Nashville is not Memphis

I am currently sitting in the Nashville airport. Aside from Memphis, Nashville is probably the second most hated city on my list.

My dad called me in a complete twit earlier. He had jetlag and was completely wasted (not drunk wasted- wasted like he was in a circadian rhythm coma). So I sit at my gate for about 30 hours, getting extremely annoyed by the stupid blonde valley girl sitting next to me as she made hand gestures and talked on her cell phone. Idiot face, the person on the phone cannot see your hands.

So my dad calls and says, “I just bought you a ticket on Southwest to Nashville. Flight leaves in an hour!” Keep in mind that there are at least 40 billion people in the airport. I am not checked in. I have no ticket. I have a huge bag, I have been dancing in place for ten minutes so I’m working up a good sweat, and I feel awful after eating my very heavy disgusting breakfast where I had to interact with the 8 Mile cast.

I run out of security, run downstairs, out the front doors of LAX, searching desperately for the Southwest sign. I find it, and there are 4098390482034 people in line. So I ask the stupid idiot woman working there, “My flight leaves in less than an hour- is there any way I can check in now?” She says, “No.” I almost punched her in the throat.

I’m about to puke. I’m sweating. I’m having a panic attack. My phone is ringing. I can’t get to it in time. It’s buried at the bottom of my bag under my laptop, chapstick, a huge book, and 309 other items. My feet are on fire. I have my Alaskan snow boots on and it’s 80 degrees outside, but when I left my house at 4 AM it was 40 degrees. My armpits are wet. I want to puke. Someone will inevitably get shanked in about 3 minutes.

Finally I check in. Next is security. There are 3209028203 people in the security line. I quickly move with the cattle line and they run out of mother effing plastic bins right as I get up to walking through the canopy of violation. I shove all of my stuff on the conveyer belt. Then I get yelled at. And I say “WE NEED SOME MORE PLASTIC BINS. MERRY CHRISTMAS,” at the top of my lungs, in a hateful voice.

So I get in trouble and have to go through security again and I yell, “MY FLIGHT IS LEAVING IN 15 MINUTES. CAN’T SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!?!?!?!”

The guy felt bad for me. So he says, “Ma’am, just take your stuff.” I think he knew I was about to chop his head off. I shove on my snow boots as fast as I can, and RUN like Kevin’s dad in “Home Alone” across the entire dad gum airport. I am sweating, my hair is disgusting, and then I hear them page me. I have never been paged in my life. I was mortified. I was embarrassed. I am just not one of those irresponsible retards who misses her flight.

I shove my way to the front of the line and get my ticket. Thank you, Jesus.

As I start down the jet way thing, I am met by a wonderfully flamboyant African American gay man who is talking to me about getting drunk at the airport and drinking bourbon. We bonded. He said (sassy),

“Girl I don’t drink nothin’ but Maker’s Bourbon! I’m a man’s man. When my bartender axed me if I wanted a double, I just said, BITCH! YOU JUST MAKE DAT UP RIGHT!”

He was holding a little battery-operated cooling fan that looked like a flower. It had little pink foam blades.

I get on this flight and am squished in between two men. They didn’t smell gross, so that was good. The one on my left was weird. He was like 40 and had braces and when he smiled there was spit all stuck in his grill, like a valossa raptor. Sick. The guy to my right was awesome. It was hard for me to understand him a little bit because he was a mumbler, but I did make out a few of his comments. He told me he used to play the trumpet in the circus and he and his friends got kicked out because they’d all start playing jazz and blues whenever they were supposed to play circus songs. I was laughing my head off.

Then my little gay friend across the aisle pulled out some candy from his airport goody bag which was bulging with National Enquirer magazines and candy. He gave the candy to the little boy sitting next to him and said a very enthusiastic and lispy, “MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

Then my circus trumpeter says, “I think he be like Little Richard. If you know what I mean.”

I just about fell out of my seat I was laughing so hard. Then when I told him I was going into counseling, he said,
“Oh yes. I used to be a psychiatric aid. And you know what? There was this girl who was there. She had 4 personalities. I mean. 4. real. personalities. And you know what? People, they made fun of her. They show nuff did. And you know what? One day she just straight up hurt one of ‘em. Yep. She did. And they was HURT.”

The flight attendants were wearing Santa hats and Christmas apparel and they went through a “Night Before Christmas” routine for the safety information. It was hilarious. “Twas 7 days before Christmas, and all through the plane, everyone was seated, and stored were their trays. Should the lights go out, we’ll help with a smile, for peppermint lights will light up the aisle!”

I think I fell asleep for about 10 minutes and drooled on myself. I am so classy. No wonder my dating record is so awesome.

At the end of the flight we came to a big huge THUMP onto the runway. I think I broke my tail bone. No joke. I heard it crunch. Everyone on the flight screamed bloody murder.

I got off the plane and immediately felt like getting right back on and flying back to LA. Everyone is obese. Like, type 3 obese. And everyone is wearing a Christmas sweater. Mind you, last week I hosted an 80’s tacky Christmas sweater party, but it was in complete jest. EVERYONE here is wearing one. And they mean it. For real.

Also, some country-hick hillbilly keeps making announcements about watching our bags so “we can do our neighborly duties, downnair at the ur-port.”

I might have Nashville more than Memphis. Actually, I know I hate Nash more than Memphis. I mean, at least in Memphis, there’s a little diversity. Everyone here is white, wearing a Christmas sweater, cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a big gaudy cross necklace, and they’re all fat. It’s very weird.

One cool thing that happened today, though, amidst all of the insane crap—my parents got me an Ipod for my birthday. I didn’t really want one- I mean, it wasn’t at the top of my list, but now I really dig it. I know, I know. I was the only person in the united states under the age of 30 without one until November, but cut me some slack. Anyway, so I ran through the airport listening to all kinds of awesome 80’s music, and I felt like I had my own soundtrack. RIGHTEOUS.

Now I am waiting for my parents to come pick me up. Apparently there was bad fog on the interstate and so I have been sitting at the airport for an hour and a half. Sigh. I got to hear a nice all-white Baptist choir earlier. That was enjoyable. They gave me a free CD. I must look pathetic.

I will probably blog a great deal on this vacation because I am experiencing reverse culture shock. I need a healthy way to vent instead of engaging in escape behaviors.