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November 4, 2012
Terminal 2
10/25/12
Terminal 2
My alarm goes off. Parking meter is expired. So I leave work and go to my bike, parked on th e street. If they write me a ticket, it will be $100 for not having a license plate. I've got a few of those this year. But it's an investment. Money well spent. I've been parking in the alley behind work up until Monday. On Monday, I rolled up the alley and parked in my normal spot when some fresh young dickhole came up and asked me why I was parking there.
"You can't park here!" he exclaimed. "This is private property!" he imagined, as he drew an imaginary line along the cement with his toe. Just an angry fool. Another Obama-lover that feels empty and meaningless unless he's bossing other people around. Unhappy with his on lot in life, he feels the need to control things beyond his control, which leaves him frustrated and unhinged.
He stared at the bike, panting like a rabid squirrel. He walked around behind the bike, noticing that it had no license plates to record. No indication of who I was. I am anonymous. May as well have on a Guy Fawkes mask.
"Who ARE you?" he asks.
"Who are YOU???" I retorted.
"Dude. I live here. I'm a resident in this building. And I...WE...are all greatly disturbed by the noise these motorcycles make driving through the alley!" he blurted.
Obviously, a lie. I drive my motorcycle very carefully through the alley. I know I'm not supposed to be there. It's clearly a pedestrian pathway. People are walking around me as I drive my motorcycle, ever so slowly and carefully, up to my spot and park it. You could not hear the engine if you were inside the building. It wouldn't be possible.
Slowly, I removed my helmet. I stood staring at the exasperated little man, writhing around like a worm caught out on the sidewalk after a spring rain.
"Do what you're going to do, bud," I offered. Then I turned my back on him and walked away.
He followed me, which I figured he would. But he doesn't have the access to even get into the building that I work in. He stopped at the security guards, good friends of mine. People I've talked to every day for nearly a year now.
"Who is that man? Do you know who he is?" he blurted to the security guards.
"No sir," they lied. "We do not know him."
But I came out and moved the bike shortly afterward, because I knew the little worm would call and have it towed. He was clearly unhinged. When a man is that far off of center, you generally don't want to mess with them any more that absolutely necessary. I'd pushed him to his limit. The game was over now.
So, today, when I rode in my bike, I parked on the street. That's why I parked here, on the street. Anxiously, I approached the bike...did I get a ticket? Did I get a ticket?
No ticket!!! Woohoo!!!
As I'm getting ready to leave, a woman pulls up on a motorcycle. Now, women generally don't drive motorcycles. Those that try, usually crash and then stop riding, either because they're dead, or they learned their lesson. But somehow, this woman is on a big cruiser bike and for some reason, she decides to park in the space immediately next to me. So, we bump handlebars as I'm leaving. Like..woman...seriously...wtf? Why would you park RIGHT next to me when the spot one place over is vacant? Use your brain, chick! Ugh!!!
So I leave. I'm crazy late for my flight to the airport so I pick it up on one wheel and go down market for about a block, pedestrians scattering before me like sinners before the 4 horses of the apocolypse.
There's not much traffic because it's only like 1:00 in the afternoon, so I'm flying through traffic going about 85. I have no idea what the speed limit is. I'm weaving through traffic like a rock star.
Get to the airport, and the taxis are all backed up like crazy, which wouldn't affect most people, but I use the taxi entrance to get into short term parking because my motorcycle won't trigger the arm to go up that controls access to the short term parking lot.
So, I'm weaving through this interminable line of taxis and take a little shortcut inside the garage which requires me to go the wrong way down the street for a short distance of about 50 yards.
Park at my usual spot, race inside, but the lines are insane. I tell the woman I'm going to miss my flight, and skip to the front of the line, although she protests and claims I don't have "permission", whatever that means.
Hand the boarding pass to the TSA agen and he's like..."Dude...you're in the wrong terminal."
FUck. Fuck. Fuck.
I always fly out of Terminal 1, but today, I'm flying on American out of Terminal 2. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Turn around and race down to Terminal 2 where the lines are uneblievably long. I tell her I'm going to miss my flight, but, she doesn't care. A TSA agent comes through the crowd with a wheelchair, ducking and weaving under all of the little ropes that cordon people off into livestock-style chutes.
I just duck and follow him. Like he and I are traveling together. Following right right up to the very front of the line and stand behind him, planning my next move. Am I truly handicapped? Am I going to miss my flight? Am I with him or not? The brain is racing but not sure what to do.
The TSA agent at the podium looks at me and says..."Did someone send you here?" he asks.
"Yes." I lie flatly.
He just waves for me to approach him. Hand him my boarding pass and passport. He checks it. Asks me my name. I tell him and he waves me through. Now, I grab some bins and cut ahead of some women on the conveyor belt that feeds into the maul of the X-Ray machines.
They're falling all over themselves. Snorting and protesting and scoffing that someone would cut in front of them. I wouldn't normally do this, but they're so slow and so clueless. Just as dumb as sheep. So I cut in front of them and endure their insults and jeers. If they protest enough, I'm going to turn to them and say "settle down. you're going to be ok", but their protests never rise to the point I feel requires me to respond to them verbally.
Only when I get to the gate do I remember that my flight is delayed. Now, of course, I'm worried about my connection in Dallas. If we're too late, then I'll miss my connection and be stranded in the middle of the country. But eventually, they let us board.
I'm in 23F on the window, and this guy is in 23E. But when someone comes and confronts him, he panics.
"I'm in 23E," the man offers.
The idiot beside me looks at the arm rest between us which is clearly labeled 23E.
"He's in 23E," the man beside me replies, pointing to me.
"No. I'm in 23F," I reply immediately. I point to my arm rest which is clearly labeled 23F.
Eventually, the idiot in 23E realizes he's the one in the wrong seat. He should be in 23B. So, essentially, he's on the wrong side of the aisle. He should be in the middle seat across the aisle. Like...how does a grown man make that mistake?
These people are so painfully stupid.
We take off and I fall asleep before they even bring the drinks around. When I wake up three hours later, we're landing in Dallas.
Even though we're over an hour late, I still have plenty of time to make my connection because I was scheduled to have a 2 hour layover.
I get to the gate and we board the flight. A little Embraer.
The people here are all flying to Jackson, and now things are different. Now, you feel like you're in someone's living room.
Now, we're on the plane getting ready to take off...but it's for Jackson, right? So it's like..."Your cousin is Julie Smith? She's in our church. There every sunday. Let me get your emails address..."
His wife was Carol..my wife is the oldest daughter of Julie...
They're all piecing together the quilt. The fabric that weaves us all together. Her daughter was Julie's 3rd cousin.
Hilarious. Just like over dinner tables in Monticello.
Not that so much that it's funny to see people piecing together "who do you know...and how are we related..."
this is standard dinner table conversation in the Mississippi pine forests but farrrr removed from conversations in the city.
In the city, everyone is a stranger and no one speaks. You learn not to even make eye contact. But in the country, everyone knows everyone else and if you don't step up and confess who your related to right off, there's gonna be trouble.
Mississippi is small and polite. Genteel. Society here is a tightly knit fabric.
The city is a nightmare of random strangers showing up in a bar and saying "Hi, handsome. I'm ready to go home."
One man says it's the first time he's flown.
The old man beside me somehow doesn't grasp the concept that the armrests on either side of him are not exclusively his. He sits like he's in his own private chair at the dinner table.
Eventually, I elbow him enough that he begins to understand how the "shared armrest" concept works. Either we can jockey for elbow room the entire flight to Jackson, or we can both remove our elbows from the arm rest and enjoy a sort of detente, akin to the armistice signed between Best Korea and South Korean. They are still technically at war, they just agrees to cease hostilites.
He starts coughing and wheezing and sneezing and blowing phlegm all over the plane. It's flights like this that make me question my own sanity. He's blowing snot into a rag and rocking back and forth. O Christ why doesn't someone get him committed into an old folks home so that normal people won't have to suffer through his fits?
Today is not a great travel day, but Monday was so much worse. On Monday, the jackass tried to leave me in the parking lot. It's the same stunt he's pulled before. I park my car. They hand me a slip, and when I turn to unplug the iphone charger from the cigarette lighter so iit won't drain my battery, the fucking bastard pulls away and leaves me, which is not a good start to a Monday.
So this time, I run him down and dog cuss his ass good and take my seat on the shuttle bus.
As soon as I get to the airport, I get the announcement that my flight is delayed. It's raining and foggy in San Francisco, which sucks because I don't have my Givi case on my bike and I don't have my rain gear because it goes in the case and we've already mentioned the case I think.
So, I'm looking forward to a delayed drive into work through the rain which is going to suck.
When we finally get to SFO, we land, but there's a plane at our gate, so we sit on the tarmac for another half hour. Finally, we get to the gate and I rush to get on my motorcycle.
The bike is really my one true joy. I love riding the bike through the city. it's a much needed adrenaline rush. Dangerous as hell, of course. But not something I could live without.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2012 at 8:13 PM
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