We Do More Before 9 AM Than Most People Should
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 10:15PM Here is a quick rundown of my day yesterday:
4:00 am - I wake up in a hotel room in Cincinnati and curse the entire concept of time. After vowing to someday be so rich that I never have to wake up this early again, I shower, pack, check out of my room and jump in a rental car.
5:30 am - We arrive at the rental return lot in Northern Kentucky. No one is there to accept the car. My boss walks into the rental office and tells the cretinous wage-slave behind the counter, "We have a car we need to return." The cretinous wage-slave angrily replies, "CAROL AIN'T HERE!"
Excellent. Apparently Carol is the lynchpin holding together the entire National Rent-A-Car empire. She is the only thing standing between a massive corporation and utter chaos. If Carol ain't there, you just have to suck it up and keep the damn car. Seriously, we're trying to give you a car, and you don't want to take it?
My boss comes back outside and explains Carol's absence. We abandon all hope. We will simply have to keep the car forever.
Just then, Carol stomps out of teh pre-dawn darkness from the nether regions of the parking lot. She has the bearing of a woman who knows her way around a trailer. She barks at us in a guttural rasp honed by years of smoking Duraflame Logs. "Sorry 'bout that. I had to go out to my truck and take care of some business," she informs us.
I never, EVER want to know what she was doing in that truck.
6:15 am - We are herded like cattle into the plane in an effort to leave early. We are told that if we don't get off the ground quickly, all flights will be grounded due to weather. We are shoved into the plane in much the same way icing is forced into one of those sacks that chefs use to decorate cakes. We manage to push away from the gate well ahead of schedule. We breathe a sigh of relief, as it seems we will make our afternoon appointment in New Jersey.
6:20 am - We are informed that despite our best efforts, the weather has won. It has all been a carnival of lies. We will be trapped on the runway for an hour.
7:20 am - We are informed it will be another hour. The pilot, sensing mutiny, walks down the aisle of the plane showing us the weather map on his iPhone as a means of verifying his story. The flight attendant uses the opportunity to practice her English by offering us all "oranjh joooooooooze and banonna moofins."
8:20 am - We are informed it maybe another hour. By this point, I could have made it to Newark on foot.
8:35 am - WE'RE LEAVING! WE'RE LEAVING! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS! AAAAAAAAAAAAH!
10:15 am - We arrive in Newark over two hours late. We rent a car and begin driving the 42 miles into New Jersey to our final destination. As we do so, I incessantly sing the theme song from The Sopranos. No one else in the car appreciates it.
11:00 am - We are supposed to meet three other members of our team before we arrive at the client's headquarters. They are staying at a hotel near the HQ, but our GPS system will not accept the hotel's address. Thus, we enter an address that is close to the actual one, and we end up in the general vicinity. We end up near the hotel, but we cannot find it. We stop and ask a dazed and confused woman picking up the mail in front of her landscaping business if she knows where the Sierra Suites is. She does not. We ask a guy at a gas station. He does not speak English. We turn around and drive in the opposite direction. We find the hotel within a quarter-mile of the aforementioned landscaper and the gas station--on the same street. Apparently in her entire lifetime, the woman had never driven to or from that direction. Her world exists within very specific geographic boundaries, and she does not violate them. I silently curse her children.
11:15 am - We arrive at the hotel. I purchase a Coke and bag of Flavor Blasted Goldfish from the gift shop--the breakfast of champions. We collect the rest of the team and head off to the HQ. We are late.
11:30 am - We arrive at the HQ. We are stopped at the security station. Everyone is on the entry list except my boss, and of course, he is the keynote speaker at the event we are attending. We wait next to a series of helipads while my boss talks to Mitch, the most conscientious security guard in the Western world.
12:07 pm - We make it through security and into the main building. Amazingly, although my boss went through 37 minutes of security screening, no one even checks the massive box I am wheeling into the heart of corporate America. The box contains eight throwing knives, three machetes and a Garden Weasel. I am not kidding. Way to go, Mitch.
12:30 pm-5:00 pm - We conduct a series of performances and workshops for a large marketing group. I learn a great deal more than I expected about Human Papillomavirus.
5:35 pm - We discover our flight home has been cancelled. I renounce my faith in all things righteous and begin to weigh the pros and cons of meth. We find out there is another flight home that evening and there are seats available. I renounce meth. We discover that this flight actually departs from La Guardia in NYC, and I will have to drive a rental car from the wilds of New Jersey through downtown Manhattan in rush hour traffic in order to make the flight. Meth sounds appealing once again.
6:15 pm - I begin driving like a bat out of a place a bat would not like to be in. I will eventually drive through the Holland Tunnel, Chinatown numerous places I hope to never drive again. I win a battle of nerves with a NYC taxi driver. I cannot take full credit--some of it must go to the meth.
7:30 pm - We arrive at the airport. Our flight is delayed 40 minutes. All the rushing was for nothing. Against our better judgment, we decide to eat at at Chili's. As we approach it, the hostess tells us to go away, as she is closing. My bos requests alone time to deal with his rage. He eventually goes to Burger King. Ironically, he orders an Angry Whopper.
8:30 pm - We're on the plane. We taxi to the runway. The pilot then informs us that all westbound flights have been grounded. We will be sitting on the runway indefinitely. Sweet. Merciful. Crap. The pilot informs us that it is "just one of those New York nights."
9:30 pm - We are still on the runway. The pilot has used the phrase "just one of those New York nights" approximately 900 times. It isn't helping.
10:30 pm - We are finally airborne.
12:00 am (Central) - We land in Minneapolis. I collect my luggage and head to the parking garage to find my car.
12:15 am - I cannot find my car. I have had seven flights in seven days and I have fogotten where I parked. I wander the parking garage with 80 pounds of luggage for approximately 30 minutes. I find it on another level.
12:45 am - I depart in my car. It is almost out of gas. I drive to a gas station. On the way, I am forced to swerve to avoid a man dressed entirely in black whil riding his bike at nearly 1 am. He is also pushing another bike with one hand next to the one he is riding. In addition to this, he is wearing four bike tires around his chest and waist. He is some form of nocturnal bike-ninja. I get gas and head home.
1:00 am - I arrive home. I have survived a twenty hour day that included two flights, a drive through Manhattan, and time spent in two time zones in five states. Welcome to my world.
