I bring catastrophe and discomfort in my wake. The Fursts have had a long tradition of either slightly preceeding or following natural disasters: hurricanes in Florida, earthquakes in San Francisco, tornados all throught the midwest. But I have now become a personal magnate for my own particular brand of travelling horror. It's always on the way back, as though the universe were trying to tell me that being on vacation is where I'm meant to stay. I'm frankly inclined to agree with it, but there are these pesky things like bills and rent that have a nasty habit of asserting themselves whenever I want to take off and move elsewhere. This time I was travelling to Kansas City, and while the trip down was rough, that was completely of my own doing. I had made the absolutely stupid decision to go out the night before I was to make the drive (just so we are all clear, this is a 7 hour drive meant to be commenced at about 6am in order to get me into KC at check-in time at the hotel), and thought, ok, I'll just have one drink and catch up with my friend Maureen. The thing about me and Maureen is though that we are not so much friends as we are drinking buddies. We are friends, we chat and we lend emotional support, but mostly we go to happy hour. That's how we met, that's what we do. We're good at it. So I go out at about 10pm to meet Maureen at this club where she wants to see a particular DJ. Only when we get there the DJ is a no show, so I think, good news, we'll just be here for a little bit. Wrong. There are $3 well drinks to be had, so we have them. I'm about two gimlets into the evening when a couple of friends of mine from my previous career at the hotel come over and say hi. I had once had a crush on one of them, so of course we're going to be staying for a while. Skip to several more gimlets, me falling on the dance floor (in the most beautiful and elegant fashion, natch), and 3am at Mark's apartment. (Don't worry, nothing happened, mom).
So there's this noise in my ear, and I think to myself, why the fuck is someone screaming in my bedroom?
But sadly, it was not someone being disemboweled all Braveheart-style. No, the wiser among you have already guessed that it was my alarm, a scant 3 hours later at 6am. And of course, because I didn't want to have to explain to my parents that I was late reaching Kansas City because I was hungover I get up. Actually, they would probably have more sympathy for that situation than most, but still, it's an uncomfortable admission. So instead of calling them and letting them know I was going to sleep for another hour I dragged my ass out of bed and into the car.
The car without air conditioning. Why does my car not have air conditioning you might ask? Because repairing the air conditioning in my car will cost be $1,450.00, and if I had that kind of scratch I would use it for a down payment on a new car.
Since this is the summer that Proves Al Gore is Telling the Truth, not having air conditioning on a 7 hour drive in the a southernly direction quickly became my own very personal version of hell. Literally. Like a burning lake of fire with a pitchfork wielding demon included. I should mention that nothing puts me in a more irritable mood then the heat. The heat and traffic. So of course the ruthless combination of record temperatures and the dumbest fucking drivers in America mixed to give me one lethal bad mood. Seriously, what is wrong with drivers in this country? How is it legal for someone to watch a DVD while driving a motor vehicle at 85 miles an hour? And why has no one else gotten the memo that the left lane is for passing or at least driving a hell of a lot faster than everyone in the right lane? I swear I want to mount a bull horn to the hood of my car.I was ready to kill someone, and that was before the hangover actually hit me, which it did somewhere in Iowa. Iowa smells like pig shit, and is the largest, longest state in the entire union. I don't care what the map says, if they have disproportionately given priveledge to the northern hemisphere they have also scaled Iowa to like one-fifth of it's hog-waste smelling size. And I could smell it all, because hangovers hit me like migraines, everything is heightened, including my sense of smell and my hatred for all human beings.
So finally, after what feels like a literal eternity I arrive in sunny Kansas City MO. The time spent there with my folks, by the pool, etc, was terrific. But then come sunday, I had to make the drive back. It was 101 degrees by the time I left and I was in no mood to fuck around on the interstate with some Missouri rednecks who couldn't find their ass with a map and two hands. I managed to evade most of them, but still was sweating like a stuck pig by the time I reached Iowa. Of course, in Iowa being a stuck pig is a popular thing to be, so I felt right at home. I keep hearing noise on the radio about storms coming into Iowa and Missouri, and low and behold out of nowhere a whole sky full of storm clouds appear. I'm officially fucked. I'm in the literal middle of nowhere, I have no map, and therefore have no way of knowing where I am in relationship to the storm. Of course, this ceases to be an issue when the barometer dropped like a rock and the clouds opened up. I was looking around for an arc and animals in pairs it was raining so hard. Everyone had to pull over to the side of the road and just sit tight. I couldn't get cell service because of the torrential downpour, so I was relegated to listening to the farm and weather report on KIOA (say it out loud. Clever, aren't they those iowegians). Fun.
Eventually the weather cleared up about an hour later and I was able to get back on the road, having lost much in time and patience. It simply reinforces my theory that whether it's being stranded in Chicago with no flights home, losing luggage on a direct fucking flight or being caught in the storm of the century, if I leave home, people get inconvenienced. Usually me. Perhaps it would be best for all parties involved if I just stayed put for awhile, on a beach with a boat drink.
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