Oh the pain, it just won’t stop! I feel another fit coming on and I am completely powerless to stop it. I have to purge another bellyful of accumulated bile that is just eating away at me from the inside. Lucky for you the website is still down and you might miss this post if it takes much longer for me to get it running again.
Hotel housekeeping: I don’t understand how they think. I am borderline OCD. Borderline because I am very selective in the things I am obsessive with. When I get to a hotel room I have things I must do. Among the many rituals I perform upon arrival, I have to set up the bathroom. I take my “bathroom stuff” bag out of the suitcase and unpack it in the bathroom. Toothpaste and deodorant on the left. Contact lens solution and cleaner bottles on the right. Wash toothbrush, place it on the left. Empty hairbrush, place it on the right. They always leave the hotel soaps and shampoo and a towel on the wall of the tub. Open one soap, place it on the sink. Put shampoo in the shower, take hotel shampoo and extra soap and put it on the back of the sink. Spread towel on floor.
Now this (among the other set-ups I do in a new room) takes me a while. If I’m traveling with someone and we’re tired and want to go grab dinner, they always wonder what I’m doing in there. Heffner will go to his room, literally drop his bag inside the door and say, “Let’s go.” I have to set up my room. I have to! So, after all of this careful prep, I go on about my day and return to the room that night. Housekeeping ALWAYS throws away the open soap and replaces it with a new one. They take the shampoo from the back of the sink and place it on the tub wall again and for some damn reason, they always close the tub drain. And while cleaning the sink-top, my personal items are moved. Are they fucking with me? I’m a dirty boy but one bar of soap will last me the three or four nights I am staying at the hotel. I don’t need to open a new soap every day. They throw away the soap but they leave the note about reusing the towels to reduce the amount of laundry they have to do, thereby saving the environment. The note always has pretty pictures of horses romping in the morning sun. Pretty, but if they were serious about conservation, why throw away a perfectly good bar of soap and force me to open another one? I’ve taken to concealing the soap in my “bathroom stuff” bag and reusing it. Why close the tub drain? At least answer me that. All the rest I can accept but why close the tub drain. Every time!? If I forget to open it at night, I’ll be standing ankle deep in water in the morning.
Why is it that only “bad guys” have henchmen? I was watching an old show on the History Channel (reruns on History Channel are often better than the new shows on Network TV) and it was all about Hitler’s plan to build the “World Capital” Germania. It was waxing fantastical about Albert Speer and his cutting edge designs and how it was incredible that they could build to such a scale back then. I enjoyed the show back when I first saw it so I left it on in the background as I typed up some work on the computer. Out of the corner of my ear I hear them talking about Hitler and his henchmen. This was a show about architecture, not politics. It should have said Hitler and his cabinet, Hitler and his staff, Hitler and his men, Hitler and his advisors, Hitler and his cronies… but “Henchmen”? Ok, I get it, he was a bad guy. Maybe even the bad guy but it made me notice that “henchmen” is always reserved for the bad guys. When a “good guy” has a group of people doing his bidding, they call them apostles.
And as long as I’m on the idea of stigmatizing a word or phrase, why is it that an “Act of God” is always a bad thing? Insurance policies, warranty contracts, non-refundable tickets, all of them tell you that basically, in the event of an act of God, you’re fucked. Lightning, freak snow storm, earthquake, floods, hurricanes… why is it that an act of God always ends up killing people or screwing me out of money? Why can’t an act of God end up with everyone getting free ice cream or a new DVD player? And on all of these forms, they use the capital “G” for God so it’s not MY gods’ fault, it’s YOUR god’s fault. My gods aren’t so egotistical that they need every pronoun or phrase referring to them capitalized. Jesus is capitalized because it is a name. So is Chris. But when you say “he” or “him” while referring to me, you don’t capitalize it, why would you when referring to Him? Just one more silly rule that drives me crazy when trying to converse with these people. I can’t count how many times I have been in an on-line discussion and some dink gets upset because I refer to Jesus with a lowercase “he”. They were losing the debate and decided to call the game based on stupidity. The best part is, if you ever read their own propaganda, they say you shouldn’t discuss/debate religion with non-believers because Satan will make it look like the non-believer is right. They have a plan for everything don’t they? Circular reasoning is their specialty. The morons are out there but why do they always fly straight into me?
I spent 30 minutes (that is an eternity) at a gas station Monday morning. My gas card worked just fine. It asked me for my odometer reading and my driver PIN. After I filled up, it didn’t give me my receipt and told me to “see cashier”. Behind the counter was a very small, frail looking Asian woman. In barely understandable English, she tells me that the card didn’t take and I need to run it again. I run the card and it doesn’t take. Again and again she tries. She’s hollering at the machine and this frail woman has become a highly animated and enraged monster. She yelling, “It not creer, it no creer!” That was the closest she came to speaking English during our entire encounter. After several other language clashes, we have checked that the nozzle of the pump is hung back up properly and run the card probably ten times now. This lady is losing her mind and finally I whip out my AmEx and tell her to put it on that. The card clears quickly and I all but jump in the truck and I’m gone and away from the crazy Asian lady that made my bigotry against “non-English speaking workers in America” spark back to life. I just wanted to be away from her before I started to really feel the anger rise. I stopped at another gas station 100 yards away because I wanted to get some cigars and a case of water but I wasn’t willing to deal with the crazy lady any longer. In the name of international peace, I was willing to make the second stop. I pick up the water (and a Cheerwine soda-pop) and place it on the counter. The guy asks me, in a heavy Indian accent BUT perfectly understandable English, how my day was going. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth, I told him, “It’s going good. Today will be a good day.” He told me he was happy to hear it, rang me up and bid me the obligatory, “Come again”. I smiled and thought to myself, “My what a difference in those two experiences.” Both of the clerks spoke in broken English. The Indian guy made me want to smile, made me want to be his friend. The Asian lady made me realize that before this day is through, I just might have to kill someone.
I saw a great e-mail signature yesterday. It made me laugh aloud even though I’m probably coming late to the party and its old news.
“There are only 10 kinds of people, those that can read binary and those that can’t.”
Those billboards that have babies with the word “Fragile” stamped on their forehead. That’s a bit obnoxious. The caption is a warning about never shaking a baby but what is the point? If you’re fucking stupid enough to shake an infant to death, then you’re probably too stupid to read. It’s not like some dumb redneck is driving home from work thinking, “I’m bored, I think I’ll go home and shake the baby” and then sees the billboard and realizes it is dangerous.
I think the worst thing about that billboard is the visual. It is poorly done, any novice graphic artist could have done a better job of making it look better. But the image of these kids looking docile and innocent after being “processed” and stamped just gives me the idea that they are part of some futuristic baby farm where everyone if given a bar-code and processed, stamped and sent out to the kennels, awaiting their assignments to parents. Maybe it’s just me but that’s what that billboard makes me think of and it creeps me out.
Last week when I was in Valdosta, Heffner and I hit the strip club. If you are following along and playing at home, this was the same place we tried to go to on Valentine’s Day earlier this year. I’m not much of a strip club guy but I’ll never turn down looking at boobs. I’d never go to one alone or suggest it as a plan of action but I’d also never turn it down if suggested by others and I’m always up for playing Heffner’s wingman.
We go in and it’s just what you’d imagine a strip club in Valdosta, Ga would look like. It’s a redneck looking bar with a stage. There are pool tables and it looks just like a regular bar except for the television on the wall playing hardcore porn from the 80′s. There are some girls dancing around and I’ll bet their mommas told them they were the prettiest girls in the trailer park. Actually they are all pretty good looking. A little flat-chested for the stripper scene but very nice. They do the usual hanging around and trying to chat you up, figuring that if you know something about them you’ll give them more money… I’m sitting there and enjoying the weird sensation. I’m almost never in these places so it feels weird every time. Almost like I expect my Mom to come through the door and tell me to go home. Weird but not bad. I’m with a good friend, drinking, smoking a cigar and looking at boobs. When one of the dancers is on stage, I’m actually more interested in the porn channel rather than her. One of the strippers dances to Eminem’s “Without Me”. As she’s dancing, I notice that the music is the censored version of the song. After that, I noticed it with every song played; they never played an explicit song, everything was censored. How absurd is that?
I’m a grown man, old enough to smoke, old enough to drink, old enough to know better. I am in a dark truck-stop bar with twenty guys, half of which are probably baked out of their minds. We’re watching Ron Jeremy and two other guys shooting ropes across some woman’s body on the TV. There is a stripper on stage wearing only a thong and stockings trying to show us her goodies. But they can’t let Eminem say “fuck”? Based on the surroundings, it seemed a bit ridiculous! Protecting you from filthy language, even while you surround yourself with every other vice known to man…
Heffner did a piece last week. All of the comments I have received have been of high praise so we will endeavor to have him back on the show soon. Anyway, his inaugural piece was on the VA Tech shootings and in it he said that drugs are illegal and that’s why a lot of us won’t do them. Something that came up in our conversation but never made it to his editorial is this: drinking is a man’s high, drugs are for wimps. It was another small nugget of brilliance and I thought it should see the light of day. Most recreational drugs don’t have hangovers. You smoke the joint, you have your fun and go to sleep. The next morning, you wake up feeling fine. No consequences for your indulgence. Getting high, getting drunk, they are both time wasters and a huge indulgence against getting everything you want to get done, done. But sometimes you’ve got to say, “What the fuck”. (This being one of the only times you’ll catch me quoting Tom Cruise) I don’t draw any line of distinction between drink or drug other than our government’s infinite wisdom to make the less dangerous one illegal. Heffner pointed out the fact that alcohol makes you pay for what you have done. If you are man enough to drink all night than you had better be man enough to take your ass-whipping in the morning. Drugs (most) don’t make you pay. You can get high all you want and then move on with a normal day tomorrow. In this way, alcohol has created a more selective drinker, one who will give pause and consider his actions. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule and I believe that the alcoholic is not damned due only to the demon alcohol. If it were unavailable, the alcoholic would find his addiction elsewhere. So, exceptions aside, the man who drinks balances accomplishments with his indulgences. Drugs do not enforce this same balance. With no consequence, there is no pause and some choose to sit all day, getting high, accomplishing nothing.
I’ve been working on a lot of military bases recently. We received an e-mail from the faceless higher-ups about recent events involving young Arabic men posing as telephone men attempting to gain access to military bases. As of the e-mail last week, 13 such cases in the last eight weeks. Three of them have been investigated and found to have direct links to terrorist organizations. In the e-mail we were told to take basic precautions. Always have ID, always have a point of contact on the base before showing up, always know where on the base you need to go… etc. So silly me, I’m thinking, “Great, now I won’t be sent out to these places unaware of what the hell is going on.” Normally, I find my POC on base about three hours after sitting in the visitor’s parking lot and I never know where any of the buildings are. We received the e-mail over the weekend. Monday I drove to Shaw AFB without a POC and no clue where the buildings are. Things never change. The only thing that has changed is that now they can say, “We told you so” if problems ever arise. I find myself giving in a little bit. I’m not pointing out the contradictions, I’m not bitching about the obvious flaws. I have (temporarily at least) just stopped giving a shit. As long as they don’t throw me in the military prison, I’ll sit here all day long, waiting on a POC who didn’t know I was coming until he got the phone call two minutes ago.
Once I get inside, I feel like a slacker. Here I am fat and out of shape, long hair, surrounded by people that take PT seriously. These people are machines. They wake, exercise, work, eat and sleep when the man tells them to. And here I come, strolling in whenever I want, testing circuits and then strolling out. They must hate me. I make it on base by a phone call, no face to face other than the hired guard at the gate. Isn’t that funny? The people who assign guest passes for the bases are third party civilians. Strange. So I talk my way on base by giving a company name and showing my badge. I am granted a three day pass, I come and go as I please. I drive around hoping to find the right buildings, sometimes finding myself in restricted areas. I walk in and tell the person at the first desk I see “I’m here to work in your phone room” and they let me in. Feel safe?
As I finish this up, let me leave you with a couple of thoughts. “It can always get worse”, and “two of your favorite things don’t always go well together”. Teresa always takes care of me. (More than she probably should) She makes sure that when I am driving out a long way on Monday that I have some basic provisions. She gets my coffee ready so all I have to do is hit the button in the morning and she packs a couple of sandwiches in a cooler so I have lunch on the road (because she knows I won’t stop to eat). Isn’t she the sweetest thing? In that cooler she’ll also pack a couple of snacks so that I have something to munch on back at the hotel. This time she put in my last box of Samoa Girl Scout cookies. I ate one of the sandwiches and a few of the Samoas while driving. I put the rest in the refrigerator in the hotel room. If I can make the “home” food last a few days, I can keep more of the per diem pay. Tuesday night, I ate the other sandwiches and tonight I tried to eat some of the Samoas. I ate one and thought, “Something tastes funny.” I figured it was just my imagination and ate another. It was bad too. I set them aside and drank another bottle of water. A few hours later I tried another cookie. It was horrible! I love these cookies. I can (and have) gone through an entire box in minutes. Why are these so disgusting? The taste finally dawned on me. Liverwurst. The sandwiches I had were liverwurst and onion. The cookies must have absorbed the odor from the sandwiches. Once I identified the taste I tried another cookie and I just couldn’t eat any more. You know me, I’ll eat a Samoa cookie if it falls in a pile of wet dog shit but I actually threw away the rest of the box. They were inedible.
So, when everyone is complaining about the new flavors of the Girl Scout cookies being bland, it could be worse. They could manufacture liverwurst and Samoa flavored cookies.
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