Friday, December 19, 2008

Traveling like a Slattery Sucks.

I have been bumped twice in the past 8 hours.

Because my dad is a pilot, people have this dumb idea that I get to ride through security in a golden golf cart and that flight attendants throw rose pedals on the ground as I walk through the airplane. I sit in first class with a mimosa and a plate of caviar and I never have to show anyone my ID. Bulllllll sheeeeeeet. In reality, most of my traveling has been a lot like being one of those low class folks on the Titanic, being shoved around like cattle with the commoners, getting frisked every five seconds by some pervy TSA agent, and having to take my shoes off and on a million times. Not a fan.

I am watching a 200 pound black woman stuff her face full of Burger King French fries at 8:30 in the morning, talk on her cell phone, and pick crap out of her teeth with her long silver fingernails. She is now licking her thumbs. The lady next to her is an 85 year old red headed lady talking at the top of her lungs on her cell phone. She is wearing a full length fur coat. It matches her hair. Maybe her hair is a wig made from the bottom of her coat. Recyclable alterations?

I was at the airport last night and had to deal with all sorts of shenanigans. Last night feels like a million years ago. I see some of the same people who got bumped last night waiting here with me. They got bumped this morning, too. I effing hate getting bumped. First of all, there were about 30 million Asian people with little carts, running around, bumping into me, stopping in the middle of the walkways, and blocking all entrances. Fire hazardous, rude punks. I almost punched one of them. Normally I am pretty understanding about cultural differences, but after driving around in the rain, never finding adequate parking, cutting my date short, rushing around trying to get everything done, I was fed up. Last night I just was not in the mood to be Carl Rogers. Or Mr. Rogers. Mr. Carl Rogers? I had this mentor party the other day, and my mentee’s mom told me that she went on a trip to Singapore a few years ago. She told me that the people over there had never seen a black woman before, so they stared at her everywhere she went. She told me she wanted to scream at someone by the end of her trip. I felt very empathetic all of a sudden.

Last night I waited with the lady who was the guidance counselor in “10 Things I hate about You.” Apparently she has some TV celebrity daughter, too, because people kept coming up and talking to her and telling her how wonderful the “season finale” was and they kept getting their pictures taken with her. I am all of a sudden completely irritated with “famous” people. They are just people who do their jobs. Why is that a big deal? I don’t get it. I saw Scary Spice last week. She was nice. I didn’t go up and throw up all over her and try to kiss her butt, though. I don’t get it. People are just people. Why do we make them more than that? Anyway, despite my night of madness, I did have one perk. Some crazy lady sitting across from me kept saying all kinds of crazy funny stuff. One of her monologues was as follows:

“My husband, he be downstairs. My daughter, she work for da Fed Ex in Muuurmphis. Well, one time I done got on the plane with my son. This here’s my son. Say hello, Josh. Make Diego say hello, too.” (Diego the Latino doll waves hello)

“Well, I had done been on the plane one time and they had pulled me OFF. I mean they pulled me RIGHT OFF. And you know the whole time it was my dumb husband’s fault. He downstairs. I kept sayin to him, I says, ‘We gotsta go! We gotsta go!’ and he did nothin’ but crap around. You know how they do. They just crap around.”

I want to make sure that everyone who reads this knows that this was her exact conversation with me and I am in no way fabricating. She was quite possibly the highlight of my week.

This morning I woke up at 4 AM. I am not even remotely conscious. I got bumped and watched about 10 other paying passengers curse out the gate agent, who was a little Asian woman named Sook. Poor old Sook. Some crazy Mexican lady kept yelling in Sook’s face. Imagine this: two four foot tall women, both from other countries, neither of them can speak English well, both yelling at each other and grabbing each other by the arms in complete frustration. Pushy pushy pushy. I thought I was going to have to referee. Instead I just sat there, watching them, trying to figure out how either of them wasn’t wearing a house arrest anklet.

So, crazy Mexican lady comes and sits down by me after her encounter with Sook. I had no idea what she said. I understood about 5%. She begins to tell me,
“My dwah-ter, she works in da Meemphees. You whaaant, you whaaant coffee?”

I tell her no thanks on the coffee.

“I get for you. I take you for coffee. You whaaant, you whant tea?”

No thanks, Lady. She is wearing platform sneakers and bright blue Princess Diana eyeliner.

“You come whiiiiiith me. We get coffee toghhhhether.”

I have to make a phone call.

I called my mom. Then I decided that I was pretty darn hungry. I ditched Crazy Martinez and went to one of those restaurants in the airport that charges you about 30 dollars for a hamburger that tastes like it’s made out of a skunk.

Of course, I end up sitting in the white trash section. This very homely white family sitting next to me looks like they were in the cast of 8 Mile. This woman is all lumpy and obnoxious and is wearing a scrunchy. A SCRUNCHY. They stopped making those in 1994, so who knows how she got this thing. She has a little raggety kid sitting next to her. He’s about 4. Her other son is about 8 and he’s dressed all trashy, too. The dad is sitting next to the 8 year old and he has a terribly vacant, middle-aged look on his face. You know, that face that says, “Man, when I first married this woman, I had no idea that 10 years later she’d be wearing a scrunchy and have a FUPA (Fat Upper Pubic Area).” Anyway, Dad keeps leaving every few minutes because his wife is such a moron. There’s a baby in a stroller parked next to the table.

The kids are super annoying. Especially at 7 in the morning. Kicking the table, smacking their food, getting their disgusting germs all over the place. I almost got up and threw my scalding coffee on the stupid mom’s face. She kept allowing the little 4 year old boy to be obnoxious. She’s laugh and coo all over him and hug him until his face was purple, but when the 8 year old boy would try to do the same obnoxious stuff, she’d yell at him and show her teeth like a German shepherd. It was apparent that big brother wanted the same love that little brother got, but when he tried the same tactics, he was reprimanded.

HOLY CRAP: NEWS FLASH. I am watching this man board the airplane. He is wearing black sandals with black socks, wearing black jeans, is wearing a Southwestern print Hawaiian style shirt, and this is the best part: HE HAS A SIR-LANCE-A-LOT HAIRCUT THAT IS HAIR SPRAYED LIKE SNAP-ON LEGO HAIR. This is magical. Seriously. His hair is stiff as it can be and looks like he could take it off in one piece. It is like a little mini mullet with bangs. Glorious.
Now, back to the white trash encounter. I heard scrunchy mc scruncherton say this to her son:

“You are getting on my nerves. There is no point in spending thousands of dollars on a vacation if I can’t have fun. You are keeping me from having fun. I can’t handle it. You better start acting right. You know how to act right- you go to school, don’t you? DON’T YOU? You better make sure that mommy starts having fun so that she isn’t wasting all of this money on this vacation.”

Let’s decode the family injunction:

Don’t be a little boy; don’t act like your brother. I don’t love you because you aren’t as cute as your little brother. Little brother is my favorite child. You are a complete doofus and I hate you. Love, Scrunchy Mom.

I hate that crap. You can’t be inconsistent with kids like that. It makes ‘em all crazy when they get older, and they spend their whole lives trying to figure out what’s “wrong” with them. I wanted to just say, “Kid, your mom is a total B-word, and if you just do exactly OPPOSITE of everything she says, you’ll turn out juuuuust fine.”

Plus if you’re such a tight wad that you can’t just enjoy your time together on your family vacation, heck, don’t take a vacation. Stay at home and keep on living your same old white trash life. Eat some ho-hos and watch Mama’s Family all day.

Stupid idiot.

The trailer park family got up and left. I was finally left alone in my immediate section, with an older guy and a young guy sitting to my left a few tables over. They were gawking at me. I gave them a hateful look.

The old guy says to me,

“We weren’t staring at you. I was staring at the picture above your head.”

Suuuuuuuuuure.” I said.

Then he proceeded to leave his seat, come inspect the picture above my head, and tell me a bunch of weird info about this car that was in the frame, and how there was a movie made about this car, and the plot had to do with the car going across Route 66, and the police chased him all across the U.S., and blah blah blah. When I realized what a dork he was, I also realized that the guy definitely was not lying. He was staring at the car, and not me. Shwew.

So now I’m sitting on the floor of the LAX airport, trying to avoid the crazy Mexican lady who is talking on her cell phone and popping her gum.

There is also this obnoxious red headed two year old running through the airport screaming and acting like a little twit. I want to throw him on the jet way.

I think that I am exhausted. I’m tired as all get out. YIKES! I just saw the scariest woman ever. Her face had so much plastic surgery that it looked like she sucked a balloon over her face and she was inhaling. SCARY SCARY STUFF.

Anyway, I’m exhausted because I got 4 hours of sleep, I just finished finals a week ago, I partied like crazy on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, and the rest of the week I have been wrapping up work, job hunting, figuring out bills, etc.

I want to be rich so I can buy plane tickets like a normal white American person and not have to ride standby with all of the Titanic cattle.

Maybe there is an upside. Maybe because I have slept so little, I will be able to sleep tonight, for once, without the help of any sleep aids. Two nights ago I couldn’t sleep and I was watching Fight Club on cable. I started watching at the part where Jack says,

“You wake up in LAX, JFK, Dallas Fort Worth. Gain an hour, lose an hour. If you wake up in a different time, in a different place, are you a different person?”

Good question. I have felt all incoherent and weird like that recently because I have slept so little and I’ve been so edgy. It’s rough. Plus my skin is a nightmare. I have the complexion of a brick. I get all stressed and I have constellations all over my face. Rough, rough, rough. The stuff about acne just being an accessory of puberty is a big fat lie.

I think I am going to wrap this up and play with my Ipod.

I’m at a point now where it isn’t even worth trying to go back home. I hate Memphis. My whole life goal has been to escape. Now that I’m out, I really would be fine if I never went back ever again. I miss my sister and my cat. I miss a few of my friends. I do miss the culture sometimes, but right now, this whole ordeal just is not worth it. Gain an hour, lose an hour.

Right now I am listening to this flight attendant tell this mom about this kid who had an asthma attack on the plane. She’s going on and on and on. The kid looks like a fruit cake. He’s standing here in this dorky outfit and he talks like a little goofus. Way to really not live up the “kid with Asthma” stereotype, kid. Apparently this kid had an allergy or something and the mom clearly does NOT CARE but I think that the flight attendant is worried about getting sued, so she keeps talking about how they got a doctor to tend to the kid’s needs and he was very helpful and blablablabbla.

These airport people. They’re crazy.

Last night there was this lady in a full length sweater coat, a long purple and black wig, a big sparkly costume jewelry ring on every finger, big gold-rimmed Elvis glasses on her nose, red lace panty hoes, some black house shoes, and some sort of weird outfit underneath the knit sweater coat. Oh yes, she also had shoulder pads the size of Montana. She’s here again today. And she is wearing bright red lipstick. It matches her lacy panty hose.

My booty is asleep. Time to walk around. If one more nasty disgusting person yawns, coughs, or sneezes without covering his or her mouth, I am going to punch him or her right in the teeth. The end.

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