Article 93666 of alt.peeves: Path: matra.meer.net!tera.mcom.com!news.uoregon.edu!chi-news.cic.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!meibm22.cen.uiuc.edu!j-hill5 From: j-hill5@meibm22.cen.uiuc.edu (James Lloyd Hill) Newsgroups: alt.peeves Subject: I Took a Plane, Took a Plane to Another State... Date: 29 Feb 1996 06:16:43 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 226 Message-ID: <4h3gcb$ibk@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: meibm22.cen.uiuc.edu (sung to the tune of Schoolhouse Rock's Noun Song) I took a plane, took a plane to another state Saw some people and things that were really great When the time came for me to leave I tallied up my list of peeves Well, enough of that. On with the show: Chapter One, or The Hero Goes into the Land of the Setting Sun (which becomes the rising sun if you go far enough and turn around) The Hero of our story, after having bravely soldiered in an arcane field with poor public relations and even poorer employment prospects, was rewarded with a Graduate Resident Assistantship at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (operated by the University of California for the United States Department of Energy). Before the glee at being on the receiving end of munificence fully twice that begrudgingly handed out by the cheap bastards at the University of Ilinois had faded, a representative from LANL was on the phone with The Hero explaining that there were Papers to be filled out and Forms to be signed and a Photo to be taken and that The Hero needed to come out for a day's shenanigans but that he could then go home again to fill out his time in Illinois. Fool he, The Hero promptly scheduled the event and bought plane tickets. They were relatively cheap tickets because The Hero bought them in advance and they were nonrefundable, nonreschedulable, yea, immutable in their every form and function. Ninety-nine dollars each, one for the going westward and one for the returning eastward. (Pay attention to the cost of the tickets, as I planned the trip foolishly and discovered that I would have to return to Los Alamos in a few weeks. More about that later.) The day after purchasing the tickets, The Hero received another phone call, from another person at Los Alamos: The Boss. The Boss thought it would be a great idea for the Hero to hang out in Los Alamos for a few days after the Hire-on and get to know The Group, and perhaps find a place to live for the future. The Hero concluded that this would indeed be a great idea...but that the tickets were nonrefundable, nonreschedulable, yea, immutable in their every form and function. Then The Hero concluded that he had planned his trip foolishly, as he would have to return to Los Alamos during Spring Break and get to know The Group and perhaps find a place to live for the future. Then The Hero thought, "Feh. I fucked up." St. Louis. Gateway to the West. Home of Lambert Intl. Airport, where The Hero discovered that he'd be sharing his plane with, among others, the junior hockey league team whose loud whoops and howls throughout the terminal had prompted The Hero to think to himself, "Dime to a dollar those assholes end up on my plane." The Hero ended up next to a Chinese couple touring the States. They had no idea where they were, where they were going, nor of how the showers in the US were operated. The husband (the gregarious one, so named because he spoke a time or two on the three hour flight between St. Louis and Albuquerque) was unabashedly flatulent. Why did The Hero get such a poor seat? Well, Southwest Airlines has open seating, but they seat in groups of thirty. Hence, persons with pass numbers 1-30 got on first, 31-60 next, and anyone else last. The Hero, true to form, held pass 61. These were pre-empted, of course, by Parents Travelling With Small Children, Small Children Travelling Alone, and Persons Needing Assistance. As if the prospect of trying to find a good seat after 60 others plus PTWSM,SMTA,&PNA had boarded were not daunting enough, The Hero noticed an interesting phenomenon: when an airline employee announced the groups-of-thirty policy, a great number of elderly passengers holding passes with numbers greater than 30 suddenly became Persons Needing Assistance. The Hero considered that dying in a plane crash would be a fair trade if all these geezerly cocksuckers went too, especially as every fucking one of them probably had his goddamn car in overnight parking and in a handicapped space, to boot. Chapter Two, or There's no Fucking Air at 7,000 Feet Having picked up the ObAvis (because they try harder), The Hero made his way to Assets Grille, there to hook up with a Former Schoolmate for dinner and ale. Decent chow duly consumed, The Hero and the Former Schoolmate set out for Los Alamos. Arriving there two hours later, the Former Schoolmate escorted The Hero into his apartment (where The Hero had mooched crash space in lieu of paid accommodations) and informed him that the guest room was upstairs. The Hero bounded upstairs and made the most remarkable discovery: while his chest was indeed rising and falling, and his lungs were indeed expanding and contracting, there was no actual blood-oxygenation taking place. The Hero lay on a bed for ten minutes sucking wind, looking at the dancing spots on the ceiling, and was able to summon his powers of concentration for long enough to hear the Former Schoolmate yell up, "You might wanna go easy on the stairs until you get used to the altitude." Bastard. Chapter Three, or You Can't Get There from Here Morning broke like the wind. The Hero, needing to report to the Otowi Building to fill out many Papers and sign many Forms and have a Photo taken, asked the Former Schoolmate how to get there. The Former Schoolmate rendered directions which were utterly devoid of street names, though jam-packed with information like "the road'll kinda veer left, but you want to go right. When you get to a stop sign, angle off to the left, but tend more to the right-hand of the left-hand lane." The Hero muttered an obscenity and left. He was quickly lost, and The Hero made the discovery that putting a town somewhat atop five mesas makes it impossible to lay out roads in a rectangular grid the way God and Descartes intended. Unmanning himself, The Hero stopped and asked for directions to the Otowi Building which included street names, and with those directions arrived but fifteen minutes late, thereby making a shitty First Impression. After filling out many Papers and signing many Forms and having a Photo taken, The Hero sat in the lounge to await the arrival of The Boss, who would come to introduce The Hero to The Group and generally exchange pleasantries. And there he awaited. And awaited. And awaited. And then, at noon, The Boss's Boss came in, introduced himself, explained that The Boss was in a meeting and would be down at 12:30, tossed off a quick "Goodtameetcha", and left. And The Hero awaited some more. At 12:30, The Boss arrived, breezily apologizing for being late but making up for it by buying The Hero lunch, which The Hero had difficulty eating as the cafeteria was on the third floor and thus had an even more rarified atmosphere than ground level. Due to a doctor's appointment, The Boss had to leave and there would be no introduction to The Group and only limited exchange of pleasantries, but The Hero could go down to White Rock and take his GET Test and then have the afternoon to himself. At 1:15, The Hero drove down to White Rock, at the base of the mesa, to take the General Employee Training exam. This was an open-book, untimed, multiple choice exam on lab policies and rules. The Hero makes note of the fact that the time actually occupied by _taking_ the exam was far less than the time spent as the testing coordinator explained to a room full of degreed scientists and engineers exactly how to fill in the answer sheets, which were to be graded by computer and thus needed to have little circles filled in with a Number 2 pencil. For the record, The Hero finished first and, according to the scoring computer, received a "Pefrect Score." For the rest of the afternoon, The Hero took advantage of his free time to drive the rental car all over the place, scoping out for potential apartments and just generally getting familiar with the streets of Los Alamos. (Side note: If you ever have the opportunity to drive NM 502 between Santa Fe and Los Alamos, do it...and take a camera. GIFs to arrive on WebPage when back from developers.) That night, The Hero, the Former Schoolmate, and the Former Schoolmate's girlfriend went to dinner at a Messkin-food joint, where The Hero reaffirmed that "spicy" has a whole 'nother meaning oustide of East-Central Illinois. Ay caramba, indeed. Flaming anus would prove to be a mark of the next two days as tamales with red sauce wended their way through an alimentary system more accustomed to fare such as oatmeal and sandwiches. Chapter Four, or Virtue Is Its Own Reward (but not necessarily the only reward) Back in Allllllbuquerque, The Hero cooled his heels for an hour before boarding his plane. Once again a flock of old people decides upon discovering that seating is random (though in blocks of thirty) that they need assistance and grab up the best seats. The Hero wandered back to the third row from the rear of the plane and promptly grabbed an aisle seat. More passengers boarded, then more, and more, and again more. The stewardesses began to ask that passengers take the first available seat they could find. At that moment, The Hero looked down into the eyes of a hysterical-looking child of five or so. Then he looked up into the eyes of her mother, who was asking the child "Do you think you can sit by yourself?" The Hero, realizing that between himself and the window-seat passenger was an empty seat, began to quake inwardly. Upon a denial accompanied by a choked sob from the child, The Hero began to heave a sigh of relief. Imagine his surprise when his genteel Southern upbringing took command of his vocal apparatus and the sigh of relief was replaced by a voice, his own voice, saying "Why don't you and your daughter sit here and I'll find another seat?" But there were no other seats, for the liner was overbooked. The Hero, his business behind him, volunteered for a later flight. (Remember when I told you to pay attention to the ticket costs because I had foolishly not planned and therefore would have to buy two more in just a few weeks and I said more about that later? It's later.) Shuffling off the plane in the company of two DamnfineLooking Lesbians who also volunteered for the later flight, The Hero learned that his reward for malice toward none and charity toward all would be face value of the ticket plus one hundred dollars, making possible a return in just a few weeks at a net gain of one dollar. (Plus the eight dollar voucher for lunch in the airport which was duly redeemed for a ham sammitch...mmm. LunchPeeve: See Chapter Five, in order to preserve story continuity.) Chapter Five, or The Hero Returns Triumphant The plane tossed and turned. The air roiled, feeding on its own anger, buffeting the plane like a cat and a mouse. Of course, all this was preceded by a sufficient period of calm for the stewardess to bring complimentary drinks, including a Coke that The Hero promptly poured down the front of his shirt when the plane bucked. (Now the LunchPeeve: As The Hero winged eastward over Wichita, Kansas, he thought to himself, "Shit. Shoulda called Kepler to see if he was free for lunch.") Eventually, the plane arrived at St. Louis airspace. The pilot toggled on the intercom to announce, "We've been cleared to land, so we'll be on the ground here in, oh, about ten minutes." Cue crying child. No, make that howling child. Piercing screams alternating with hyperinhalations which anyone who's been around an infant recognizes as the kind of crying that a soft croon and a gentle bounce won't stop. Hell, it's the cry that an abrupt blow to the head won't stop (despite the best efforts of many of Chicago's finest Mother's Boyfriends). Friends, that was the longest ten minutes of The Hero's life, and that includes the time with that bottle of tequila and two whores in La Paz...but I digress. The drive to Champaign was uneventful, allowing The Hero to ponder the many experiences packed into the past two days and to wonder how many V-Chip posts would have piled up in his absence. The answer, lamentably, is Legion. It is my sincere hope that this journal has provided some momentary diversion from "n"-ing White Rights and V-Chips. Jim -- j-hill5@coewl.cen.uiuc.edu http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~j-hill5/ Senator Exon: When the Communications Decency Act passed, at first I didn't give a rat's ass, but then someone explained the implications of the new law, and I decided that I should. Enclosed, please find one rat's ass.