Thursday, January 22, 2004

Okay, so it's 9:45 AM right now, and I'm in the prestigious "A" terminal of the Asheville Regional Airport. I can tell already that my trip back home to Greenville, Mississippi is going to be an orgy of writing material.

For one thing, I look like I got the living hell beat outta me. Why do I look like that? Because this morning when I was brushing my teeth, I accidentally gagged myself, causing my stomach to purge its contents in a wrenching spray. The sheer ferociousness of the repeated heaves apparently broke every capillary in my cheeks and forehead, because now I look like somebody hit me in the face with a spatula a few or SIXTY times.

I keep forgetting that I look like a splotchy faced monster, (instead of the devastatingly handsome man I usually am), which has already come into play.

A few minutes ago, as I was going through security, I absently glance up to see a girl with THE BIGGEST BREASTS I HAVE EVER FUCKING SEEN!!! I'm talking proportionally here, not literally. The biggest breasts I've ever seen belong to this fat guy that works with me. He weighs about five metric tons.

(Sammy, if you ever read this, don't get mad. I love ya man, but you're fat as fuck.)

Anyway, Big Boobs is standing by the roller belt on the other side of the metal detector waiting for her stuff to come through, and I decide to try and talk to her.

Easing up on her left, I lean in conspiratorially and snicker, "Security my ass! The metal detector didn't even go off."

She laughed, looked up, and then did a double take at my face. I laughed too, looked down, and then did a double take at her boobs.

Apparently frightened by my appearance, she flashes a tightlipped "sorry you're so hideous" smile, grabs her shit off the roller belt, and scampers away.

11:15 AM:

I'm now in Atlanta, GA, and I'm sitting in terminal B-5, but not because this is where my next plane is going to depart. I'm sitting here because I'm scared and alone and crying, and this terminal has the fewest people in it. Why am I sobbing like a little bitch? Because everyone thinks I'm ugly, and the airport itself has conspired against me.

Let me explain.

First, I think my face is getting worse. During the flight from Asheville to Atlanta, there was a little blond haired girl and her mother sitting across the aisle from me, and the little girl is staring, so naturally I smile and say, "Hey sweetheart, what are you doing?"

The girl cries, "Mommy!" and buries her face against her mother's chest.

I went to the bathroom as soon as we landed, and yes, my red puffy mug is indeed capable of terrorizing children. Of course, I wouldn't be in this situation if I weren't such a freak about oral hygiene. Most people brush their teeth, but I brush my teeth, my tongue, the sides of my mouth, the insides of my lips, and even my epiglottis. I paid for it this morning.

Now, being deformed is bad enough, but the airport itself is fucking with me. The clerk at the ticket counter in Asheville didn't write any of my gate numbers on the boarding pass, so I just went to the wall of televisions that show all departure and arrival times to find out what gate I'll be leaving from.

Northwest Flight 817 to Memphis, TN, departing at 1:30 PM from Gate ???

Frantically, I start looking from screen to screen, and my flight is the ONLY ONE where the departure gate is not listed. What the fuck?!?

So, I'm just gonna sit here until I figure something out. Actually, I think I'm gonna go look for Big Boobs. She was talking on her cell phone when we got off the plane, and I heard her say, "B Terminal."

Since I've obviously got my laptop, I'm going to keep writing all day. I can't guarantee anything humorous will happen, but this is fun.

12:23 PM, Terminal B-28: Call me Ahab

Well, I walked the length of the terminal, and I can't find Big Boobs. But from now on I will search for her anytime I travel. She will be my White Whale, (Moby Dick reference).

There's still no sign of my gate number on the Arrival/Departure boards, but I'm not so sure I care anymore. In fact, fuck going home! I'm just gonna spend my vacation here in the Atlanta Airport. There are plenty of people to look at and make fun of- like this girl on the escalator a minute ago who was wearing a pair of jeans so tight I could see her cervix.

It's kinda like being on safari, for there are things here that you will never see anywhere else. For example: the Smoking Room.

Whose idea was this? I don't guess I'd like somebody smoking out in the open where I am, but still. That can't be healthy. They've got, like, FIFTY FUCKING PEOPLE, stuffed into that little room. The smoke is so thick you can't really make out individual people, more like shifting silhouettes moving through a fog.

I have a feeling none of those people will live to make their flights.

12:54 PM, Terminal D-15: Trickery!

That god damn bitch! I didn't mention this earlier, but the only reason I was rooting around in the "B" terminal was because, when I got off the first plane, this Chinese lady comes running up to me and says, "Where you go? Where you go, sir?"

"Im going to Memphis," I reply, and she starts shouting, "B-12!!! B-12!!!"

I remember thinking, Geeze lady, calm down. I've got two hours before I leave. Little did I know that she was a trixy little hobbit. About ten minutes ago, I started to get scared because the boards still haven't updated, so I go up to the B-12 terminal and ask them to look up flight 817.

"Well, sir, thats all the way over in "D" terminal."

I hopped on the internal train, so it wasn't that bad, but if I see that lying, incompetent hooker that told me the wrong gate, I'm gonna sew her fingertips to her labia.

1:21 PM, Onboard Flight 817 to Memphis (waiting to taxi)

Ya know, the only thing better than having an empty seat next to you on a plane, is having a beautiful woman in the next one over. I'm in seat 19A, 19B is empty, and 19C is occupied by a very pretty twenty-something with short cut, red hair. Kinda looks like Molly Ringwald, but better!

Unfortunately, she's sporting a wedding band, and by the size of the diamond, her husband's got a lot more "bank" that I do. My only advantage in this situation is the fact that I am aware that she's READING OVER MY SHOULDER RIGHT NOW!!!

2:01 PM, Onboard Flight 817 to Memphis (now in the air)

Ha, Ha! Busted!!!

Let me fill you in on the situation as it now stands. Jennifer Westinghouse is a twenty six year old English teacher at a school in Germantown, (right outside of Memphis, TN). She's not married, but engaged to a business executive named Brain Satterfield. As she's sitting next to me, and doesn't appear to be repulsed by my apple-red face, I've agreed to let her look on as I write my newest story for the most popular website of its kind on the Internet.

* wink * wink *

Okay, so getting back to what I was saying earlier, it's not easy to find pants that fit when you've got a fourteen-inch penis.

Jennifer just gasped and slapped me on the forearm, which I take to mean that her fiancé is not as well endowed as I am.

She just hit me again. Man, you could cut the sexual tension on this plane with a knife! I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Jennifer asks me to join her in the bathroom.

Oh, well, now she's refusing to look at the screen, instead sitting there with her arms folded and her bottom lip pouting out. She's trying not to laugh, but I'm gonna get her. Five bucks says she looks over within the next minute.

Wait for it... Wait for it... Wait for it...

BAM!!! I win!

3:18 PM, Memphis International Airport, Terminal A-19

Well, Jennifer refused my offer for a shared drink in one of the airport bars. Apparently, she's one of those "faithful" fiancés who doesn't do stuff like "cheat" or "have sex with strangers in a maintenance closet".

Women are nuts.

Still, she took the address of the website, probably so she could read about her no-whoring ass. Jennifer, if you're reading this right now, I hope you have a great marriage. I wish you and Brian all the best, and maybe you can email me when and if Brian throws a bachelor party.

I'd love to attend.

Hey! I could watch out for him. Ya know, like make sure nobody lures him out into a deserted parking lot, then to yank a plastic bag over his head and secure it with duct tape around his neck? Stuff like that happens. You can't be too careful.

By the way, is Brian allergic to anything?

4:25 PM, Onboard Flight 3245 to Greenville, MS (now in the air)

Coming home is always a strange thing for me, almost like I'm connected to the land itself. I love it as much as I hate it, this wasteland of childhood memories and continuing poverty and sudden violence. There's a desperate beauty to the Mississippi Delta flatlands, especially this time of year when everything's dead.

I'm looking out the plane window right now as I write, and I'm amazed- as always- by how much of a desert it is; hundreds of square miles of barren fields and unadorned catfish ponds and gravels roads.

From up here, it's like a giant puzzle without a picture on it. No well-known skyscraper, no image of a sailboat in front of a sunset, no cartoon character to put together. Theres nothing- no trees, no lakes, no mountains. The whole is a void of brown flatness.

I hate it, and I love it.

11:45 PM, at the island table in the kitchen of the house I grew up in.

I have just taken the biggest dump of my life, which I suspect is my intestinal tract's way of saying, "Don't you ever do that to us again!"

After coming home to get a shower, my parents took me out to "Greenville Seafood" for a feast of Viking proportions. Living in politically correct, hippie controlled Asheville, I rarely get to eat real southern food. Everybody in Asheville eats salads and hummus while protesting against meat-eaters in their leather sandals and leather burnooses.

Don't get me started.

Anyway, I ate so much fried crawfish, fried dill pickles, and fried crab legs that I shit pure Crisco about fifteen minutes ago. Triple flusher. Yikes!

I weighted myself shortly after, and, guess what... Two hundred and eighteen pounds!!!

Are you kidding me? I wonder how much I weighed before I crapped my guts out. Damn you southern food!

Well, I'm going to bed now because I have to get up early and defecate again.

Incidentally, the phone calls started as soon as I walked in the door, as if the whole town knows I'm here, (which, given my Mom's propensity to blab, could indeed be true).

Tomorrow night and Saturday night I'll be hitting the town, and you KNOW something is gonna go down when me and all my buddies get back together.

I will continue to post as things happen.