That's nice, Cheeks

9:18:09 PM EDT

I know, I know...I just added an entry the other day. Was it yesterday? Beats me. All the days run into each other anymore.

But I am right back at you today, and that is because I witnessed an idiot today who was so spectacular that I just have to tell you about her right here and right now. We have garden variety idiots in our lives every day, and  it is certainly no occasion for surprise when one of them shows up and fucks everything up for you and everyone within spitting distance. But every once in a while you get an idiot who is so exemplary in fucking idiocy that you cannot help but stand there, agape, jaw at beltloop level, as you stand there and look at them.

Such was the case today when I went to a supermarket. The market is really a down-at-the-heels place, one of those old stores that the chain figures isn't worth sprucing up. The floors are always dirty and it is full of egregious examples of  humanity, old men with their flies down and gunk all over their pants, old women who smell disturbingly of fine cheese (which can't do a whole lot for roquefort sales, frankly, not that roquefort is a big seller in a place like this), guys with matted hair and a shopping cart filled with dirty cans.

You get the drill.

So first off, a sideshow: as I am walking in a guy sitting on a box starts giving me a spiel about how his "old lady" (wife? girlfriend? mother? grandmother who smells like exotic cheese?)  threw him out and that he really needed a dollar. Seeing as that I had brought exactly $3 with me, I didn't see fit to part with one-third of my capital based on this dubious and totally unclear story.

But now for the stupid part. The woman in front of me in the express line (15 items or less, please) who had like 20 items proceeds to stand there and look dumbstruck as the total for her groceries is told to her by the cashier. What the fuck is up with that? I see it all the time in grocery stores; people stand there with their thumbs up their bungholes when told they actually have to pay for the cart full of Cheet-Ohs and generic raisin bran and  Metamucil with Lambchop Flavoring and other crap. Hint: Take cash out before being prompted, OK?

Then the woman starts spreading change out on the conveyor belt. And guess what:?

"Some of this is Canadian money," the cashier said. "Um, we don't take Canadian money."

So this asshole, this fuckhead, this stupid woman, then looks right at the cashier and says "You don't?"

Cashier: ""Don't what?"

Fuckhead Idiot Woman, as the line grows ever longer and I get ever more pissed off: "You don't take Canadian money?".

Cashier: "No."

F.I.W: "Why not?"

That did it, friends. While I am loath to jump into such situations, I was more than happy to help out here.

Me: "Because this is America, and we use American money here."

I guess I could have been ejected from the store, or punched or shot or worse for being so fucking blunt with an asshole who doesn't even know what kind of fucking money you use to pay for fucking groceries in fucking upstate New York.  But I am getting crabbier as I age, and there was no controlling myself while this asininity was going on.

The woman looked a little humiliated, but you know what? I don't give a shit. I have reached the point where I expect people to act as if they have advanced past the evolutionary stage of being a fucking trilobite, and it's surprising how often I am bloody let down in this regard.

So she finally paid up and I finally got the hell out of that shitty store, and was panhandled by the same asswipe on the way out the door.

So please: if you live in America, you use American money at the grocery store. I can just imagine this idiot picking up some of that asswiping paper they use for money in Latvia or  Estonia or someplace and coming in to try to buy ground sirloin with it, and then having the same shocked reaction.

Quit being a fucking chump, especially when I am in line behind you. Deal? 

 

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11:37:00 PM EDT
Hearing The Washing Machine Agitator Caressing My Undershorts

OK, OK. It's been a while, huh? Nice to see you all again, and it is nice to be seen.

That horseshit aside, it has not been nice to be me over the past couple months. I have been going through my own fucking version of  that really deep circle of hell Dante talked about, the one in which a three-faced Satan is chewing on Judas Iscariot and a couple other clowns to punish them for their crimes against humanity, nature or both.

Perhaps all this has come about because of my anti-religion tirade (see entry "A Mighty Fortress.") I'm not sure if that's the case, but whatever this is, I just wish it would stop.

In case you missed it, I have been treated of late for a condition known in medical textbooks as 'fucked-up shoulder." This condition is, well, painful. I have an entire medicine chest full of codeine and other painkillers, and you know what? I don't even take them anymore, because I have taken so many of them that they just don't bloody do anything, OK? Which is unfair. I can eat an Oreo cookie and my blood sugar will skyrocket, right? Well, you would think that a narcotic that you goddamned near have to have a pistol to get from a pharmacy would be as effective at effecting some sort of change in your physical plant. I mean, I would not expect it to make my blood sugar go up, nor would I consider that very good, seeing as it's been horrible lately anyway. But it just seems that if they make a fucking pill and class it as a painkiller it should do SOMETHING, and these pills no longer do  anything. I might as well skulk into some Catholic church and make off with a shitload of consecrated hosts and take them every night before bed, because then I might at least have a chance of getting better or at least getting to heaven if this kills me dead, which sometimes I think it is going to.

But one thing all this "FU shoulder" business has done for me is further reinforced my contempt for the medical "system."  I hate the office that I was going to for physical therapy. I say that I was going there because I am not going there anymore. The doctors decided that I should not be going to physical therapy because the physical therapy "probably is aggravating the problem." Which means why the fuck did they send me to these unlicensed meatbeaters without knowing for blood sure what was wrong with me?

It was horrible. The PT place is in this huge building called a "Health Park" that is no goddamned park at all in mymind because a park is a place you go to have a picnic and anything happening to me in this health park in no way, shape or form resembles a picnic, and you can take that as gospel from me.

The building is huge, and they have a place when you walk in that is called a health concierge. Imagine that. A concierge. For your health. A concierge is the guy or woman in a hotel who finds you dental floss or gets you a weather forecast or, I am told, in some lower-class joints tells you where easy women might be found.  I am not sure what this health concierge does, but you know what? I don't really give a shit, because when I am in a "health park" I am looking for a health provider rather than for weather forecasts or dental floss or easy women. That's just how it is.

And once you get past that fucking place, there is a baby grand player piano pounding out show tunes from the '40s and '50s, the kind of  things they call timeless classics but really are songs that you vaguely know but can't recall the name of and really don't want to hear or remember anyway.  For the name of God, why did they put this thing in the hallway in a huge building filled with doctors' offices? Who the hell wants to listen to show tunes on a player piano as a prep for sitting in a doctor's waiting room for 45 minutes when you feel like refried shit to begin with?

The one thing that amuses me about this place is one sign that just gasses me:

DR. HIRAM BEER, UROLOGY

Can there ever have been a better name for a urologist? Whenever I see it, it also reminds me of a headline from years ago. I can't recall the specifics of the story, but the headline was hilarious:

UROLOGIST IN TROUBLE WITH HIS PEERS

I am sure it was a sadly failed attempt at a pun (his "peers" would not, of course, be his "pee-ers," unless he was treating colleagues). Funny nonetheless.

So I went to this PT place and was beaten up by this physical therapist. She had given me PT after a knee operation many years ago, and to be honest I'd taken quite a fancy to her back in those days, and after all it is not unusual to take a fancy to someone who makes your pain go away, even if they are the ones causing it. Do you remember in "Nineteen Eighty-Four," when O'Brien was tormenting Winston Smith, trying to alter his perception of how many fingers he was seeing? Every time the torment would stop, Winston would sob in O'Brien's arms and feel like he loved him for making the pain endeven though O'Brien was the one with his hand on the dials.

Same with this stuff. This very attractive woman would hook me up to these bizarre machines and send electrical currents through me that would boil the piss right out of my bladder, and then just when I felt as if somehow she was hiding a set of horns in her gorgeous flowing hair she would throw an icebag on my shoulder and I could swear she was the Madonna incarnate.

So I don't see her anymore, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, since as I said I sort of came to fancy her in the way that we humans fancy people that we of course would never pursue. But then the doctors came up with a far more dire idea of what the shoulder problem might be, and I don't want to get into what that was, other than that the doctor who said it out loud probably should not have.

But I tested out OK for that, and next I have to go to a neurologist. I have seen this guy before for another problem, and I get a kick out of him because not only is he a nice guy, but he also looks like he's about 14. This is kind of funny to me, and I always call him by his first name because of it, and frankly I don't give a shit if it offends him. What is he going to do about it...tell his dad to beat me up?

So I will try to stay in closer contact than I have been. Also, time is running very short for me to move the blog, and I don't want to lose all this work. So if anyone can tell me an easy way to 'import" it to another site (is that the word?), please contact me at fiddler26@verizon.net . Sorry to be a nudge, but sometimes even the best of us don't know what the fuck we are doing, and that does not at all mean we are bad people, right?

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2:37:42 AM EDT

Hello again, seekers:

Yeah, I have been gone, but I do have a good excuse, better than the excuses I used to give Mrs. Rapp in high school homeroom when I was late because of a craps game in the cafeteria. Mrs. Rapp, by the way, was the most beautiful woman on the planet in 1967, which was no small feat. I can still remember how they had these poles that you had to use to open and close these high windows in the classroom, and if you know anything about fashion history you know what skirts were like that year, and when she would reach up with that pole to diddle with the window, let's just say the garter belt or girdle of the day no longer was a secret, and after seeing this free lingerie show that put any Victoria's Secret HBO special to shame all the boys in the class would ask for boys' room passes even if they didn't have to go, if you know what I mean.

Enough about her. I have not been around for a couple reasons. One is that I have been fighting with A-L (you know, I never give the whole name of a business I am fighting with. I am very sly that way), and actually am no longer a member, which means I better figure out a way to move this blog soon before they shut me down (are you listening, Paul Wiggins?)

The second thing is that I have what is described in medical textbooks as "fucked-up shoulder." I swear I saw that in the appendix of Gray's Anatomy. This "fucked-up shoulder" is the most awful thing I have ever had, which is saying something. I've had my leg broken in three places, and I've broken numerous other bones, but this is for some reason unbelievably painful. Even my doctor, who is ass-tight with pain meds, looked at it and right away wrote me a prescription that basically says give this poor fuck unlimited codeine till the cows come home.

I would like to say that I suffered 'fucked-up shoulder" while rescuing triplets who were being swept downriver during Hurricane Rita, or while having carnal enjoyment at the Playboy Mansion, or while throwing 105 mph heaters past the heart of the Yankees lineup. The sad truth is that I was injured while playing fiddle, and some assholes are rude enough to snicker when they hear this.

I still do not have a firm diagnosis beyond "fucked-up shoulder," but I should have one Monday or so. The conventional wisdom of the cavalcade of doctors who have hemmed and hawed while I have been spitting up my lunches from the agony is that it  is either a torn rotator cuff or something called "frozen shoulder," which would be strange because it does not feel at allfrozen but rather like someone was banging on it with a fucking iceberg 24 hours a day. So I will find out soon.

I have plenty of ideas of things I want to set you straight on, of outrages big and small, of fuckups and fuckwads and all the other things that make our lives living hell, and of asskissers - Jesus Christ, deliver me from these bastards; I am surely bound to go to both prison and hell for someday beating one to death with a fucking computer mousepad in the office. I just have to limit how much time i spent at the computer, because I sit in front of one all day at work in order to pay the mortgage and have enough leftover scratch to gamble and pour beer down my piehole.

So thanks for your encouragement, and I'll drop in when I can and will let you know when and if the blog is moving. In the meantime, I am back off to Codeineland.

PS: If anyone can find a good definition of "rotator cuff," please send it to me. I have seen about 30 and still don't understand what the fuck it is, other than it is like having a set of balls on your shoulder than someone is constantly kicking.

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8:21:44 PM EDT

Hi, all:

This blog will return in about a week. Perhaps less. No shit, honest. I promise.  It is possible that it will return in a different place due to a squabble I am having with an ISP that I will not identify by name, of course, but I will be so bold as to refer to it colloquially as A-L.

I have no shortage of venom at the moment, so be prepared. The world has not ceased to be an ass in my absence, and I am not anticipating a turnaround in the next few days.

See you then.

 

 

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9:09:41 PM EDT
Hearing Piss off

Hello, seekers:

Sorry fot the lag time here, and sorry for this noninteresting jackass of a post, but I have been in a bit of a dustup with my ISP, whatever the hell that is, which means I have not been able to post anything recently.

I get in this sort of argument all the time with entities like the "phone company" and the "electric company," not to mention sundry other fucknuts organizations, and the outcome is always the same. I get pissed off and refuse to pay, and it all comes to the same bad scene. But I am like a retarded version of Don Quixote when it comes to this sort of thing. I never seem to figure out that these assholes will eventually win, and I keep fighting and the same old shit happens.

Anyway, this is a busy season for me, so the break is not a bad thing, but please forgive my absence and know that it's just that the necessary evils of this fucking world are keeping me from having my say right now.

I'm still here, and I'm still fighting. So don't be an asskisser, whatever you do. That's all I ask of you, and if you can follow this simple rule I'll be happy.

See you soon.

 

 

 

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1:39:54 PM EDT

Mama, don't you give all the lard away,

Save some up for a rainy day...

---Some '20s or '30s jug band whose name I can't recall

I don't have a lot of time at the moment, but I have been hankering to tell you about something that happened on the way during my trip here to Stately Wayne Manor.

A co-worker has come up with a new and interesting use of the word "display," that being as a way to describe some kind of intolerable public behavior. It is most commonly used among my co-workers to point out a particularly disgusting bit of  ass-kissing, and those of you who have been here a while know how I feel about that. "Look at that Display," he will say (I like to capitalize it in this usage), and everyone will stop what they are doing and look over in hopes of catching a little bit of the ass-kissing or other shameless behavior, though I cannot bear to look at such things anymore if  I can at all avoid it. I guess 30-some years of my line of work have left me with a sort of "thousand-yard stare" when it comes to ass-kissing and that sort of thing.

But this is a bit different from that, in fact a lot different, but I found it nearly as disgusting.

I was in some food court deep in the wretched bowels of O'Hare Airport, eating some "food" that alleged to be Chinese curry but tasted more like canned vegetables in a sauce whipped up from a bit of jimson weed and 40-weight  motor oil. (Fuck those little baby corns...who the hell grows them, and why?) As I was trying to choke this stuff down, I noticed the arrival of a spectacularly beautiful miniskirted young woman. I am sorry to point out that I noticed, but that's the way it is. Ever see the old commercials for the Banjo Minnow, a lure that supposedly invokes a "genetic response" in fish that actually forces them to hit at it whether they want to or not?  There is a genetic response in males to the arrival of such women, and I have always assumed there is a similar genetic response in women to the arrival of comparably attractive males, but I can only make an educated guess that it's the case there too.

The trick is, of course, that at my age and with my marital status happily being what it is, the initial genetic response passes within a brief moment of  having the Banjo Minnow appear before me.

So that's what happened here. I noticed her, then went on about the business of eating my dismal, shitty $16 meal (did I say "fuck those baby corns?" If not, I am saying it now), and all would have been forgotten had she not then sat down at one of the tables directly across from me and immediately assumed a very immodest pose that made clear to the world that she'd "forgotten" to put anything on under this embarrassingly  short skirt.

It seemed as if every male within 60 yards noticed this right away (genetic response! The Banjo Minnow people are right!), and if I am not mistaken there was a little jostling for seating of the unobstructed view variety, especially among the young, available males.

I probably had the best seat in the house for this, but I am sorry (or glad, as the case may be) to report that my reaction to this was utter and total revulsion. All I could think of was my co-worker saying "Look at that Display" with complete disgust, and that was how I felt about it. I am sorry, people, but I am not interested in seeing your private parts while I am trying to eat, whether it be good food or bad food, and whether you be a Banjo Minnow-type female, a drill sergeant or whatever.

So it was kind of funny because I was very obviously averting my eyes. While everyone else seemed to be totally drawn to this Display, I was busy reading restroom signs, checking out the offerings at the other food stands in hopes of getting something marginally edible next time I was there, reading the back of the newspaper being read by a woman who was sitting near me (and who clearly was not interested in the Banjo Minnow Display).

I could be wrong about this, but I could not help but get the feeling that this Banjo Minnow person was thoroughly enjoying putting on this Display. Or maybe that's just a guy thing left over from my youth, during which I imagined that a lot of women thoroughly enjoy tormenting men by doing things like this in public. And I was determined not to fall into this trap, if it indeed was a trap. Besides, sorry, but the food was unappetizing enough on its own without the added side dish of having to look at all that. 

 I have had Zelig-like tendencies throughout my life for some reason, meaning that I seem to be present when all sorts of monumental or ridiculous things happen, and had I been, say, 21 at this time of this Banjo Minnow sighting I would have thought of little else for, say, the next 18 months or so.

That was then and this is now, to coin a phrase. I am not 21 anymore, and maybe it is selfish of me to wish away events like this, which are the sort of thing many young fellows' dreams are made of. So please - please - if you want to show your goods to the world for some crazy reason, do it elsewhere and let me get indigestion in peace.

Indigestible baby corns and unfettered viewing of something that should not be seen in public do not make for a fine dining experience, especially for a world-weary person like myself.

(For those who have never seen the commercial...this is NOT an endorsement, and there will be no underwearless women in this link):

https://www.asseenontvnetwork.com/vcc/tristar/banjominnow/133257/

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3:15:38 PM EDT

VANCOUVER ISLAND - Well, greetings again, seekers. I received a mild taunt from one of my valued readers (when you only have six and are related to two of them, you value your readers greatly) about not having posted any outrages in, well, let's call it a few weeks.

Sorry. I have been busy/sick/hurt/tired/traveling/at music festivals/all of the above for the past month or so, and the Batcave is turning more and more into a semi-urban replica of an Appalachian shanty, so much so that I've actually having to do things to keep it from turning me into a flesh-covered pancake in my sleep. I'm currently out at Stately Wayne Manor on Vancouver Island, living the life of Riley and looking out the patio doors at the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Coastal Mountains, which is a hell of a sight better than the view out the window of the Batcave in upstate New York, from which the delightful sight line often is my neighbor's ass crack as he fiddles with his petunias, and since he really has petunias that is not supposed to be a metaphor.

By the way, I should point out that the title of this short screed is not a reflection on the correspondent who tweaked me for not writing in a while. It's actually something that happened to me a couple weeks ago while I was camping at folk festival.

I love going to these festivals, where I play fiddle with friends I only see at such events. A co-worker calls them "fiddling and diddling festivals" in the mistaken belief that what occurs at these things is that we all play music till the wee hours in the campground, drink beer and whiskey and, when the music is over, all have sex with each other multiple times. He is right about two of those things, and I will leave it to your imagination which two. However, I do nothing to discourage his firm belief that the third part of this actually happens, mainly because he can scarcely contain his envy. 

So while camping at this festival, some goddamned awful living thing either lunched on my calf or decided to get even with the human race with one quick blow of the pedipalps, or whatever they call those things. Within 24 hours my entire lower leg looked as if I'd been having beet juice injections, so I wound up writhing in the emergency room and then flat on my back with an IV sticking out of my fiddling arm. I would have rather been at the imaginary orgy, believe me. Since then I have been back at the hospital once and at the doctor's office twice.

 The best part of all that is that when a nurse asked to see the bite, she clasped her hands over her mouth and said "Oh, my God!" Great. What you do not want to hear in a medical setting is someone acting as if you have the worst thing they've ever seen.

But what amazes me is that after a couple sets of bloodwork, "they" still have no clue what bit me. The best they can come up with is that it "probably" was a spider, "possibly" a black widow, and that there's also a chance that it was a simple mosquito bite that became infected. It's hard to imagine how one could get such an infection while rolling around in a campground littered with all manner of filth, isn't it? The person tented next to me was drinking almost as much beer as I was, so I immediately suspected that he'd snuck over and peed (or worse) on my turf rather than walking the 50 yards to the portable shitter in the middle of the night. After all, he was from some other state, Connecticut or something, and who the hell knows what kind of people come from a place like that?

So here it is some two weeks from the bite, and it's still huge but healing. It kind of freaks me out to look at black widow bites on the Web and see how similar it is. That's one of the great things about the Internet...no matter how much of a hypochondriac you are, you can always find something to stoke your worst fears and make them far worse. I also looked at photos of brown recluse spider and hobo spider bites and for a short time convinced myself one of them would be the culprit, but nature seems to have placed them out West and not in the East, so even though it was neither of these that gave me the existing wound I will have ample opportunity for one of those little assholes to have at me while I'm here on the Left Coast.

So forgive my absence recently. Hopefully, it makes the heart grow fonder, or whatever that greeting-card-type bullshit saying is. 

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9:38:53 AM EDT
Hearing Mississippi fiddle masters of the '20s and '30s

(Revised)

My parents always taught me that compassion for others is a very important trait to develop, but I am sad to report that my growth in that particular area has been stunted by continual exposure to the world and how it really works.

Thus, my approach to living is more based on the concept of  schadenfreude - taking pleasure in others' misfortunes. This sounds horrible, I know, but I only take pleasure in the misfortunes of those who deserve misfortune, and when those who deserve it  are doused with a bit of  misery, I can barely contain my euphoria.

This was the case today when I went to mail some letters (snail mail does indeed still exist), and I saw something that truly made me laugh out loud, which is an event that is becoming less and less frequent.

I need to back up a couple days in order to tell the whole story. I went to this same plaza a couple days ago. It's the one with the S----y sub shop with the estimable Mr. Sandwich. There's also a really awful supermarket, the kind of place where there are more people returning bottles for deposit than there are shopping, an Every Shitty Thing You Could Possibly Imagine For $1 store, the world's worst Chinese buffet (steamed clams bleached white and floating in cloudy water...mmmm, MMM!), a post office that never has fewer than 10 people in line and a cute (sorry, I noticed) female clerk who has almost as much hair on her arms as I have on my head,  and a Rent-A-C----r.  Again, I do not want to embarrass this company, so I will refer to it as that rather than using the full name. In fact, let's make it easy and call it RAC.

Anyway, remember L----y Tax Service, the place that robs the poor and stupid and gives to the rich? RAC is based on the same principle. Their scam, however, is not taxes. These dead-eyed banditos  have a deal where you can walk in and buy computers and stoves and high-tech coffeepots and Barcoloungers and other shit that of course no one with a normal number of chromosomes can live without on credit, without a credit check!

Now, great. But how much thought does it take to figure out that a place which will sell you things on time without a credit check might need to do a little interest-packing in order to make their nut?

In fact, I remember hearing a poor sap I know talking about having just gotten a computer  through the generosity of these jerks, and later that day going to the store to look at the deal she got just out of curiosity and seeing that she was paying interest well into the double digits over a period of  years to pay for a piece of shit computer that was worth about one-tenth the amount she would be paying over the long term.

So isn't that great? The assholes who run this business probably think they are doing these people a favor by affording them the chance to get an economic wedgie. In other words, at birth they lost their consciences even before they lost their foreskins. (And yes, I am sure most of these bosses are males.) Or. more accurately, they don't give a shit about anything other than collecting ridiculous levels of interest from the "special class" of consumers so that they themselves can buy shit that is far superior to the overpriced crap their customers are paying for, and paying forever and a day for.

So I drive into the parking lot for this dismal little plaza and I see a wonderful sight. There is a RAC delivery truck parked there, taking up about six spaces, and it has a flat tire. And there, staring at the flat tire as if they were looking at an unprovable calculus problem, are a guy who obviously  was the RAC straw boss (I say this by dint of the fact that he was wearing a tie and sporting his nametag at a rakish angle) and three of his stupid humps. How great is that? I did my business, which took about half an hour because there were of course 10 people in line with complicated mail transactions and the hairy-armed woman had to ask each and every one of them questions about their little uninteresting lives, and these dumb fucks were still staring at the flat-assed tire when I went to my car.

I had to leave, so I took off, figuring that these four guys who no doubt could fuck up a wet dream seven ways from sundown would be there for at least seven or eight days trying to figure out what to do about the intellectually challenging problem of a flat tire on a company truck. I mean, how much fucking brain power does it take to figure out that you call a flat-changing outfit and then bill the company?

Anyway, I took off, and when I made my next trip to that plaza a couple days later the truck tire was good as new, and the chump humpers were ready to serve.

So I guess RAC was fine and back in business. OK, swell.

And then, when I went today, the goddamned tire was flat again, as was another one. TWO flat tires! Thisprobably required six people to stare at the things for an hour or so. A life problem twice as complex would require double the brain power, after all. I would like to think that this incident was somehow connected to someone who had a budgetary epiphany as to how much his electronically equipped babe-magnet den is really costing him. Or, better yet, the poor woman I know who was paying about $100 a month for six years for a $700 computer.

Perhaps I should have offered to change the tires for these guys for $20 a week, paid for the term of 18 months. With no credit check, of course. Interest statement available by request.

They probably wouldn't even have gotten the joke.

 

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4:35:27 PM EDT
Hearing Fantasizing about the sound of  a CEO's balls being tenderized in a meat grinder

Well, seekers, I have returned from my sojourn to Stately Wayne Manor, and here I am back at the Batcave, back at the house into which no light is allowed to shine through the windows, a place where spiders and dust devils are welcome and where asskissers and bosses are not.

The time out West at Stately Wayne Manor with my fabulously lovely wife was terrific, but of course all good things must come to an end far sooner than we would like them to. So I boarded the puddlejumper over to Vancouver and set out for home, a journey that is a long one even under the best of circumstances, and how fucking often are the best of circumstances ever a reality?

I knew I was in for trouble when I got to my favorite bar at the Vancouver Airport, a place called Voyages, and Diane, my favorite barkeep, she of the great bloody marys that guarantee sleep even in the event of someone deploying their rancid feet in your general direction, was off. No good.

So I got to the gate, and the gate was changed. So I got to the new gate, only to learn that the plane was delayed, "possibly" for hours.

OK, fine. Nothing is perfect. So I went to a gate agent for the airline, which we will be kind and refer to only as "U----d," and asked what was up. The agent proceeded to give me a story so fantastically convoluted and unbelievable that were it not that she did not have body hair sticking out from between her buttons and did not smell of freshly sliced vidalia onions, I would have thought I was talking to Mr. Sandwich (see entry "Mr. Sandwich.).

Within the course of 60 seconds she managed to somehow imply that the delay had something to do with weather/regulations on how long pilots have to sleep/a crew shortage/a work stoppage/or all of the above. No matter how I tried, and I used to be a reporter and am not too bloody bad at getting a direct answer to a fucking direct question, she managed to bob and weave like Ali in his prime and avoid telling me or anyone else who happened by what the heck was going on.

So we waited for hours, and I did what everyone does when they are stuck for hours at an airport...I drank. The one good thing is that she gave me a class upgrade for free, and that was a very good thing because I would have thought her a worthless piece of shit had she done anything less than that.

So,more than four hours and  $28 (U.S., not Canadian) worth of airport liquor later,  l boarded the fucking plane, readyto get home and get this traveling nonsense over with.

The flight was OK. There was some really shitty movie playing (what a surprise there!) that I did not bother watching, and I read and enjoyed the flight.  Of course, the asshole in front of me, all 5 foot 1 of her, had to stretch her fucking seat out like a chaise lounge, and even in Economy Plus that can a pain in the ass. I tried the Shoeless Feet Under the Seat Maneuver, but it didn't seem to bother her for some reason. Some people's level of self-absorption can actually keep them from experiencing any unpleasantness at all in life.

So after hours and hours of flying, we got to O'Hare. And, of course, this was hours after my connecting flight, the last of the night, had left, and most of the same people were in the same bloody, pathetic boat.

Of course I should point out that we had received nothing to eat but some ersatz pretzels that tasted like they'd been dipped in a fondue pot filled with tepid elephant shit. This is the way it is when you fly now, in case you did not know. You could fly from Washington's airport (I will NEVER refer to it by the name of that fuckface president who ruined America and hopefully is screwed nice and deep,  face down,  into the good earth) to East Fucking Jesus, Mongolia, and you would not get a goddamned meal, unless you want to pay five bucks for a snack box filled with 75 cents' worth of crap.

So here we are, the intrepid chumps from far-flung areas of  the Land that was Made for You and Me, standing in line at O'Hare Airport, waiting to find out what the hell they were going to do for us at 10 o'clock at night on a Friday in Chicagoland.

And what a scene it was. There were two agents, then three, then four, then five, and all these pink-faced people were fucking shouting at them, demanding to know where they were going to get put up and how we were going to be fed. After half an hour of this, some sycophant came and cupped his hands to his mouth in a really stupid way and started shouting that we were to go to someplace about half a mile away and catch a shuttle to a hotel that would put us up. 

One thing that was strange about that night is that I have never seen so many people crying in an airport. There were three Eastern European women bawling their eyes out at the counter when I was up talking to the agent. When I started walking through the airport to get to this shuttle to thehotel, I saw several other people in various spots crying. When I walked past the cab stand there was a young guy, Balkan-looking, who was crying very hard. I stopped and asked if he was OK, and he waved me away and resumed his weeping. I have no idea why I was struck with such a fit of empathy at that moment; normally if I saw someone crying I would just figure they were crying because they got something that they deserved, which is what my mother would have said.

So we got to the shuttle, and guess what? The driver said he had only six seats, and those were for some poor stranded fucks from another airline, not us, and that it was just too fucking bad if we didn't like it. So here we had these vouchers to stay at that hotel, and we showed them to him, and he more or less suggested they would be good to wipe our dismal asses with if the opportunity presented itself and that they really would not be good for much of anything else.

At this point the whole scene became unreal. It was like something out of Poseidon Adventure. Seriously. One guy started a rumor that people could take cabs to a certain place where they would be taken care of, and a bunch of people inexplicably decided he was right, and they got into cabs and were not seen again. Perhaps they are now with Pinocchio at the Island of  Lost Little Assholes.

So we all humped back to the counter and the fun really began. There was a lot of screaming and crying, and eventually we were all given two $30 cab vouchers and assignments to hotels in suburban places, vouchers for the hotel and  two vouchers that were termed :"meal vouchers." On closer inspection, these meal vouchers were virtually worthless: $4 for breakfast and $5 for lunch. Unless you are a baby not yet weaned from the tit, you are not going to be fed anything for $4 in the Chicago environs.

So I got to the hotel, sharing a cab with another guy, a fellow heading to Syracuse. The cabbie got both of our $30 vouchers for the $28 fare, but what the hell did we care? At that point, the further we could shove the baseball bat up U----d's ass, the better, as far as we were concerned.

We got to the hotel at about 1 a.m. after the 40-minute taxi ride, and of course the kitchen was closed but the bar was wide open. They were nice enough to make sandwiches (they didn't ask you what kind...you took what they made and kissed their asses for it, although I let others do the ass-kissing, of course). We drank like fucking sailors for an hour or so, and then my tab was $55, and when I gave them my pathetic vouchers they pointed out that fine print said "NO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES."  Fine. I will take that out of  U-----d Airlines' hide in some other manner, perhaps by stealing one of the float cushions or pocketing a handful of  little bottles of scotch when the flight attendant is busy kissing someone's ass.

I did take a shower at the hotel, but of course my luggage was already at my home airport, so I was stuck putting the same clothes on. I got into the airport exactly half an hour before my work shift was to begin, so all I could do was go in with those same clothes I'd had on for what seemed like a week.

I cannot tell you how grateful I am to U----d Airlines for all this. They delayed me, either because of  insufficient staffing or because they are offering their workers a shitty deal (which they are), they kept me hostage on a plane with nothing to eat,  and they gave me meal vouchers that would not have bought a palm's full of grapes at the Last Supper, much less a fucking meal in one of the biggest cities in America. They sent me to the wrong hotel and barely apologized for it. As far as I am concerned, the next flying these bastards can do is up their own asses. I will make them pay, somehow, some way, and when it comes to such matters I can be a very patient fellow.

*Re the headline on this screed: You may remember me telling you that my grandfather was half Native American. Thus the percentage. I think I figured it out right. If not, notify the Bureau of  Indian Affairs, not me..                                            

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8:47:00 PM EDT

Well, here I am on beautiful Vancouver Island, at Stately Wayne Manor. I don't have much time to blog from out here, seeing as that my purpose while here is being a husband and father,  but I do have a story to tell you about the trip out here.

I fly a lot, and thus I am quite familiar with the caste system that has evolved between first class and what they call "coach." I think it is called "coach" because it is about as much fun as it must have been back in the Old West when you would ride a fucking stagecoach from El Paso to Dodge City and arrive 16 days later drenched in your own and others' vomit and with an asshole that likely would never work properly again. At least you don't get held up on an airliner, though I must say those $5 "meals" they sell aren't too far from highway robbery.

But I have discovered that the airline I use, which I will refer to as U----d in order to avoid a nasty confrontation, sells something they call "Economy Plus" seats, which I usually get whenever possible. These seats have a short pecker's worth more leg room, which is a good thing. They advertise it as five inches, but believe me, when you sit in these seats you feel like a fully dressed emperor...you can actually stretch your legs out.

The thing that stinks is that these seats used to be called "bulkhead," and were available for no extra charge if you were lucky enough to book them ahead of time. I made a bunch of bulkhead flights back when I had a severely broken leg (done in a sky diving accident, which of course I need to tell you about one of these days), and I remember that it was the same price as the other seats. Economy Plus costs you like an extra $30 or $50 or something, but I always get it whenever possible, and you should too, provided you are not bumping me out of one of the seats.

So these seats are right behind first class, and when you stretch your legs out you wind up with your feet directly beneath the seat of some dickhead in first class. I think this is wonderful, since I usually get an Economy Plus seat in Chicago, when my feet are nice and sweaty from the first flight, and I always take my shoes off and stretch my legs as far as possible so that my sweaty feet are directly below the person sitting in the first class seat right ahead of me. I then hope against hope that this disturbs the hell out of him (it's ALWAYS a HIM), and that he is unable to determine whether it is the fine cheese he is being served or my sweaty feet he is smelling. We are in a state of class warfare in America, folks, and guerrilla actions like this are our only hope.

I got the idea for this many years ago, while riding the Lake Shore Limited train from Chicago on my way to Albany. It was the middle of the night, and there was a guy -- I will never forget the sight -- with his goddamned shoeless feet up atop the seat in front of him, ankles crossed, and he was wearing these ridiculous checkered socks that looked as if he'd been born in them. His feet were right next to the headrest of the seat in front of him, and the poor asshole in that seat was sound asleep...with his face inches away from those filthy-ass, crusty checkered socks. He was snoring up quite a row, and his nostrils must have been getting one hell of a funk infusion. There he was.. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....and there were those checkered socks. My sides hurt from laughing.

Eventually, a conductor came around and scolded The Checkered Demon, telling him in a rather stern tone: "Get your feet off that seat! How'd you like to have someone's stinking feet in your face while you are asleep?" The guy sheepishly pulled his feet down, and the sleeping fellow was none the wiser, unless the foot odor burned his lungs like mustard gas and permanently disabled him, and I must say I cannot rule out that possibility.

Anyway, back to the flight. This was beautiful. I was set to deploy my feet underneath the first-class seat (all's fair in love and class warfare) and suddenly,  before they made the announcement to get ready for takeoff, some joker from "coach" made a mad dash into the first-class lavatory, which he then used loudly and (hopefully) abundantly.  After about six or seven minutes in there, he suddenly burst out of the shitter and went back to his seat back around the middle of the rest of the suffering herd in the coach cabin.

This was the act of a true revolutionary, a hero of the Class War. Here I was thinking I was a subversive for my sweaty feet maneuver, but that was nothing compared to defiling the first-class lavatory, an act of true heroism. There was a Seinfeld episode in which Elaine made a lame-assed attempt to sneak into first class, but this beat the pants off that. Solidarity, comrade! And before takeoff yet, thus making certain no one would be having a particularly good time in that little crapper for the entire  flight to Vancouver! My only hope is that this brave soul did it right and ate nothing but Taco Bell and drank nothing but bock beer for the entire week before the trip.

No one ever said a word to the guy, either. I think he was a professional revolutionary, because he timed it perfectly, right when people were still getting settled. And what would they have done to him, anyway? Thrown him off the plane? I bet the worst that would have happened would be that they would have told him not to do it again, just like they did with all those cocaine-abusing baseball players.

So this is my hero, and he should be yours, too. Some pompous asshole in first class had to smell this guy's dump when he went in to piss away some fine 15-year-old single malt, and the thought of this lifted my spirits all the way.

Seeing things like that makes you damned glad to be alive.

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