Well then - Yappy and I enter the Kansas City concourse, Blearly eyed, dragging our luggage and sure we were just minutes from getting to the hotel and looking forward to resting our bones. We find the cab stand and - voila - there is a cab. We approach it and it drives off. It's cold, we're tired. Do we look that bad? Yappy complains that she didn't like the color of the taxi in the first place and why don't I zip up my coat. Just to be obstinate, I take off my coat and my sweater and stand there like a crazed Russian in the Gulag.
After - oh about three hours - the same cab comes back. I give Yappy $20 to make up for the unattractive color and off we go. Well the driver seems decent enough as we chat like you do about the town and what's new and the local politics and the sports teams. Then of course we are lost after 30 minutes of going in a circle. The guy has no idea where our hotel is - you know - the farther away the hotel from the airport the cheaper...Cheapo the boss strikes again!
Cabbie is on the cell phone calling his brother in law or his bookie or his preacher or doctor to find out where to go and we just drive around and drive around some more. Off in the horizon I am sure I see the first faint light of dawn. Cabbie distracts us with stories about his teenage boys and introducing them to politics and I'm thinking, Wow what a great Dad." Suddenly - Oh-oh.
Cabbie goes off talking about how the Twin Towers went down in a conspiracy of the Bush family and how Lincoln's death was the fault of the Bush's and how the Challenger disaster was Jeb's fault and the OK City bombing was planned by W and I am not kidding. Even Yappy shut up at that point. Yappy and I glanced sideways at one another and whew... I checked my door handle to make sure it worked and thankfully it did. Just about then I saw the lights from our hotel, but they were on the opposite side of the road and we weren't slowing down. I took 50 bucks out of my wallet, threw it at the cabbie with a big thank you, told Yappy to grap her bag, clasped her by the lapels, kicked open the door and we jumped. We rolled into the ditch and saw the tail lights of the cab fade into the night.
Yappy's heel broke on her strappy little number and she limp-walked ahead of me - step-clunk, step-clunk. Boy she was talking now, but I just pulled up the collar of my coat, ignored her and we walked into the hotel "lobby". Step-clunking all the way in. It was now 4:30 a.m. There was a line...
Next time: Yappy nearly ends up rooming with snoose chewing Okee, or "Running on a treadmill to create electricity in your room is good for ya."
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Time Cheapo Made Us Go To Kansas City
So, my boss - we'll call him "Cheapo" from here on - he made me go to Kansas City for a conference. It was horrible in every way and I am thinking of filing some kind of grievance or possibly a lawsuit unless he buys me a decent beer to square things.
First, he gets his man "Friday" to make travel arrangements. Then I have to travel with a woman I work with who just yapped at me the whole time about my crappy bag, my shoes, my haircut, my deoderant - whatever. She is a self described Fancy Girl who I call "Yappy". Now from St. Paul where I live and work to K.C. is at most a 90 minute to 2 hour flight. But Cheapo instructed Friday to find the cheapest possible airfare and he did find one for $6.97. Naturally we had to layover and so after a brief stay in Quebec, and a little side trip to China, we changed planes in Denver. Not only that, but we had to switch from Cost Cutter Airlines to the Bent Twig Express, and the Gate, of course, was approximately 12 miles away through 17 different concourses and just 13 minutes to make the connection. All the while as we trudge and run Yappy is - well - yapping. "Hurry up, why don't you get a bag with wheels, are ya havin' a heart attack, I'm hungry, how's my hair looking..." and so forth and so on and on and on and on. I just wanted someone to shoot me, but hey it was an airport and they don't look kindly on that kind of thing.
So, we finally arrive at the desk type thingy and are greeted by the icy stare from a woman behind it in some kind of shabby uniform who immediately walks away from us saying nothing and proceeds to talk to some airport security dude whose holding up his pants with one hand and eating a burrito with the other that is dripping on his shirt on which sleeve he wipes his mouth. Yappy starts in right away, "Did you see what she is wearing? That outfit would look soooo much better with earrings and some heels." I went into zen mode.
Eventually we got on the plane and were instructed to use any loose clothing we had with us to plug drafty holes in the windows. Then the flight attendant took out her teeth and gummed away at us about how to tie a square knot in the rope we used for a seatbelt. Yappy is showing her shoes to anyone she can get to look and I am thinking that I hope Cheapo is happy with all the money he saved the company on this little junket and it wasn't even his money, and so imagine how cheap he is with his own money and there will be more on that in a later blog. he's cheap, cheap, cheap and you just have to trust me about that.
Well finally I see the ground crew go over to the side of the plane with a crank and I hear the motor start. I know from the sound of it that it is a Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine. So we taxi out and get on the runway and Gummy the flight attendant says, "Okay, once we get to top speed, I need everyone to stand and jump when I count to three to lighten the load just enough for us to leave the ground. We'll need to repeat this about once a minute all the way to our destination in Buffalo before we trun and come back West to Kansas City." This really happened and it is the absolute truth, I swear it. In the meantime Yappy is making friends, drinking, having a party with her new friends, and making balloon animals for them as she asks if they like her necklace.
There was nothing I could do, so I ordered a few slugs of Bent Twig Express moonshine, "Made Fresh for You Just Today" it said on the jug. I drank hevily in between jumps. I tell ya, my legs were really tired by the time we hit Kansas City. As we deplaned I saw Gummy flirting with the pilot whose name was - I am pretty sure - Metheusela. Yappy was exchanging texting information with the entire plane as they all declared they were now "BFF's". We finally got to the gate and headed for a taxi and all the way Yappy is like - "Well you sure weren't very friendly. Why'd ya wear that shirt? Stand up straight, " all the while licking her fingers and smoothing down my cowlick. I think she was embarrassed of me. I cursed Cheapo and walked ahead with a sense of dread... End of Episode one. Next time in Another Bad Day: "The story of the evil taxidriver" or "Yappy and I get scared and jump out of a moving cab." Your Friend, Jens
First, he gets his man "Friday" to make travel arrangements. Then I have to travel with a woman I work with who just yapped at me the whole time about my crappy bag, my shoes, my haircut, my deoderant - whatever. She is a self described Fancy Girl who I call "Yappy". Now from St. Paul where I live and work to K.C. is at most a 90 minute to 2 hour flight. But Cheapo instructed Friday to find the cheapest possible airfare and he did find one for $6.97. Naturally we had to layover and so after a brief stay in Quebec, and a little side trip to China, we changed planes in Denver. Not only that, but we had to switch from Cost Cutter Airlines to the Bent Twig Express, and the Gate, of course, was approximately 12 miles away through 17 different concourses and just 13 minutes to make the connection. All the while as we trudge and run Yappy is - well - yapping. "Hurry up, why don't you get a bag with wheels, are ya havin' a heart attack, I'm hungry, how's my hair looking..." and so forth and so on and on and on and on. I just wanted someone to shoot me, but hey it was an airport and they don't look kindly on that kind of thing.
So, we finally arrive at the desk type thingy and are greeted by the icy stare from a woman behind it in some kind of shabby uniform who immediately walks away from us saying nothing and proceeds to talk to some airport security dude whose holding up his pants with one hand and eating a burrito with the other that is dripping on his shirt on which sleeve he wipes his mouth. Yappy starts in right away, "Did you see what she is wearing? That outfit would look soooo much better with earrings and some heels." I went into zen mode.
Eventually we got on the plane and were instructed to use any loose clothing we had with us to plug drafty holes in the windows. Then the flight attendant took out her teeth and gummed away at us about how to tie a square knot in the rope we used for a seatbelt. Yappy is showing her shoes to anyone she can get to look and I am thinking that I hope Cheapo is happy with all the money he saved the company on this little junket and it wasn't even his money, and so imagine how cheap he is with his own money and there will be more on that in a later blog. he's cheap, cheap, cheap and you just have to trust me about that.
Well finally I see the ground crew go over to the side of the plane with a crank and I hear the motor start. I know from the sound of it that it is a Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine. So we taxi out and get on the runway and Gummy the flight attendant says, "Okay, once we get to top speed, I need everyone to stand and jump when I count to three to lighten the load just enough for us to leave the ground. We'll need to repeat this about once a minute all the way to our destination in Buffalo before we trun and come back West to Kansas City." This really happened and it is the absolute truth, I swear it. In the meantime Yappy is making friends, drinking, having a party with her new friends, and making balloon animals for them as she asks if they like her necklace.
There was nothing I could do, so I ordered a few slugs of Bent Twig Express moonshine, "Made Fresh for You Just Today" it said on the jug. I drank hevily in between jumps. I tell ya, my legs were really tired by the time we hit Kansas City. As we deplaned I saw Gummy flirting with the pilot whose name was - I am pretty sure - Metheusela. Yappy was exchanging texting information with the entire plane as they all declared they were now "BFF's". We finally got to the gate and headed for a taxi and all the way Yappy is like - "Well you sure weren't very friendly. Why'd ya wear that shirt? Stand up straight, " all the while licking her fingers and smoothing down my cowlick. I think she was embarrassed of me. I cursed Cheapo and walked ahead with a sense of dread... End of Episode one. Next time in Another Bad Day: "The story of the evil taxidriver" or "Yappy and I get scared and jump out of a moving cab." Your Friend, Jens
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