When I arrived at the terminal on Sunday, I immediately checked the departure board to make sure my flight was delayed. Notice I didn’t check to make sure it was on time.

You see, before Sunday, my last three trips incurred delays of at least two hours, and I’ve started to expect and enjoy the extra time. It’s like icing the kicker with a timeout.

This delay — mind you, my fourth in a row — was only half an hour.

Air travel is the universal thing to complain about. There’s always something. If your flight was on time, you must’ve sat next to a smelly chatterbox who also happens to be a teething, 300-pound baby, in the window seat, with a bladder problem. The best-case scenario is that your flight arrives on time, and you manage to get some sleep in a cramped seating position.

After this month, I’ll have traveled to 22 domestic plane stations. It’s not outrageous, but I reckon it’s well above average for someone barely of drinking age. What is outrageous is how some of the oddest times of my life have happened in these plane ports.

Let’s backtrack three Earth revolutions, to take a look at my first three roundtrips as a Golden Eagle.

I’m a freshman packing for fall break. I’ve got class in 20 minutes. While preparing a quart-sized plastic travel baggy, my pocket started vibrating. As I pulled my hand out of the bag to answer my phone, my pinkie finger decided to leave a chunk of itself behind on the razor inside.

Accordingly, I yelped — the kind of yelp you make when something doesn’t hurt yet, but you realize that what you’ve done is about to be severely painful. So I looked. My finger’s once-rounded tip had become trapezoidal.

After using entire rolls of tape and gauze to make a caveman club-like bandage, I finally had time to take a moment. Less than a moment later, my phone rang again and I realized my mandatory class had already started. I think the only caller I would have answered to is a certain Denver Broncos quarterback.

I promptly leapt from McCormick to the other side of Wisconsin Avenue in one bound. Then I stood in front of an oncoming bus while whipping out my U-Pass as if it were a magic, 14-ton vehicle stopper.

After a lovely exchange with the driver, I reached my classroom, exaggeratedly said, “Doc, I just cut my fingertip off,” and then teleported to Student Health Service. Later, when I grabbed my bags, I (obvi) threw away the Benedict Arnold razor lying next to my red — formerly white — T-shirt.

Needless to say, flying home for Thanksgiving that year was slightly better.

On my way in, I saw a woman talking to TSA about putting a cake through the X-ray machine. I passed by, amused, went and ate some grub, and returned to go through security.

The cake lady was now directly in front of me. Her cake donned the bottom half of a flimsy box, and I was convinced this would end poorly. In sheer idiocy, I overlooked how the soon-to-be failure would be all mine.

The cake, of course, took a considerable beating by the X-ray’s mud flap entrance alone.  Then came the dramatic irony. While I was  tittering over this cake’s doom, my things, being next in line, were about to navigate the cave of icing.

My backpack was covered, my sweatshirt was half-covered, and my laptop looked more like a cake than the actual cake. The woman herself had already made a run for it, leaving behind the cake and my unfortunately tasty belongings.

My next trip was winter break, when I vomited on an airplane for the first time. I’ll save you the details except to say I did make it to the bathroom.

That’s not the end. I’ve got more stories if you like. Imagine sitting next to a guy who says, “One day I typed up everything I know and made a website out of it. I called it Wikipedia.” Kooky, right?

So, as you can see, me + plane docks = bizarre. I like the stories though. Even when I’m the victim, they’re worth it.

I’ll never say stop and smell the roses, but once you get past the point of calling all your mishaps and flight delays “hassles,” you’ll be able to appreciate how cool it is — in the end — just to have traveled hundreds of miles in a giant tube with wings.