Here is No Why

<-Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas! |Main|Christmas, 2006->

The Voyage Home: A Special Here is No Why Simulblog

December 24, 2006 12:34 AM

'm going to try to simulblog my trip home today, mostly because I expect it to be the worst cross-country trip ever. Let me explain.

It's 4:32am on Christmas Eve. I am in the Milwaukee aiport. My flight is in just over an hour. As if that wasn't all bad enough, I had to leave my apartment in Madison at 2am. I haven't slept.

Like I said, my flight out of Milwaukee leaves in just over an hour. But it doesn't go straight to LA. That would be too easy. Instead, I will be flying from Milwaukee to St. Louis. I drove through St. Louis once. It seemed nice enough. Ask Mr. Nononsense to tell you about his experience in East St. Louis some day, though. I hope I don't have a similarly horrible time.

Anyway, my flight from St. Louis leaves at 8:35 local time. But, still, I will not be heading to Los Angeles. In order to teach me a lesson about booking my flights early, the universe has conspired to have me get on three different flights today. So, from St. Louis, I'm headed to Dallas/Ft. Worth. If there's going to be a delay in my travels today, this is most likely where it will happen. At least it's the last leg, so leaving Dallas late won't cause me to miss a flight.

Anyway, eventually, nine hours from now, I will finally be in Los Angeles, where my cousin Kaky will pick me up and drive me to my cousin Gloria's house for Christmas festivities. I'm really excited, but I can't help but wonder: when the fuck am I going to sleep?

You see, I have a problem sleeping on moving vehicles. It's not that I get motion sickness or anything, it's just that I'm convinced that I'm somehow subconsciously responsible for keeping the vehicle safe. And, should I fall asleep, the vehicle will crash. And I will die. It just occurred to me that this feeling probably stems from this one time when I was a kid and I was asleep in our old Suburban and we crashed. Hmmm . . . .

In any event, I'm hoping that I will eventually reach such an extreme state of tiredness that I will be unable to stay up, regardless of my irrational belief that I am responsible for keeping the aircraft aloft.

In any event, the trip is already off to an interesting start. The Milwaukee airport apparently opens at 4am. I didn't know that--I assumed that all airports were open 24/7. In any event, I was the second guy in line to check my bags, and one of the biggest douchebags I've ever seen was in line a few people behind me.

This guy seriously looked like he had just finished walking around in the forest with Subcomandante Marcos. This guy was ugly as shit cammo pants, matching green Converse shoes, one of those pretentious, annoying caps with the short bills and--get this--an olive green utility belt. A fucking utility belt! Does that make sense to anyone? What the fuck does this guy do for a living that he needs a utility belt? The fact is, he doesn't do shit with it because most of the pouches in said belt were empty. So, just to be clear, the asshole was wearing a utility belt for aesthetic purposes. Ironic, huh?

Then there was some sort of brouhaha involving the TSA security check point people. I was able to gather that, because it's Christmas EVe, the people are allowed to wear festive hats. One older, taller, fatter, balder guy apparently elected to wear a Robin Hood-style hat with a foot-and-a-half-long feather on it. It was awesome. But the boss man had a problem with it, and the rest of the staff had to stand up for the feather hat guy.

I'm going to go see if the Pizza Hut Express or the Quizno's is open. Either of those sounds like they'd be great for breakfast.

It could be that none of this is interesting. It's 4:46am and I haven't slept. Fuck you if it's not interesting.

7:18am (Central)
I'm in St. Louis. The airport here is a piece of shit. The flight was unremarkable. I tried hard to fall asleep but was unsuccessful for the most part. I hate airplane seating.

Zapatista rebel douchebag was on my flight along with his super-ugly hippie girlfriend. She was speaking to him in ridiculously broken Spanish. Maybe he really is a Zapatista rebel.

The stewardess was hot, thereby making that flight the first flight I've ever been on with a hot stewardess. All the stewardesses on all the other flights I've ever been on have been vaguely Weston-esque, which is fine if you're Cole, but that's not really my bag, baby.

My flight from Milwaukee arrived on time and the flight out of here i son schedule right now. That's encouraging.

I just tried to connect to the St. Louis airport wireless network, but was unsuccessful because no such network exists. This place fucking sucks. How does a major airport in this day and age not have a wireless network? Fuck you, St. Louis.

12:08am (Pacific)
I'm in front of my parents' TV. I was unable to write anything in Dallas because I thought I would die from exhaustion and sleep deprevation. I do know that, as I had feared, and despite my constant chant of "no whammy, no whammy, no whammy, no whammy," I got whammied--my flight was delayed by about an hour or so. It felt like fucking forever. Another thing that felt like fucking forever was the actual fucking flight. I really have no sense of how long the flight was. I think it was something like 14 hours, I don't know. I was asleep for most of it.

I got to LA and, after fearing that the airline had lost my luggage, my cousin Kaky drove me to her place and we hung out for a while. Then we went to my cousin Gloria's place. My family cooked an amazing meal while I played with Gloria's daughter, Mia. She's pretty much the coolest baby ever. We had an amazing dinner consisting of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, roast beef, and various awesome Mexican foods. It's the stuffing that does it for me, though.

After dinner, we sat around and exchanged gifts. It was a pretty decent haul for me this year. I got a wad of cash, In-n-Out merchandise, and the strangest gift I've ever gotten: two sets of silk pajamas with the Playboy bunny on them. From my grandma. I don't really know what that's all about. But, throw in the Wii, and Christmas was awesome this year.

Of course, that's not what matters. I love being around my family. I love how crazy and funny they are. I love being home. I wish I was going to be here longer.

In any event, now it's time to get some much deserved--and much needed--sleep.

2 Comments

Elise said:

What color were the sets of silk PJs? Were they masculine and clearly for you to wear, or were they somewhat feminine and for a woman? Becuase if they seem at all feminine, maybe they come with a playboy bunny all your own, to be delivered to your home in Wisconsin 6-8 weeks after Christmas. THAT would be the coolest grandma gift ever on record.

January 8, 2007 11:41 AM

Ismael Tapia II said:

Elise,
Since the PJs were black and dark blue and, therefore, fairly masculine, I doubt that I'm going to be getting an actual Playboy bunny as a supplementary gift. However, you did remind me of a few things.

First, there was that episode of Law & Order, it may have been SVU, where the grandmother took her grandson to whores starting when he was thirteen.

You also reminded me that, while I was home, I saw an episode of The Girls Next Door,the reality show about Hugh Hefner's girlfriends. Let me tell you, in addition to being unattractive, they are stupid as shit.

January 8, 2007 12:53 PM