Dumbo? Don't push me into the red zone people!

Sorry to sound so aggressive, especially toward seemingly inoffensive Disney characters, but hours upon monotonous hours of airport captivity has led to my not-so-Epcot-ian attitude.

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Every year I detail my training camp exploits and the zany things that happen. Fun stuff. Like my Ravens-camp hotel room that had a blood-splattered wall or the bookshelf filled with Nazi materials at a Wisconsin bed-and-breakfast.

The series is dubbed Glaze Across America. From the feedback we get, you folks seem to truly enjoy coming along for the trip through my demented eyes.

This year, I admittedly have dropped the ball in bringing you all along for the ride through training camp USA. I apologize, but this entire Favre fiasco consumed every ounce of my creative fiber. Chasing bad story after bad story and watching reports that seemed to include what Favre had for lunch — was it cheese or crawfish? — tends to limit one's creative will.

However, I am back. I mean I am back, baby!

After learning of the measures I took to ensure coming up with the Brett Favre scoop on Tuesday evening, the fine folks at FOXSports.com asked me to actually pen a column about my day.

Call it Glaze Across America: The Favre Chronicles.

Dateline, Disney. 9 a.m. — I'm bolting the Disney Boardwalk Yacht Club (really sweet stay by the way) and I'm racing to the airport. My goal is to make an early morning flight from Orlando and the Buccaneers training camp at Disney's Wide World of Sports to Charlotte to cover the Panthers camp in Spartanburg, S.C.

However, my morning starts off with a nightmare — a dying cell phone (insert Psycho theme music). How could I lose my wall phone charger on the eve of the biggest trade in recent NFL history? Unthinkable.

Luckily, I had a car charger. I sat in my airport ride until the last possible minute, which helped raise my bar level from one to two. Good enough. I could get through the 40 minutes I had until my flight took off and the 10 minutes it would take to get into another car in Charlotte upon landing.

But as I raced toward security, the call came in. The Favre trade was in play.

"Don't get on the plane," said one source. "This thing should go down within two hours."

Two hours? That's not so bad, I thought, totally ignorant at the time to what lay ahead.

New plan: Don't board my original flight. I'd get the scoopage in two hours and hit a plane an hour after that. I began to frantically search the Orlando airport to buy a phone charger. Otherwise, my contingency plan was to actually get into a taxi cab and drive around the airport in circles for the next two hours.

Hey, check out Mickey and the Disney characters! I love those guys! There are reminders all over the airport of the happiest place on Earth. By the way, does Minnie Mouse have a phone charger?

Luckily, the Orlando Airport had a wireless store and a terrific young lady in there said she just got a wall charger in for the new LG NV2, my weapon of choice for the NFL Insider duels. But with my cell phone now on one bar and the young assistant disappearing behind a wall to find the charger ... you wouldn't believe it.

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! The airport lost power!

Not only could we not charge my phone, the lights in the backroom were dead and she couldn't see back there. Oy, the stress of it all.

OK, I was being an alarmist, right? No way Murphy and his asinine law would low-bridge me today! Thankfully within 10 minutes a light bulb went on in my worst-case-scenario. Actually thousands of light bulbs went on and my phone savior gal was out with the charger. Thank you GOD!

This would be OK, I figured. I'd go get lunch, power up and wait another 90 minutes for the scoopage to end this entire fiasco once and for all. If only my life could really be that easy.

Hey, there's Buzz Lightyear! Cool.

Yes, I ate in the Macaroni Grill (pretty decent chicken breast and steamed asparagus, by the way). Yes I powered-up. And yes, I waited.

Boy, did I wait.

I reached out to my source again and kept waiting. I kept making up reasons so I wouldn't get kicked out of the restaurant for not buying anything else. Once two hours passed, I needed to leave the Macaroni Grill and find another spot to burden people with my incessant phone work.

I could've been in worse airports, as this place had quite the mall. Plus, there's Mickey again! What's up, brother?

Folks, you've got to understand the feeling of stress that consumes me when I know a huge scoop is about to go down but I'm stuck sitting and waiting. I am fiercely competitive and the fear that I'm going to lose out on the type of trade scoop we insiders live for is enough to drive a man to drink.

It did, but not yet. This saga is far from over.

As I browsed through stores trying to keep my nerves in check and preventing myself from calling my sources every two minutes, half the Bucs locker room is texting me to find out what's going on. Jets sources then begin to hit me up.

Another hour passes until I get a text: "Almost done."

Wow, could this ordeal actually be coming to a happy conclusion? Hey Mickey, I'm outta here soon!

I wait 10 minutes, call again ... no deal. Damn! Another flight gone.

Soon maybe? My sources have no idea again.

I did my best to remain in check but every half hour I either called, texted or both. I worked the hell out of my boys.

Three hours into my airport stay and about 20 paces past the Disney characters posted at different spots, I needed to get off my feet. So I went to get a foot massage.

Yeah, that's right, a foot massage. Hey, I'm secure with myself.

Not only did I get a foot massage, I got a three-hour, $300 foot massage from my masseuse and new BFF Lesley from Cape Verde. She plugged my charger into the wall and I actually did appearances on FOX News Channel and FOX Sports Radio while getting my tootsies rubbed.

Anybody got a problem with that? Mickey? Donald? Goofy? Yeah, didn't think so.

I can try to save face and say I have tears in the muscle fibers on the soles of my feet and needed treatment, but that would be a lie. I simply didn't want to stand anymore and it seemed as great a place to get some privacy to do my interviews. Plus, Lesley was kind of cute. If I was going to suffer, Lesley and I were going to dredge through this together — until she told me her hands hurt and she needed a break.

"OK, how about a chair massage?"

Another hour with Leslie, another flight gone and another hour where I annoyed the daylights out of my sources. Damn it, if I was going to crash and burn on this, my pal Lesley was coming with me! Actually, that would be a lie; she could care less about Favre but did find my plight somewhat amusing. At least four or five times throughout my massage I received calls or texts from sources informing me it was just about done. Each time was nothing more than a painful false alarm.

I needed to give good ol' Les — it's Les now — a break so I headed out through Mickey's playground. Four hours of massages at least got me in great with the folks at the spa and I maneuvered a huge move in this day when I asked them if they could keep my bags in the back so I could walk around without my belongings for a 40-day NFL camp tour.

I hit Chili's for a few minutes, went down to the food court to talk to some dude at the deli for a little while. I was a wandering pirate in the sea of Favre. I was trying to eat healthy and my pal at the deli was trying to come up with a solution. Gee, I really valued our time together. Wait a minute ... was Mickey mocking me? What are you smiling at, you freakin' mouse!?!

Another nine texts, another nine rejections and two more flights gone. I needed to go see my friends at the Macaroni Grill again for a couple of glasses of vino. It's now been six hours and you better believe I need a drink.

I was the Macaroni Grill's version of Norm Peterson from Cheers. I felt so loved. Maybe it was just my credit card they loved but I could feel the eyes from some of the folks there looking at me in pity as if I had major flight delay problems. No, I had major Favre delay problems.

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I started calling my sources and talking about other things as if they couldn't see right through me. How many hours have I been here? No idea, but I know one thing ... I needed another foot massage. I couldn't deal with the stress.

Oh yeah, Les was absolutely thrilled to see me again. "I'm leaving in 20 minutes, I'll stay a half hour for you." After all we've been through all I get is a lousy extra 10 minutes? I thought we were in this together? Don't make me cheat on you with a Brookstone massage chair.

Les and I finished up, I got my luggage and went back to, of course, the Macaroni Grill to grab dinner No. 1 (salmon and veggies). I had one more flight I could take and 45 minutes before it was to leave my source called, "Give it 10 minutes, it should be done."

I raced out of my seat down to the gate. I already had the story written. Actually, I had two versions written a week in advance — one if he got traded to the Jets and one if he was Bucs-bound. As passenger upon passenger boarded, I waited, and waited ... "ladies and gentlemen, this is the final boarding call," boomed the PA system.

Come on Mangini, work this thing will ya! Damn.

With that, I watched as my last chance to get out of Mickeyland raced down the runway. I was all alone. No scoop yet, no flight and worst of all, no Lesley. Disappointed and dejected, I dragged my bags through the airport once again and ... oh go spit Mickey! Laugh at someone else.

I checked into the hotel at the airport — a really nice Hyatt — and waited some more. Drank some more vino, ate dinner No. 2, made more calls. When you are waiting for a huge scoop you find yourself calling anyone and everyone who can take the stress off of you.

I was 10 minutes from turning in when suddenly ... no way!

Could this really be happening?

One of my sources and I had a code for the Jets and another for the Bucs and sure enough, that wonderful inbox was lit up with the code word I'd been waiting on.

There it was!

I immediately launched it on FOXSports.com and FOX Sports Radio and watched as the world reacted. This was over. My never-ending day acting like Tom Hanks from The Terminal had finally come to a wonderful, beautiful and oh-so-beautiful conclusion.

Finally, after 13 hours, one phone charger, five massages, three meals and countless passes past Disney characters, I had my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and the world had their news.

If only Lesley could've been there to see it all go down.