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August 20, 2005
There and Back Again
Yesterday, my new boss called to tell me that the paperwork had gone through, and that it was official: I had gotten the job. He congratulated me, and said that he was excited to bring me aboard. Then he said, "You sealed the deal by flying up to meet us. That was a good move."
"It was my pleasure," I said, "you guys were great." However, I thought, "Yeah, well. It's a damn good thing I got this job. Because I went through hell to visit."
The trip up, from Charleston, South Carolina to Boston, was rough. But that was my own fault -- I slept through my alarm. Forty-five minutes after my flight was supposed to have left, I was in bed, drifting toward consciousness, when I realized that there was light on the other side of my eyelids. This could not possibly have been a good sign: the alarm was set for 4 AM. I immediately came fully awake, and started cursing.
Ruth rushed me to the airport, and the nice ladies at the United counter booked me on standby for a later pair of flights from Charleston to DC and DC to Boston. We went and had breakfast at a terrible diner called "Alex's." If you're ever in Mount Pleasant, SC, skip Alex's.
After breakfast, Ruth took me back to the airport. Not long after she left, I began a mental inventory of my carry-on luggage. Like any good nervous traveler, I was certain that I had forgotten something important. And I was right! I had a suit, and a nice shirt, and a tie. But no dress shoes!
I think it was about this point when I realized that my day of travel was going to be a complete farce, and that there was nothing I could do about it. I began to look forward to traveling home on Friday as a leisurely stroll through the Atlantic coast.
I called Ruth, to ask her to bring the shoes out to me. Only, she couldn't find them; I hadn't even brought them to Charleston. So I decided to buy new ones in Boston -- one more thing to have to do in the few hours I would be there, and one more way to spend the $60 I had to my name.
Nothing else of note happened before I got to DC. Once there, I learned that my next flight had been overbooked by 16 passengers. As there were only about 75 seats on the plane to begin with, that seemed a bit absurd.
Normally, I wouldn't have worried. I would have been happy to take a later flight. I would have gone to the bar, had a beer, and watched ESPN for six or seven hours. That day, however, I only had about $30 to feed myself for three days. And I needed to get to Boston in time to buy shoes for my interview -- there was no way I was going to find time to do so the next morning.
So I spent the three hours before my next flight sitting as close to the customer service counter as possible, trying to overhear the employee's conversations. They speculated on who might or might not show up. "I think this family," they said, pointing to a computer screen "is connecting from a Northwest flight that is delayed. So that frees up 4 seats." As they counted up potential mishaps for other people, I took hope. I started to wish for delays and storms for other people.
This bad karma is probably the source of my even more exasperating day on Friday. But I made the plane to Boston -- I was the last person to board. In fact, I only made it because another stand-by passenger, called before me, did not show.
After that, things went smoothly for the next 36 hours. I got to Payless Shoes with five minutes to spare, and even found a pair I liked. Monica treated me to my first draught Guiness, which was terrific, and some of the best pizza I've ever had.
There was a small mishap getting to my interview -- a shuttle was supposed to meet me at the train, but did not. I spent an hour in my suit in the sun, but I made the interview, and everyone seemed to like me.
Monica kindly agreed to get up at 4 AM and take me back to the airport. I made my flight from Boston to DC, with time to get a cup of poorly made Starbucks coffee. As we landed in DC, I checked my boarding pass, and found that my layover would only be an hour. I would be in Charleston in three hours. I began to feel good. The previous two days had been stressful, and long, and I really looked forward to getting home, and seeing Ruth, and maybe going to the beach.
Once off the plane, I went to find a monitor, to find out which terminal I would leave from next. I learned that my flight had been cancelled. I took a shuttle to the terminal anyway, to speak to customer service. They were nice; they issued me a ticket for a flight leaving three hours later on US Air. Told me to go to some other terminal, and it would be OK.
I took another shuttle back to the main building. The same obnoxious family that had been in line ahead of me at customer service was ahead of me there. An older couple, with a son around my age. A smiley prick who I overheard talking about how great Nixon was. He just kept talking. He did nothing for my nerves.
The man at the US Air customer service counter spent about five, ten minutes making calls and punching a keyboard, and eventually printed out boarding passes for the family in front of me. Then he conferred with the other agent -- a bitter looking woman named Debra, who I had already seen chew out a young couple. They decided that they didn't have time to give everyone in line (maybe eight, ten people?) a boarding pass.
"If we do," they said, "it will take all day. We'll never get the other passengers for this flight checked in." The flight leaves in three hours, I protested. You just did it for these assholes in front of me, I protested. To no avail. They said I would have to go back to the ticket counter for US Air, back beyond security. Then they turned around and ignored me.
So, I trudged back to the ticket counter. It was about 9 AM, and I had already spent a total of about an hour and a half waiting in lines that morning. But I waited for my ticket. And I waited to check in. And I waited at security. Because my flight plans had changed, I got flagged for extra screening by security. I got patted down, and wanded, and my bags were searched thoroughly by hand. Even my Cinnabon.
An hour and a half later, I was back at the US Air terminal. The ticket agents, who had been so sure that they would be swamped, were standing around joking, with nothing much to do. For the next hour and a half, they helped maybe a half dozen people.
The change of plans in DC included an extra flight. I hopped through Charlotte, NC, and then to Charleston. I got home late, and hungry. By that point, I wasn't even capable of feeling good about the interview any longer. So, yeah, I'm glad the new boss thinks I did the right thing. Because it definitely didn't feel like it at the time.
Posted by todd at 12:41 PM | Comments (6)
August 15, 2005
On Frozen Burritos
Ruth has been gone for two days, and already I am resorting to fundamentally absurd methods of preparing food.
Before I can microwave the last "Tina's Bean and Cheese" in the house, I must dislodge three months of ice accumulated in our too-cold freezer. I grip the burrito like a delicious hammer, and I pound my lunch against the counter. I am a hungry John Henry with a formica rail spike, and I wonder if I will survive an entire winter on my own.
(I figure, maybe, with enough help from my friends.)
Posted by todd at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2005
Thanks for Clearing That Up
From ESPN.com:
"Shaquille O'Neal, left, ...." Ah. Thanks for clearing that up, guys. I could have spent all day wondering which one of those two was 13 years old.
Yeah, yeah, no word from me of late. Things are happening. I've got about six things to post. But computers are so lame.
Posted by todd at 6:13 PM
August 7, 2005
Housemates, Part Two
Unlike Adrianne, I am still not having an awesome housemate experience.
I wouldn't waste your time with my whining, except that my housemates are hilarious.
Housemate #2 (H2, henceforth) has, since the last post, been arrested. That's no big deal, right? People get arrested. It happens.
However, H1 doesn't like H2 very much. Further, H1 doesn't understand people very well. So, H1 went to the courthouse and asked for H2's arrest record. Apparently, H2 has been arrested four times in roughly the last year and a half.
Last December, he was arrested for selling marijuana to a police informant in a parking lot. This March, he was again arrested for the same offense, in the same parking lot. How bright do you have to be?
"Meet me at 199 West Coleman. I'll be in a white Toyota."
"Isn't that where you got busted three months ago?"
"Yeah. But then I was in a black Toyota. They'll never see it coming this time."
So he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. But he's ok. He sits around re-watching the dvd box set of Arrested Development and reading science fiction novels, and (as best as we can tell) doesn't deal from the house. Sometimes he eats our food, but he doesn't make anyone uncomfortable.
Housemate #1 is another story altogether. He seems to care much more about other people. Whereas H2 takes from others without obvious remorse, H1 tracks me down at work about once a week and recounts everything he ate without asking. A slice of cake, a piece of pie, some ice cream, and pasta. I can't seem to convince him that I don't want to talk about it, I only want the food to come back.
But that's his thing, talking at people. He is very dramatic (and, if you will recall, a six foot tall, 300 pound gay man). Whenever I bring up a problem I have with him -- maybe the fact that, for all of his accounting, he had gone a few weeks without replacing any food -- he goes into Queen Mode.
He immediately stops making eye contact. He becomes much loader, and he assumes one of several fake accents. He says things like, "Big Mama needs her own pasta to reappear," or "People also need to start wiping down the counters, because The Goddess doesn't like to come downstairs in the morning and see cockroaches. The Goddess is getting upset, and no one wants that."
It is while he is holding forth in this way that you realize that he doesn't care that much more about other people. He just likes to put on a show. A show of accounting for what he has taken, a show of indignation, a show of kindness. He's not interested in what kind of show, really.
Just in case you think I'm kidding, here is a picture of his oatmeal. As you can see, The Goddess shops at Wal-Mart:
(The answer, by the way, is that he was passive-aggressively trying to send H2 a message to do his dishes.)
Also, when we began labelling our groceries, he did this:
Posted by todd at 3:28 PM | Comments (1)