I Hate Flying…

I fucking HATE flying. It’s not the flying part that gets me. It’s the fucking incompetent airports. Everytime I fly, it seems the airport is amazed so many people decided to fly that day.

“What are all these people doing here?”

“Flying.”

“Holy turd-knocker sandwich! Somebody call the airlines!”

“We are the airlines.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!”

I get to the airport at 12:30. My flight is at 3:07pm. Plenty of time. I grab me a beer and some hot wings and people watch for an hour. There are some pretty messed up people walking around airports. I have found out there is always someone that looks just idiotic. Like purple bell-bottoms and a top hat, or shorts with boots, or a Che Guevara shirt with.. well, anything. But I digress… I pay my bill and walk down to my gate. Check in, get my boarding pass and have a seat, settle in to read some Conan. It is 1:45pm.

At around 2:30pm, they gate attendant says there are storms over Atlanta and flights are on hold. Expect a delay.

3:15pm, delay confirmed. Flight time now is unknown.

4:15pm, flight time set at 6:30pm. My connecting flight is at 8:27pm and it is just over an hour flight. I’m good.

6:15pm, we begin boarding. For those of you that fly, here is a quandry for ya… Say you are in zone 3. They call, “Boarding now for Zone 1. Zone 1 only.” Do you stand up? If you do, you’re a moron. Why?! So you can be first in line when they get around to Zone 3? WHY? So you can get in the plane and sit down? STAY SITTING DOWN IN THE FUCKING TERMINAL THEN, DUMBASS!!! I fucking hate seeing that. “Ooo, gotta be first!” Fuck you, idiot. But I digress…

So we get on the plane. Everyone is on, ready for take-off. It is 6:30pm.

Captain: “Uhhhhhh… we have a little delay, folks. Atlanta is packed and we are awaiting a flight plan. Uhhhhhh.. should be out of here in 10-15 minutes. Thanks for your patience.”

6:50pm, we take off. Should be on the ground by 8:00pm. I still have almost 30 minutes. I figure I’ll be OK.

Atlanta is packed. So much so that we circle the airport a few times waiting to land. We touch down at 8:13pm. Now I’m getting a little scared.

Captain: Uhhhhh… there is still a plane at our gate, they should be backing out in just a few minutes. We should be gateside in about 15 minutes, folks. Thanks for your patience.

Me: Eat a fat one, Captain.

8:28pm, we pull up to the gate. The flight attendant comes over teh speaker and asks that anyone that is staying in Atlanta to stay seated and let the people with connecting flights have the right of way. She appreciates our patience. The ‘Fasten Seatbelts’ light goes off and everyone motherfucker on the motherfucking plane stands up. Apparently, we ALL have connecting flights. I am seated in row #36. The chances of me getting out anytime soon: -4%.

I’m thinking that, since Atlanta is so screwed, maybe my flight has been delayed as well. I get off the plane and see that I am right, it was delayed. By 8 minutes. Really? That makes me miss it by just over 15 minutes. Well fuck me running…

So, where do I go? To the gate I just left? To the gate where my plane just took off? I don’t know. As I am wandering around the airport, I see a sign that says, “Delta Airlines Service”. Since I am flying Delta, that sounds like the place to be. So I walk up… and see about 50 other people had the same idea. I get in line.

When my turn comes, I get the rudest, most incompetent person that Delta has ever given a paycheck. She tells me I have been bumped and there is not another flight until tomorrow at 8:30pm. Twenty-four hours. I ask if there is anything she can do. She points me to another line, then tells me the wait for the line is about and hour and a half, and that they probably can’t help, then laughs and says, “I wouldn’t want to stand in no line like that then ain’t nobody helps me.” I figure she was the top of her GED class. And by top, I mean bottom. Dejected, I agree to her terms. She tells me to go downstairs and get a hotel voucher at the shuttles. So, I make my way downstairs.

I go to the wrong place. I ask people for help. They look at me like I done killed they momma. This one lady, who is wearing (I shit you not) a Michael Jackson-style mask,  tells me:

Her: I can’t takes you no where if you ain’t no where you going!

Me: I don’t know where I’m supposed to be going. Can you help me?

Her: Who I look like?!

Me: Uh, Michael Jackson?

Finally, I ask a civilian guy, like me. Not a Delta employee, not an airport employee, just a guy standing around, waiting on a shuttle. He tells me where to go. Exactly. I thank him. We share ‘the look’. I know where he has been. He knows where I’m going. We bond.

I go to another Delta counter. Not to many people. I walk up to a Delta employee, who is on the phone (his personal cell phone). I start to ask about the voucher, but he interupts me:

Him: Sir, you gonna have to go over there. We closed.

I look to where he is pointing.

Sweet Mother of Ringo. Apparently, Delta Airlines has screwed over about a million people tonight. And they are all in line. In front of me.

And unknown amount of time passes. I feel like a zombie. A highly pissed off zombie. Finally, I get a hotel voucher. Go out to the shuttles, get one to my hotel. Hey guess what! The hotel voucher is only for $50. the hotel is more than $50. Yay.

I ask for a late check out since I don’t have to be at the airport until 8:30pm. The lady at the front desk tells me to go fuck myself. I say OK and walk to my room.

It is now 1:30am. I am in my dirty clothes. Will be until tomorrow night. I’m eating a greasy cheesesteak and a can of Pepsi. I need to change into my sweat pants, kick back and chill. I need to be home.

Next time, I am fucking driving.

McMother’s Day

Mother’s Day. The day I get up and make my world-famous cheese omelet for my wife. I get up and get in the kitchen and start cooking. I got the eggs cracked in a bowl, the butter in the frying pan and the cheese at the ready.

The wife calls to me, “What are you doing?”

Me: “Making you breakfast.”

Her: “What?”

Me: (ready for the excited gasp) “Cheese omelet!” (I’m famous for this FYI)

Her: “No.”

Me: “Huh?” (again, world fucking famous)

Her: “Can you go to McDonald’s instead?”

Me: (relieved… I’m kinda famous for my McDonald’s trips as well) “Sure.What do you want?”

Her: “Just coffee and some hash browns.”

So I finish the eggs since I can’t just let ‘em go to waste. I just make scrambled eggs with no cheese. Pretty bland. The wife eats them anyway.

Jake and I jump in the car and head to Mickey D’s. I’m pulling into the parking lot and some lady blows past in front of me. She didn’t even see me. She was Asian. Happy Mother’s Day, stereotype! Due to her cutting me off, two cars get ahead of me in the drive thru lane. The line stretches back to the front door and I am now blocking a guy that parked right up front. You know that motherfucker was thinking when he parked, “Yes! Right by the front door! Yay me, good parking job!” Then he comes out all full on McGriddles and black coffee (he looked like the black coffee kind of guy) and was all, “Well shit my pants and call me Sugar. Now I’m blocked in.” Eventually the line moves and I pull up to order. The speaker blasts at me, “Hello and welcome to McDonald’s! Would you care for a nice mocha frappe’ today?” I know it’s a recording, but I always say, “No thank you.” Then I feel like an idiot for being friendly to a speaker. Then a real person speaks.

Real person: “Can I take your order?”

Me: “Yes, can I get three biscuits and gravy (hey, there a buck each…), a medium Coke and a large coffee please?”

Real person: “Is your order correct on the screen?”

The screen shows a picture of a black kid playing with a transformer, then shifts to an old white man eating a burger.

Me: “Yes, can I get extra gravy on my old white man?”

(I really didn’t say that)

I pull forward and give my money to the check out girl. She gives me my change and wishes me a Happy Mother’s Day. I decide against crawling through the window and assaulting her. I pull forward and the lady at the window tells me something no one ever wants to hear at the drive-thru:

Food lady: “Pull forward please and we’ll bring your order out to you.”

I fucking hate that. Did it surprise you McDonald’s that people would be coming to eat breakfast? Did someone suddenly scream out, “We have a biscuit emergency! BISCUIT EMERGENCY!” and shut down the run? Stop the biscuit presses? Now I have to pull up and block the sidewalk to people have to walk through the grass to get to the door. And they glare at me. Like I decided, “Fuck it, let’s park 10 feet from the drive-thru window and have a picnic! Whadda ya say!”

Eventually, I get my food and start to pull out of the parking lot, homeward bound. I got my biscuits and gravy, my Coke… got Jake his biscuits and gravy (he wanted a Sprite, but read the post previous to this on why he didn’t get it)… and I got the wife her coffee and… fuck. I forgot her hash browns. The only reason I went, for her, for Mother’s Day. And I forget the hash browns.

I pull back around to the drive-thru entrance. And lo and behold, there is only one car! Saints be praised! (Say that with a thick Scottish accent for full effect.) I get behind this guy and wait my turn.

You know those big picture menus that McDonald’s puts up before you get to the window? There is no speaker, its just there for you to look at while waiting in line? Well, this guy is just sitting there. Waiting. No one in front of him. I figure he just had a brain fart and will pull up in a few seconds.

<few seconds go by>

I’m still waiting. Do I honk or pull around him? Nah, that is rather dickish. He’ll get a clue soon.

<soon>

Still waiting. So I stick my hand out of the window and wave it. In the conext of things, this makes no sense. Is the guy supposed to see me waving and think, “Oh, I see this gentleman behind me is giving me the universal signal for ‘You are at the wrong place, sir. Pull forward.’” and pull forward? No, he probably thinks I’m just stupid. Regardless, he pulls up. This McDonald’s has two speakers to order from. The second is obviously for someone second in line. They are labeled with a huge “#1″ and “#2″. At #2, there is a recording that says, “Please pull forward.” So what does this guy do? Here is a multiple choice test:

A. Pull Forward

B. Sit there

C. Turn into Megatron

It was ‘B’. Yeah, I was hoping for ‘C’ as well…

Again, what is etiquette in this? I know he should pull up. No one is going to take his order. If I honk, its kind of helping him. Maybe I should honk. I ask Jake. He says yes. He’s ten. I wait. I hear the speaker (for the second time) say, “Please pull forward.” This time he does. Crisis = averted.

Now, you would figure a guy that has started at two fucking menus would be all about ordering him some food. I knew what I wanted when I left the house. I mean, it’s McDonald’s ya know. Make the fucking leap. But he doesn’t have a clue what he wants. I think he tries to order lunch. That is a common mistake… no one know when McDonald’s changes from breakfast to lunch. So I normally wouldn’t hold it against him. But he is trying to order lunch from Wendy’s.

I kid.

Seriously, this guy takes forever to order. And when I pull up, his order is still blinking on the screen. Dude got a southern chicken biscuit and a cup of coffee. Really? It took you five minutes and three menus to decide on that? My hatred for mankind just rose exponentially. That means “a lot”.

This time when the recorded voice if I’d like a mocha frappe’. I say, “No thank you, robot. That is not acceptable!” A few seconds go by. Then “Can I take your order?” I just realized they either don’t hear what you say or don’t care. This is going in my pocket for future funtimes.

I order my single hash brown and pull up.

Hey, it’s Mr. Clueless at the first window! He is just sitting there. No way they haven’t taken his money already. Does he think this is the window to pay AND get your food? Hasn’t this guy been to a drive-thru since 1987? Jeez. I think he is trying to barter for his food.

Money lady: “$4.28 please sir.”

Mr. Clueless: “What say we come at this from another angle. I will mow your yard AND bring you a nice chicken, still of birthing age.”

Money lady: “No.. sir… just $4.28 please.”

Mr. Clueless: “OK, I see. What say I bring a dozen fresh, brown eggs as well. Does that sweeten the pot?”

Money lady: “Sir… I… uh… $4.28, please.”

Mr. Clueless: “You drive a hard bargain, young lady. OK, lets do this. Yard mowed, chicken, a dozen eggs AND I come inside and entertain your customers with my rendition of “Mr. Bojangles”. What do you say!?”

Whatever happens, he eventually pulls up and gets his food. Finally! I pull up to the window, awaiting my lone hash brown(s).

Food lady: “Can you pull up sir? We’ll bring your order right out.”

I am updating my blog from the county jail, awaiting my wife to come pick me up.

Happy Mother’s Day!

A Visit to the Doctor

Jake had a doctor’s appointment today. He and I planned to get there a little early to fill out paperwork and such. I drive to where I think it is, a small group of stores near the Wal Mart (everything in small towns is near the Wal Mart…). So I get there and there is a tuxedo shop, a Game Stop, one of those pay-day loans places and some electronics store. I get back on the road and drive down a bit. A car dealership… and auto repair shop… a florist… Hmmm. So I turn back and go towards Wal Mart and try again. Don’t see it.  I call Marianne on her cell phone. No answer, she NEVER ANSWERS HER FUCKING CELL PHONE. Seriously, sidetrack here. Why do you pay $$$ every month for a fucking paperweight that serves as an occasional alarm clock? C’mon… So I get her on the house phone and ask her to find the phone number.

“I thought you knew where it was,” she says to me all haughty like.

“Yeah, me too… can you get me the phone number?”

“You know things here are hard to find. You should have called first.”

“Yeah probably… you working on that number?”

“Why didn’t you just…”

“FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, JUST GIVE ME THE NUM… Never mind, I found it.”

Remember that ‘electronics store’ I mentioned above? It was the eye doctor’s office. It’s called “Eye Tech” (get it?) and was written in some pseudo 1980s computer font. What the fuck, Doctor?

So Jake and I go in. The appointment is at 3:20pm and it is about 3:05pm. Fifteen minutes early. Good. So I check in and the receptionist takes a break from being lazy to hand me some forms on a clipboard. She waves toward a small jar of pens near the window. The jar has a sign written in some fancy font “Please return pens”.  Does that shit ever work? Did some guy ever think, “Ooo, pens! I am totally going to steal one of the fuckers! Hell yeah! … Shit… fucking sign.” Probably not. Plus, the pen I took had “Hampton Inns” emblazoned on it. So these fuckers are admonishing me not to steal their stolen pens. I still have that bitch, FYI.

Jake and I start filling out the forms. Some things I know, some I don’t. So I turn to Jake:

“Jake, how tall are you?”

“I dunno… about three feet tall?”

“You’re taller than that. Maybe 4′ 5″?

“I dunno.”

Big help, Jacco.

The next form is family history. There is a whole damn page of these horrible illnesses and diseases and shit. They want you to place and “X” if you (the patient) has it, a “F” if your father has it, a “M” for mother, a “GF” for grandfather a “GM” for grandmother a “C” for child and a “O” for other family members. Really? You need to know if Jake’s grandfather has Crohn’s disease before you can give him glasses? So I just make some shit up. Apparently Marianne’s father was a victim of lupus. I have no idea what lupus even is.

I get up and hand the forms back to Nurse Whatthefuckever. She tells me to have a seat. I say, “Thank you. I was going to shit on your floor and pretend to be Marty McFly from ‘Back to the Future‘, but your idea is better. A seat! Who would have thought to sit down in a waiting room! Thank you!!” I didn’t really say that, I just sat down. Sometimes I hate myself.

Fourteen hours later, they call us in. And have us take a seat in the “back waiting area”. What the hell is that? Another place for us to sit? Stupid.

Two days later, after Jake and I have eaten the better part of our feet, they call us to the exam area. There is a group of machines that check your eyes for various stuff. The nurse (not Nurse Haveaseat, some other lady… she was nice) tells Jake to sit down in the blue chair behind the machines. Jake is all cool and shit, like he has done this before. “Whatev, Nurse.” She starts writing some stuff down then asks Jake how much he weighs. Jake says, “One-hundred and twelve pounds” right out the gate. I ask him how tall he is , and he misses it by a foot, Nurse Nicelady asks him and he nails it. I don’t know whether to be pissed or proud of him. I opt for proud.

Jake goes through the whole rigmarole with the eye stuff and does OK. I guess. Not like I can even make an educated guess. She asks him, “What does line 4 say?” and he answers “EFLZT” and she writes something down. Line 4 may have been a picture of a goat for all I know. But she never screams, so I’m thinking “Good job, Jake”.

Then it is on to the actual doctor.

Just kidding, back to the second waiting room. They have a flat screen TV with Oprah on. I don’t know the proper etiquette for this kind of shit. If Oprah is on a public TV do I change it or ram scissors into my eye sockets? I need to look that up (note to self: Wikipedia). I choose instead to peruse some magazines. I learned today that Jennifer Aniston has a new boy toy and Oprah and Whitney Houston hate each other. Or they did in May of 2008 anyway. Thanks US Weekly!

There is a sign, with bright letters and fancy fonts (God, I hate Microsoft Word and idiots getting together. Thanks Bill Gates!) that reads “No parents in exam room.” I think, “this guy is really professional. Or a pedophile.” Since I have waited so long, I decide to chance it.

Jake’s name is called and I wake him up to mosey on back to the office. I continue my reading, this time opting for a more recent issue… Black Entrepreneurs. Because, ya know.

A week later, Jake comes to get me, say the doctor wants to talk to me. I walk in, introduce myself, shake his hand. The guy seems cool. Doctorly and stuff. The he starts talking to me. Oh. My. God.

Apparently Jake is about a week away from death. He’s ten and has Alzheimer’s and glaucoma and tuberculosis and AIDS. I mean, I know the kid is husky (that is what you call fat kids… Sears taught me that. Thanks Sears!”)  but jeez, this guy unloads on me. He does everything but call me a shitty dad and whups my ass with a crowbar. He actually asks Nurse Nicelady for a crowbar to beat me with, but she says they can’t find it. Then she smiles at me as she leaves. I think it was because Jake knew exactly how much he weighed. She assumed that was good parenting. Way to go Me. Seriously, this guy tells me all the bad stuff that can come from being overweight. I think maybe he should take a chill pill, but I am scared to tell him. He also says that the government keeps the price of health care so high so they can make money off the taxes. If they lower the price, he tells me, the taxes would be lower and they don’t want that. I mean, the guy is about 90% good, caring caregiver and 10% “What the fuck are you talking about, Norman Bates?!” He tells me everything can be cured. EVERYTHING. I feel bad that my dad has spina bifida. Well, according to the form I filled out, he does. I have no idea what spina bifida is. Then he goes, “Oh, yeah. Your son needs glasses. Bifocals.” Really? I though bifocals were for old people. I make the mistake of saying that out loud. He slaps me and screams at me, spitting on my face. Then shakes my hand and tells me to talk to the receptionist before we leave. I feel like I did when I was seven and was caught peeing on the dog.

So we trudge our way back through the eight waiting areas en  route to the front door. We pause halfway for air. I give an “OK” sign to some people, trying to make them feel better. They smile wanly at me. I sense their despair. I acknowledge it, they see that in my face. We bond. Then Jake and I move on.

I had planned on stopping and getting some ice cream or something on the way home from the doctor, but no fucking way now. Jake asks me if we are still stopping for a treat, so I stop the car and force him to eat grass on the side of the road. He cries, but I know it is good for him. Isn’t grass good for kids?

So, now I am home. I told the wife what happened and she immediately went to buy groceries. I have never had so many oranges and apples and bananas and carrots and pineapple and cauliflower in my house. EV.ER. I even told Jake we’d go to the park and run some time. What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

I was taking Jake to the dentist next week, but I canceled that shit. Too much fucking drama for me.

Hello, I’m Kim and I’m a Webaholic

I’m addicted. To the internet.

I try and think back to what I did before this… I can’t recall. I love checking my email. How in God’s name did people wait DAYS for a letter from someone? DAYS?! If someone tells me they are sending me an email, I get annoyed after like seven minutes. I just bought something online and the first thing I did was “Check Order Status” to see when it might get here. I’m hoping by Wednesday (today is Friday). In other words, if I have to wait more than a week, I’m going to be aggravated. (Did you ever order anything from a comic book or a magazine for kids when you were young? I ordered some of them damned Sea Monkeys and waited 4-6 weeks for them fuckers…).

I have about half a dozen sites I check regularly. (Just for the hell of it, they are):

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Woopig.net [a Razorback sports site... plus a lot more]
• Troll Lord Games [a RPG site run by some guys I know]
  
• 4815162342.com [a LOST fansite]
  
• Ellusionist.com [a magic website]

I sometimes saunter over to Iambored.com or Cracked.com. I check my email. I do other stuff. Then I check them again. Ya know, just because someone may have posted something in the last 23 minutes.

Someone help me.

Oh, truth be told, I do watch videos on the computer. I ‘procure’ movies and TV shows and watch them sitting at my desk. Arrested Development may be the funniest TV show ever. Curb Your Enthusiasm is hilarious. You are probably already aware of my obsession with LOST. I even watched the old Conan movie sitting here a few weeks back. But the internet always calls my name. Like the Sirens Song to a lonely sailor…

Oh you bitches...

I’ll try to leave you, you foul temptress. I’ll fling words of anger at you and insist I don’t need you. I’ll walk away, turn on the TV… read a book. Hell, I might even go outside. But we’ll both know. You don’t need me. You’ll go on without me, you’ll be fine. But not me. I’ll come back, just to check my mail. And then I’m done. You’ll win. You do every time. I hate you.

Ooo! I have a new email!

“We Are The World”. No You’re Not.

I remember it like it was yesterday… A bunch of really famous singers released a song to help fight hunger in Africa. The song itself was written by Michael Jackson (in his 1985, non-pedophile, ass-kicking prime) and Lionel Richie (straight on the heels of “Stuck On You“).

Magic: The Art of the Social Misfit

Remember when you were a kid and someone took a quarter out of your ear? It was amazing. Or the guy that could guess your card every time, or make little squishy balls disappear then reappear in mid-air? That was some of the coolest stuff you could imagine. But what happens as you get older? Those uber-cool magicians morph into pseudo-creepy social misfits. Why is that?

Thurston: a 1930s Era Magician

Of Growing Old, Insomnia and a One-eyed cat

I have this thing with my throat. My stomach produces too much acid and sometimes, when I eat crap, it produces way too much and it runs up in my esophagus when I try to sleep. It burns like hell. This is why I am up at 4:00am. I ran out of my medicine and haven’t gone to get any more since:

LOST

My family and I moved to Little Rock back in December of 2005. We moved in with my mom since she had a three bedroom house and lived alone. There was only one TV that had cable run to it and the one in our bedroom wasn’t it. So we (my wife and I) started watching movies instead of running cable into the room. At some point, we decided to rent LOST season 1. We heard it was a good show and figured we had the time.

In The Night

Banar stood frozen at the top of the staircase, his breath held deep in his chest. He scanned the room below him, using all of his senses to detect if a trap was afoot. The door to the outside creaked softly as the night wind blew past it. A candle, burning low and fat, sat on a small table, only slightly illuminating the area. The meal from the evening still hung softly in the air; Banar caught fleeting odors of charred meat and stale beer. All seemed quiet and serene, yet keen awareness told the old warrior that it was not so. A small rivulet of sweat rolled lazily down his arm, into his fisted hand, dampening the hilt of the broadsword he held.

The People are sick…

You hear it a lot: the people are sick of the government. When was the last time someone said, “Hey, the government is doing a good job! Yay government!” Rarely happens. But do we ever, ever, do anything about it? Other than some guys back in 1770s, not much. 1968 had some pretty anti-government actions, but nothing really came from it. Just a bunch of fucked-up hippies tired of the war. But its happening again and I just wonder: Will it ever happen? Will we, the People, ever take back our country? The politicians have removed themselves so far from what we want that it is almost comical. They honestly do not care.