06/12/2010

L.A. Trip, Day 05:

Early to bed, early to rise, after a Red Stripe and another shower, I crashed in preparation of a 6 am flight out of Burbank. Up at 4:00 California time, I snagged my last Gatorade and we were on our way back to Bop Hope Airport with a few extra horror-themed items and a couple hours of nice documentary footage. I paid $9.00 for a croissant breakfast sandwich, which sounds steep, which is expected for Airport food, but it was actually worth it and I would pay it again for a sandwich like that. Ham, egg and cheese on a large croissant, made to order and included large chunks of ham. I debated a danish but I would’ve had to force myself to eat it after that killer sandwich. We found a place to chill, and a few minutes later we were on our way to Phoenix Arizona.
A nearly two hour layover in Phoenix caused me to witness a lot of awesome stuff. If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ve already heard a lot of this. Shortly after arriving at the airport, I had to navigate around a man who was easily 400 lbs, turning around like he was lost. Speaking of lost, here comes a little girl, probably 5 or 6 years old. The grinning, slobbering fat man looks down at her and compliments her shoes. I notice she’s wearing glittery Chuck Taylor style shoes with no strings. She looks at him as if she was aware that her shoes were really ugly and immediately regretted walking so far away from her mum as this man was either A) a genuinely nice guy, B) a pedophile or C) hungry and was looking for a child sized snack. We continued to our gate.
Chris disappeared for a little while and I took that opportunity to take a look in some of the souvenir shops the airport had to offer. Arizona t-shirts, women’s magazines, expensive candy, stuffed rattlesnakes, lollipops with “real” scorpions on the inside and hot sauce…But not just any hot sauce…”Whoopin’ Ass Hot Sauce,” “Kick Butt Hot Sauce,” “Ass Kickin’ Hot Sauce” and “Peanuts From Hell” lined the shelves in a certain section, and I took this as my cue to go find my seat at the gate again. The next flight would be a killer.
And it was. Phoenix to Charlotte is a real bummer. My iPod battery nearly died, my Droid battery was about to do the same, I was tired of reading, didn’t feel like writing, didn’t feel like drawing. So I just sat there beside a guy who brought his own lunch onto the plane. Wouldn’t of been a big deal had he not chosen a tuna sandwich that smelled like a steaming pile of mustard colored diarrhea dropped only moments after gay sex. I was nauseous. I had just enough battery to play through the Ramones “Loco Live” and I slept the rest of the way.
We touched down in Charlotte just before 5:00 and prepared for another 1 1/2 hour layover before heading back to home sweet home Knoxville, TN. I used this time to grab a snack at the over priced Burger King and check out all of the high school black girls who were apparently part of some kind of dance team as they all wore matching yellow sweat pants. I wiped the dirty old man look off of my face and found a seat next to another fat man who was sitting and sweating. Both pretty hard. I noticed an immediate smell of corn and noticed he was shoveling potato chips in with one hand while balancing a small Windows-based machine on his left knee, poking away at what appeared to be nothing at all. Every couple of minutes he quit touching his chips and grabbed a small towel and dried his balding head of the sweat he was generating by his fierce multi-tasking. I excused myself to the bathroom.
I haven’t been to many airports in my life, but I’ve been to enough to know the difference between good airports and bad ones. Charlotte is somewhere in between. It’s not tri-cities airport, but it’s certainly not nice enough to warrant a bathroom attendant. The guy handed me a towel and thanked me. Okay. I walk out and notice a tip jar? He handed me a friggin’ towel. The kicker is that there not only was money in that jar, but there were dollar bills in that jar. I’m in the wrong business.
6:55 rolled around and we were allowed to board our final flight into Knoxville. Sitting two wide on this small plane, a was the lucky one who drew the “super friendly country guy” to sit beside of. He asked where “home” was and I continued to make small talk with him all while trying to show him that I was trying to read a book and was in no way interested in making conversation. He kept talking about pilots, flying, California, Knoxville and something about my phone when I thought “Man, can’t you just go to sleep?” and he…did. Lovely. Attempting to doze off, we landed in Knoxville before my mind considered it. It was a beautiful thing.
Now back at home, I can see my wife and my dog. I can clap really loud and sleep in my own bed, headache-less. It’s a beautiful thing. L.A. was great, just don’t go there just to visit or you won’t see shit. Words from a revolutionary thinker.

Here are some photos from the trip, taken with my Droid: