Airport lurkers...

The lurkers at the airport. You know the people that I’m talking about over here. I’m talking about those assholes who lurk around the gate entrances as soon as they call for boarding on the flight that you’re going on. Never you mind that they are sitting in the dead front of the plane, and their row, and or zone won’t be called for who knows how long. But jeesh man, look, you’re here already, the plane isn’t going to leave without you, ease the hell up, and have a seat and kick back and relax for a few more minutes before you have to stuff yourself into an undersized seat next to some smelly guy (probably the same one lurking at the front of the gate area) who you won’t talk to, or even acknowledge the entire length of your flight. Let’s not pretend that you’re excited to get onto that plane, what you want to really do is establish your armrest dominance before your seat mate gets onto the plane and plops his ass down next to yours. You want to get in there, get comfortable, on the aisle of course, and look all disgusted and dejected when someone comes in and you have to get up and move so that the other person can crawl in. Never mind that you won’t make too many concessions in trying to be nice about it, but hey, you wanted to get in there so fast. And listen, if you’re sitting on the aisle, and it’s a 2 or 3 seat set-up, you can pretty much be guaranteed that there is going to be another person coming to sit next to you, because in the all of the planes I’ve been on over the years, it is a very rare instance when you actually have an empty seat next to you. Of course, it’s nice when you do, but let’s face it, it doesn’t happen that often. So don’t go looking all pissed off when I roll in there, and say, “Yeah, I’m in 9F. Can I get in?” If you’re going to be that disgusted and mad about having to move around for me to get in there, why don’t you wait until the plane is almost done filling up, and THEN go into the plane? I mean, that would be the best solution right there, but instead, you’ve got to hustle in there, take your time getting into your seat, take up the armrest space, and the overhead bin space, and generally make everyone else’s experience miserable. I mean, it’s air travel in the year 2006, it’s supposed to be miserable, and I don’t know some damn gate lurker making it worse for me. Have a seat chief, and just wait your turn. Alright? If not, I might just arrange an in flight “sickness” and maybe I might something on your tasseled loafers. Serves you right you miserable retch. As the semi famous line goes in that Kevin Smith movie Clerks, “I hate people, but I love gatherings.” That can pretty much sum up my stance on a lot of things.

Why am I flying this week? Well, my little brother got married this weekend in Portland Maine, so it was time to leave the dirty South for the clean North, and to make travels to cooler climes. Of course, this was a wrong assumption. The day I got there, the weather was nice, meaning, high 60’s, and a little rainy, but it cleared up later on. The next day though, hot and steamy in Portland Maine. Gross. I can get weather like this in Durham North Carolina, I don’t need to travel North to get this crap, but there it was, waiting for me like a wet blanket. Saturday, more of the same. Sunday, check. But then again, looking at the nationwide weather, Maine was cooler climes this weekend. The rest of the country was and is a sea of red when looking at the weather maps on the television. Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the last, well, many years, you know that this indicates a general heat wave across the country. No respite for Maine, that’s for sure. The best part about this whole little heat wave in Maine was that the hotel I was staying in for the weekend festivities had a serious problem with their air conditioning, which means, it wasn’t working. Factor in that the room we were staying in contained 4 adults and that makes for one hot assed room. The sweat factor during sleeping was high, the pull out bed uncomfortable, and hotel management, unreasonable, as far as getting things fixed. I could probably rant and rave about the hotel for a long time, but I’ll digress. Just know that there is one angry consumer letter being written almost as we speak, and being addressed to the hotel we were staying at. I will point out some high points. One, when the front desk finally got around to telling the maintenance guy that our AC was busted up and not working, he made it right immediately, and was generally cheerful on an otherwise crazed weekend (so he said). Then when the condensation pan in said AC unit started to leak, and he was called back, again, very professional and very nice about it. Big props to the maintenance guy for being a bright spot in the hotel staff. The other good person on the hotel staff, the waitress we had for brunch on Sunday. She did a good job for a large table of people who were interested in just about anything other than eating. Good service from her as well. Again, there was lots of bad stuff going on over the weekend, and that could be another entire blog entry in and of itself, which we’ll explore later on down the line when the wounds aren’t so fresh. Service, let’s just say, it was in the gutter at that hotel. Ah well, overall the rest of the weekend was a blast. The wedding went off more or less without a hitch, Joel and Melissa are not betrothed, and everyone I think had a good time. Many drinks were consumed, many gallons of sweat were produced (remember, not much in the way of air conditioning in Maine, especially in really old churches, like the one the ceremony was in), and many new and old friends made. Good times. Melissa of course looked stunning, Joel, nervous on the inside, but Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected on the out, made it through the weekend without too many hitches (Nate, one of the groomsmen did come up short on one pair of pants for his tux which was a brief moment of panic). I think I may have had too much drink on Saturday, and well, Friday as well, but believe it or not, not too much in the hangover department, which surprised me, because normally, I get unbelievably hungover during these little drinking expeditions. A little stomach rumbling, but then, nothing. It was amazing. Must have been the gin and tonics I was kicking back for most of the weekend got to love the clear liquor.