Tony’s Journal

work and travel

Okay, I’m doing a million things at once here in the confines of Page Hall, and apparently one is writing in my oft-forgotten journal.

I had a delightful time in Ohio this weekend. Let’s see.

Thursday: While waiting in the airport, I spent half an hour trying to get my cell phone service working again. A combination of three things broke it, two were my fault. Anyway, after being told it probably wouldn’t work until Monday, I got it fixed while waiting for my flight. So then it was back to waiting. And then the drama began.

The flight was and American flight direct from RDU to Columbus. Not a heavily traveled route I guess. It was a late night flight on top of that (10:15 departure), so the plane was one of those little Embraer jets that hold about 45 passengers. I would guess that about 20 people had reservations for it.

Eventually the gate agent arrives. About 10 minutes before we are to being boarding, a middle-aged woman waddles up to the gate desk and speaks with the agent to get her boarding pass. This passenger is wearing an Ohio State old lady sweater-vest thing, so I shall refer to her as Brutus. She is dragging one of those rolling suitcases behind her. Not gigantic, but too big to carry on for sure. It looked as though it would be tagged at the gate and stored under the plane, as happens often with smaller aircraft with largeish carry-ons.

Brutus stays up at the desk after speaking with the agent. The agent obviously has had a long day, as she is slamming this door here, muttering to herself there, etc. (The irony of a crazy, unstable nutjob gate attendant complaining about a lapse in airport security is evidently lost on her.) Then she calls for us to board the plane. So we line up, relaxedly, all 20 of us or so. Brutus scuttles over from the desk and cuts in line, which is annoying, but to get her in the back of the line we would’ve had to have thrown a Virginia Ham back there as bait.

The first guy in line started it all. Somehow the ticket desk AND security has let him make it all the way to the gate without the proper documents. This enrages the agent. She gets on the phone with the front ticket desk and starts yelling at them. After a few seconds she slams the phone down on the counter, and makes the passenger step off to the side. She begins checking the rest of the people in, and wouldn’t you know it, Brutus is third in line.

Angry Agent (I shall call her AAH, for American Airlines Hag, or Angry Angry Hippo) tells Brutus to leave her carry-on suitcase right behind her, at the entrance to the JetBridge. Brutus does so and then walks suitcaseless down the jetbridge to the plane. Couple other people were checked in, and Brutus comes back up to the gate and grabs her suitcase. AAH yells at her for this. “What are you doing?” Brutus explans that the flight crew had told her to bring the luggage to the aircraft door, where it would sit until loading onto the plane.

This enraged the AAH, who screams at Brutus.

“What do you mean? No. No! I work here all day. I do this as my job. You LEAVE your LUGGAGE up HERE.”

Brutus leaves her luggage and backs wide-eyed down the jetbridge. Meanwhile, AAH vents at the rest of us in line, muttering about how some people think they know it all, and how that “dumb cow” showed up 5 minutes before the flight, etc.

Well, we all get on the plane eventually, and there we sit. I was on the left side, so I could see the stairs leading down from the jetbridge to the ground. The women behind me, including our friend Brutus, are discussing AAH’s behavior. The stewardess joins in, and acknowledges that AAH is some kind of nut who must have had a bad day.

Next thing we know, our attention is drawn out the left side of the plane, where AAH is THROWING PEOPLE’S LUGGAGE DOWN THE STAIRS. Yes, ka-thud-thud-thud-thud-tha THUD THUD THUD SLAM over and over, as rolling suitcases and duffel bags alike gallop down the stairs end over end.

Some passengers take exception at this. (All my items were in the plane with me, so I didn’t have a personal stake.) The alarm is raised, and the stewardess (Helen) goes to the front of the plane to ask AAH what in the hell was going on. So Helen gets into it with AAH, saying things like “they can see you throwing their luggage around, you know,” and we can hear AAH bitching back.

Brutus goes up to the front and asks Helen for AAH’s name so she can compain later on to American Airlines. Helen asks AAH what her name is, and AAH storms by Helen and goes onto the plane, and then all the way to almost the back of the plane to confront Brutus: “And what is YOUR NAME?”

What in the hell is she gonna do with the passenger’s name? Call her mom? Get her blacklisted from American? Pfff. Who knows. Anyway, the point is that the woman was a nut.

“Come Fly the Friendly Skies” indeed.

Uh, anyway, the plane got to CMH, and I found Cynthia. That was nice. On the way home we stopped at a Wendy’s drive-thru, where they happily served me some of those new chicken tenders, and happily withheld the sauce I had requested.

Friday:Cynthia and I arose and went to McDonalds. I hadn’t been to a McD since, I think, last December on the way to the Gator Bowl. Had a McGriddle. Damned good. I find that fast-food employees are far friendlier in Ohio. The old gent who served us went on and on about Ohio basketball. I told him I was just happy that they had beaten UNC last year.

Cynthia went to class. I walked “uptown” as they apparently call the mighty metropolis of Athens, Ohio. Went into Schoolkids Records and spent about an hour debating what to get. Ended up getting a $29 record (Quiex SV 200-gram pressing of Led Zeppelin IV) and a 95-cent record (Too Low For. . . okay, I don’t remember what it is, but it’s by Elton John).

I met Cynthia and Sandy and we went to lunch at Skippy’s. As you remember, Skippy was the annoying neighbor kid on Family Ties. I was disappointed that he wasn’t our waiter.

Cynthia cooked me shrimp bisque and cheese biscuits for dinner. She did a mighty fine job. I guess she knows that I love her more when she cooks good food for me.

Saturday: We went to a football game. It was cold there. Ohio blew it and lost to Kent State 37-33. The band was awesome, though. That’s what most people go to OU football games for, anyway. I noticed that 1) no one left at halftime to get refreshments, 2) everyone stood up for the band, and 3) after the band was done, half the fans went home. But anyhow, they have a really good band. “The Marching 110,” they’re called. They played — and Justin will love this — OutKast. The director said something like “the Marching 110 ask you what’s cooler than being cool? ICE COLD!” and then they started it up and commenced to breaking it down. Hey Ya. They even shook it like a Polaroid picture. I took some movies with my digital camera, they’ll be uploaded soon. I tell you this, I am buying their next CD if Hey Ya is on it. They need to come out with a DVD.

After the game, it was about 25 degrees and windy. Cynthia and I walked home in the dark. It really wasn’t that bad, but my hands were burning when I got inside due to the cold and wind.

We went to The Plains, where Sandy lives, to hang out with some folks and watch a movie. We drank apple martinis, watched the Italian Job, and tried to figure out why Sandy’s fish were so sad. I think maybe they were cold. Jiri (?) and his very tall girlfriend from the Czech Republic were there. It was cool to see people speaking another language. The only time I see people speaking something besides English here is 1) behind the counter at Bo and 2) whatever the hell language Poppa speaks.

There was a lunar eclipse that night. I got some fairly bad pictures of it. Kind of cool though.

Sunday: Woke up and went to Bob Evans, which was crammed with breakfasteers. We had a fine meal. Interestingly, while we were waiting in the airlock-thing in the lobby, there was a girl there who goes to Elon. Then we headed back towards Columbus for my flight back. In Lancaster, we stopped at a Wal-Mart sized store that sold only college apparel. And not a damned bit of NCSU merchandise in the place. They had all other ACC teams besides Wake Forest, plus stuff from Denison, Evansville, UConn, Buffalo, Detroit Mercy, Buffalo State! No NCSU stuff. It blew.

We went to Red Lobster for dinner. It probably says something about me that I have had lobster twice in my life, and both times it was at the Red Lobster in Lancaster Goddamned Ohio. But it did taste good for sure.

Got on my plane and went home. Chris took forever to pick me up at RDU because I gave him poor directions to Terminal C passenger pickup.

Oh yeah, as a footnote, yesterday they FINALLY gave me a full time job here. It is nice. I have a lot more to say about it. I have to post this now, though, or Bridget will beat me.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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work and travel

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