The new blog/Airport Saga Pt. 1

Yes, It's round 2.

I'm starting this blog because I decided to take a new and different direction. I have no strong compulsion to write in any direction at all. I'm one of those types who, if they decide to write comedically, tries way too hard to be funny, I don't like writing super seriously, so I was left with quite a conundrum. I decided after a particularly amusing incident flying home from Vermont that despite being a shut in while I'm broken, my life is actually kinda ridiculous when I do actually step out. So here's the new deal. Once a week updates, primarily stories, but also every once in a while I'll toss out one of the many rants I write down over the course of my week. Starting with part 1. of the fantastic epic that is my journey to the airport.

Anyway. I was at the airport earlier this weekend. I have a preconceived notion of airports that basically forces me to resign myself to having a shitty time while at them. That notion was all sorts of bent over a chair and fucked into nonexistence during this experience.

Seriously. Airports are awesome*

*when you're crippled and tripped off of too much Vicodin and Benadryl

Anyway, you know how most people think that airports don't go out of their way to make the process easier for anyone? They're wrong. If you show up to the airport with a cane and a leg brace, they roll out the red carpet. After hobbling out of my grandmothers car right outside the entrance I was immediately met by a chubby goth kid named Chris, armed with a wheelchair, who was mortified that I hadn't asked him to help me out of the car. Not a normal goth kid, way too happy, and talky. He rolled me to security, gabbing the ENTIRE way there about how the airport had dealt with the economy by cutting jobs, leaving him alone with 3 other workers at the front of the airport. I realized when we got to security that he was actually explaining why he was going to stop rolling me around there, not just being an overly talky person with crappy taste in clothing and make-up. He lurched off grumpily, jumping right back into the "i hate the world" mentality that repels most of the people in vermont when he no longer had to directly interact with someone.

Turns out security was also hilariously understaffed, and boy-o did the fact that I was differently-abled throw a cog in their machine. They realized that I was a little too wide, and metal, to make it through the walk through metal detector, so they rolled me to the other side, put me in a corner and took all my braces and my cane to screen them for explosives. (As an aside, am I really this threatening? Every single time I try to travel abroad I get pulled aside and interrogated in tiny glass rooms because Captain Psychopants McShoeBomber's last name was Reid, and now they're wiping me down for explosive residue? Let me describe how I looked to you guys so you can understand how ridiculous this was. I hadn't showered in a couple days, I had my "two weeks of facial hair that look like I grew patchy pubes on my face" going, I was wearing a dirty rugby shirt with its sleeves rolled up because it had been cold in the morning and was now hot outside, and shorts, bright blue shorts. AND I WAS IN A WHEELCHAIR. I was approximately as threatening as a down pillow, and they made me wait for 20 minutes at the security station. Rant off.) The only reason I didn't make a valiant attempt at murdering someone after leaving the station was that the ancient lady who was using the detector baton and I had this exchange.

Old Lady: "Hold on, I gotta go get a man to pat you down"
Me: "Why? Are they afraid I'll get freaked out by you touching me? I love hugs!"
Old Lady: "I don't think they're worried about hugging, more me touching your penis"

At which point she wandered off, leaving me completely speechless.

So I rolled out into the little gate area, only a little grumpy, to wait the two hours until my plane left (Overbearing grandparent drove me to the airport) There was a hudson news stand in the middle of the room, so I rolled over there to grab a drink as preparation for taking a nap in the corner of the room, only to realize that there was an absolutely enormous black man restocking the fridge, standing so it was impossible to access any drinks. Since I was very sedated I just kinda sat there with my head cocked to the side staring confusedly at this dudes ass, not really knowing what to do. Eventually he turned around and realized that I was waiting for him and mistook my glazed stare as accusatory, and we had this exchange.

Big Black Guy (whose name is Tyrell):What do you want?
Me: Just a drink, finish what you're doin though
Tyrell: Fuck you short-bus, I will finish this shit even though you're waiting to be catered to because you're in a wheelchair. I don't help white people.
Me (confused): I didn't really expect you to go all Bagger Vance on me, I was just waiting for a drink.

At which point he turned and stared at me, absolutely no emotion showing on his face. About 15 different things ran through my head, one of which actually got through the wall that restricts my thoughts from the things I actually voice. That one statement was "oh shit, too racist" which he responded to by breaking down laughing and giving me a free sprite. I spent the next fifteen minutes sitting there talking to him. Turns out he was a retired pro-basketball player from Europe who had become a flight attendant so he could travel, and stopped in vermont for a few days because his niece worked that particular hudson news station, but had just had her child, so he was covering for her. He actually hates white people though, so spending a ton of time in vermont made him really irritable. He explained that he didn't see me as white, only handicapped, so I was actually ok to talk to or some such nonsense, but I think he kept me around for how terrified I got when he silently turned to me completely stonefaced after I said something that trod the line of not being P.C.

After leaving Tyrell to attend to the people who had been sitting at his cash register for about 10 minutes while we sat on the other side reading sports illustrated and talking about basketball, I rolled over to the other side of the room, seeking out some new person to interact with. I found another person in a wheelchair; an old guy hooked up to a breathing machine staring blankly at the woman sitting across from him's breasts unabashedly. Sadly he was nowhere near as full of whimsy as I was, despite being about 18 times more full of drugs. I sat next to the woman he was ogling for a while, listening to my ipod and watching him, debating with bucket via text whether I should challenge him to a joust or race or drinking contest. Eventually we ran out of jokes and boredom set in, I had been spaced out for about 3 minutes when the guy suddenly pulled his arms to his sides and flung himself out of his chair, disconnecting himself from his breathing machine and faceplanting into the ground about 3 inches from my feet. My response? Squealing: "HOLY FUCK HE JUST DIED" and pissing myself. Luckily the woman sitting next to me burst into action, it turns out it was ok that he was ogling her, because she was his nurse, she quite literally lifted him into a fireman carry and tossed him back into his chair before waggling a finger in front of his face and sitting back down. She turned to me and said in an attempt to abate my pants wetting fear

Her "he does that all the time"
Me "tries to kill himself?"
Her "no, escape. He occasionally hallucinates that he can still walk and something like that happens"
Me "oh"

NOT REASSURING

I concluded that it was a really good thing that I hadn't tried to fight the guy, because his nurse would have beaten the piss out of me even if I weren't hurt, and went the corner and napped until my flight came.

Pt. 2 Next Week.