Saturday, May 06, 2006
It Is Better to Travel than to Arrive
I don't know if it's necessarily better, but it's definitely more interesting. Once again, where have I been?
Oklahoma
A few Fridays ago, I flew up to Oklahoma City to see Gus after his business trip. A quick, weekend-warrior flight was my plan, and everyone else's. The gate was packed. Still, why stand when you can sit? I found an empty chair and plopped down in it.
"Excuse me. Someone is sitting there," a waify blond woman in her thirties informed me. Her tone implied that I should have known this even though there was nothing indicating that the seat was occupied. So, I muttered a half-assed apology and scooted to the next seat, which I made an extra effort to be sure was not taken.
Moments later, blondie's friend comes back and blondie exclaims something to the effect of, "It's just so crowded in here! And people were trying to take your seat!"
I politely turned to the woman and said, "Once again, I'm sorry, I didn't know the seat was taken." And before I even got that sentence out, her friend goes, "She's kidding! She's just kidding!"
Ha, I should have known. That was fucking hilarious. Does she have her own comedy routine? Maybe a late night cable show? Actually, I'd be really interested in hearing some more of her material if it's as high-quality as that little gem.
It's amazing how enough people think that bleaching your hair out and making yourself vomit after every meal somehow entitles you to a free pass to act like a fucking cunt rag. I am continually amazed in general that people say really rude stuff to complete strangers, stuff that isn't clever or witty at all, and honestly believe in their own shriveled underused waste of brains that it can somehow be contrived as a joke.
On the plane, this shitfaced old woman sat down next to me. She looked like she'd spent a few too many days in the sun and had no intentions of letting up. She wore the kind of sundress you buy in the beach for ten bucks and looks like it's made of rags.
From Dallas to OKC, all she could talk about is how much American Airlines sucks. She ordered a glass of vodka (as she had brought her own Red Bull aboard the plane) and spilled half of it on my feet. Then she went into this huge diatribe about how Southwest is better because they sing songs to you when you land and the flight attendants are nice. Apparently, she'd gotten into it with an American Airlines flight attendant who failed to serve her an alcoholic beverage. I couldn't imagine how such a thing could ever happen. (However, after recently receiving this e-mail from American Airlines regarding a traveling debacle from a month ago, I'm about ready to give up on those assholes too.)
She also got into this long-winded speech about how she only buys 400 thread count sheets because the quality is so much better. I guess it was an attempt at a normal, non-controversial discussion, but it just supported my growing case that the woman was a motherfucking psycho. I humored her anyway because making fun of the junk they sell in Sky Mall by yourself just isn't the same.
OKC was just how I left it. Hot, flat, and full of warm, squishy feelings that only I seem to have for the place. I got into a chat with this buffalo. I think he had a tendency to exaggerate.
New York
We spent a weekend in the city, hanging out mostly in Manhattan. Something about the trip reminded me of our city's cute little saying, "Keep Austin Weird." Austin is weird in a "My shoes are mismatched and I'm carrying a multicolored umbrella" sort of way. New York is weird in a "Strapped to a piss-stained matress and locked in an asylum, screaming your head off at the miscellaneous bloody limbs on the floor" sort of way. Let's not forget that, shall we?
We were on Canal Street when we saw this huge anti-war protest:
So we joined it:
Chicago
I went to the O'Hare Airport twice. I miss Chicago. *sniffle*
Toledo
Oh no, not this shit again. Oh yes, this shit... again. I worked four times as hard and had one-fourth of the fun that I had the last time I went, and that's being generous.
The big pitfall of my last trip there was that we all kept getting lost because Ohio is a satellite location of hell on earth and it's impossible to navigate. I didn't get lost at all until I reached the most important time ever to know exactly where you're going: the time that you get to go home. I overshot the airport on 80/90 and found myself on my way to Cleveland. Not awesome. I nearly started crying in my little rented Chevy Cobalt that I could only make go about 80 mph.
I ended up getting to the airport with about five minutes to spare. Just enough time to get eggs and bacon on a biscuit. Although my lateness was due to the fact that I was in such a podunk shithole in the first place, I was glad that I was leaving from a podunk shithole airport, since anywhere larger wouldn't have let me on the flight that late. I guess things have a way of working out in the end.
iPod Status: Unopened.
*The title of this post came from a book I'm reading, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I temporarily put down because I found it to be self-absorbed and uninteresting. I decided to give it another chance, and now I'm lovin' it.
