Did you know that Madrid is a desert-city? It is landlocked atop a plateau (this makes me nervous, like being in a crowded concert hall without an emergency exit).

Inside the airport, it swelters. The city is profoundly European, and so it is sparse with  air conditioning.

I run my carry-on through the security belt. My bag houses leggings, old New Yorkers, and running shoes. Also, a dozen needles and several vials of liquid on ice, which I suppose could theoretically be filled with the likes of Anthrax or Ebola.

I ask, “Puedo pasar?” and officer nods and I walk beneath the metal detector. I beep and say I’m wearing an insulin pump. Para diabetes.

No problem, the officer says and waves, like he’s picking up my tab. I walk through the detector. I can see Anthrax and Ebola are today not priorities, because right now Argentina is playing Nigeria. An iPhone is propped against a fold of the metal detector in a disguise similar to the one I concocted within the walls of my desk in high school Physics.

I make my way to the airline lounge, which I’m only entitled to enter because a friend has generously nominated me for “Gold” status. I couldn’t otherwise earn the lounge with my go-to choice of Discount fare or airlines, so I am excited. In Madrid, airline lounges are called “VIP” rooms, and this invokes the sense of a swanky West London club or an invitation to a royal wedding.

I find the Sala VIP.

At reception, I take advantage of the moment in which my boarding pass and passport are being scanned to sink my fist into the bowl of front-desk candy. Like the TJ Maxx of airport lounges — no reason last season’s goodies can’t still be fabulous — the sweets are individually wrapped in HAPPY HALLOWEEN plastic. It is June.

An hour later, I have the feeling my brain is being wrung like a sponge, and I blame it on the lack of air conditioning. There is a pharmacy across from my boarding gate, and I go in search of Advil. A woman is in line in front of me. She asks for 150 SPF, because she is traveling to Ibiza.

“Does it exist in the tanning oil version?”