. He offered to stay home and clean the house from top to bottom.

TRAVEL TIPS

So you can understand why the article about boxer shorts caught my attention. And, of course, being me, just for fun, I started browsing travel tips.

I do realize that what I do for fun says something about my life. I guess you could also say that my reaction to some of the travel tips says something about my age.

Like, ‘don’t go out the night before you fly’. That’s hilarious. If the advice was ‘don’t go out for a week before you fly’ it wouldn’t affect my lifestyle in the least.

‘Avoid alcohol’ would have been a bit of a stretch — if not downright ridiculous — back in my heyday of travelling when drinks were free. Just remembering that shows how old I am. Nowadays, it would certainly be less ridiculous, but for some of us, it’s the only little pleasure we have on airplanes.

‘Bring your own meals’ was obviously written back when such a thing was allowed, but even if you were allowed to do it today, bringing your own meals would take away the only other tiny perk of flying. It doesn’t matter what the food is like; someone else has prepared it and a pleasant person serves it and whisks away the detritus.

MAIN CHARACTER ENERGY

I didn’t look at the tips for long. Most of them are common sense, which we all know I excel at, and to tell the truth, I didn’t even know what some of the others meant.

And I didn’t think I needed advice on what to wear for flying; something comfortable but respectable seems like a no-brainer. Perhaps I should have been disconcerted when I saw ‘Five Travel Outfits That Serve Main Character Energy at the Airport’.

If you know what that means without looking it up, you are an alien to me. According to Wikipedia, Main Character Energy refers to someone who lives as though they’re the main character of a film or a novel, usually in a way that is apparent to others. The term encapsulates a lifestyle that focuses on romanticizing your life and finding joy and contentment in the little things.

I think I may have had main character energy at some point and didn’t know it. Now, it’s more like bit-player energy, but that’s better than no energy at all.

If you’re watching the game on March 8, I’ll be quite close to home plate, maybe even waving a sign.