Frenchy's Rant

Fog.

It could’ve been something exotic, like escaped snakes, or exciting, like an exploded engine, or at least something interesting, like, say, a tornado. But it wasn’t. It was fog. Tiny droplets of water suspended in the early morning sky conspiring to make my first air travel in nearly a month as hellish as possible. As a reminder of Frenchy’s Fifth Rule of Freelancing: All travel pay must be earned.

The long week finally ground to an end, and mercifully, Wednesday arrived. Wednesday is my Friday, the end of my work week; the day I get to go home. For the past month, on Wednesday, instead of going home, I’ve gotten on my motorcycle, Rain Cloud Follows, and taken a little ride. So far that little ride has covered over 3500 miles, and it’s been great. But this particular Wednesday/Friday meant a little more to me, since I am taking a break from riding to return and see if my house has had anything exotic, exciting or at least interesting happen to it in my absence. While enjoying my month of airplane-free fun, I’d almost forgotten the pain of air travel.

After a very refreshing two hours of sleep, I dragged my sorry carcass from the comfort of the hotel bed and into the discomfort of the hotel airport shuttle. Shock absorbers evidently were invented long after this shuttle was, as each bump, lurch and jolt sent passengers flying out of their seats. Forget seat belts, the driver should’ve issued kidney belts for this evil early morning wake up call.

I probably would have noticed the fog, had the sun been up. But, under cover of darkness, everything seemed like it would be fine. Moline, Indiana is a very small town, with a very small airport, the most dangerous kind of airport if something unpredictable; fog, for instance, happens. These tiny airports don’t have many flights, and with all five thousand World Wrestling Employees taking up every available seat on every flight, having some sort of cancellation could easily mean my Friday at home won’t start until Thursday.

Security was the usual pathetic cattle call, with the usual, pathetic braying and bleating of the Transportation Security Administration agents. “Have your ticket and ID out for inspection!” they shout, over and over until the command becomes meaningless. “Shoes off! Laptops out!” It never ends, and I realize as I stand there being yelled at for my safety exactly how much I despise air travel.

This realization makes me angry, which is probably not a good thing, because things weren’t going to get any better, at least not on this Wednesday/Friday. Another hard earned travel lesson is anger is almost never the best policy. The gate agent herds all forty-five of us into the plane, a small regional jet equipped with two seats on each side designed for maximum discomfort and torture. So far, I am winning the seat lottery. I wait, I hold my breath, hoping above hope that nobody sits down next to me. And as the cattle call winds down, it seems I may be in luck. The steady flow of travelers dwindles into a trickle, and the seat next to me remains empty. Hitting the jackpot in the seat lottery would be having a 23 year old nymphomaniac on her way to rehab sit down next to me. The next best thing would be having nobody at all in the other seat.

For the record, I have yet to hit the seat lottery jackpot.

Today, I rolled snakeyes. Crapped out. I saw him coming down the aisle, all three-hundred forty sweaty, limping pounds of him, shirt stained with perspiration from the exertion of walking from the gate into the plane, seat belt extension in hand, and I knew. I knew that no matter how hard I tried, how tightly I squeezed my eyes shut and willed this fat bastard to keep on walking, he was it. My dreaded seatmate.

It could’ve been worse I suppose. I mean, granted he was so fat that even flattening myself against the window he still encroached well into my seat. Hell, I could’ve used his copious blubber roll as an armrest, if I wasn’t concerned about some of his greasy, fishy smelling sweat sticking to me and being impossible to ever wash off. Yes, it could’ve been worse I suppose; at least he wasn’t flatulent.

Yet.

The plane taxied toward the runway, then the engines spooled down. The pale orange glow of the early morning light illuminating our little problem.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, as you can see out your window, we are surrounded by a bank of fog. We need a half mile PBR before we’re cleared for takeoff, and right now it’s only at 800 feet. Sorry for the delay, hopefully the fog will lift soon.”

Great. Well, it could’ve been worse. Half an hour later, it was worse, as the pale orange glow of dawn turned into the hot sun of morning. Without the engines running the plane’s air conditioning didn’t work, basically leaving all forty-five of us trapped in an enclosed metal tube. The enclosed metal tube warmed up. And got warmer. As the plane warmed up, so did my seatmate, as evidenced by the growing patterns of sweat soaking through his shirt. To pass the time, I had fantasies of the plane getting so hot he actually melted into a tiny, fishy smelling blob of sweat.

I must have fallen asleep, only to be awakened by the most noxious, most foul smell I’ve ever encountered. The New Jersey Shore at low tide has nothing on the horrifying odor the seat lottery loser next to me had just inflicted on the already fetid airplane. Someone needs a doctor, though it might already be too late. It was now officially worse. He offered a weak smile and a half shrug.

Though the hot, humid interior of the plane didn’t allow for the stench to lift, the fog outside eventually did. The plane finally took off for the twenty-five minute flight to Chicago, but due to the long, sweaty, fart-enhanced wait in Moline, I, along with about half the sweaty, fart-covered passengers missed my connecting flight. Of course there was one self-centered lady that didn’t realize the plane was filled with people that missed flights, she kept nervously repeating, “I only have ten minutes until my next flight takes off. Hurry up!” Over and over she said this until someone – it might have been me – told her aloud what everyone else was thinking privately about our shared dilema.

Most of us missed our flights. Shouldn’t be a problem though, Chicago is one of the busiest airports in the world, right? Plenty of planes should be going wherever everybody needs to get. Just head on over to the helpful folks at Special Services and get rebooked. No problemo!

I head over to Special Services, and who is in front of me? Fishy le Farter, my ex-seatmate. I know how noxious this guy is, and I realize he’s probably reloaded by now, so I get out of line and hang around far away until he is finished. Then it’s my turn. Going into this, I know that the people that work in Special Services don’t really want to help me, they just want to get rid of me and make me an SEP (Somebody Else’s Problem)

“Oh, yes sir, we’ve already rebooked you,” the S.S. agent said with what could almost be considered a smile. “You are now on the 6:30 flight, getting you home at 9:43.”

9:43? PM? Lady, right now it’s eight thirty. IN THE MORNING!

“Well,” she said, smile morphing into a sneer, “that’s the best I can do for you. Next!”

It is situations like this that make me understand why people flip out and do something drastic, like, for example, dropping their pants and shitting on a drink cart. As Chris Rock once said about OJ Simpson and his wife Nicole, ‘I don’t agree with it, but I understand.’ I quelled the urge to strangle the sneer off her face, and just stood there. We looked at each other, two veteran prize fighters sizing each other up for another round. Finally, I asked as diplomatically as I could through clenched teeth if maybe, just maybe, there might be some other option, like through another city or something. Anything to get me home before 9:43 PM. Anything to keep me from shitting on the drink cart.

She banged away at her computer some more. “Well, I could send you through Charlotte. You’ll get home around four.”

Awesome! Why don’t you route me through Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Salt Lake too? That way I could earn enough frequent flyer miles for a free ticket all in one day, and do this to myself again for free!! And with your airline’s stellar track record of leaving on time, I’m sure I won’t have any problem at all!! Thanks!

Being a veteran of this abuse, I knew that was as good as it was going to get. It was time to cut my losses and run.

So, off I ran, to the next terminal over and the awaiting Charlotte flight. I ran through subterranean tunnels decorated with garish neon lightning bolts. Up stairs two at a time, around baffled looking travel rookies and past those jabbering business idiots on Bluetooth headsets, I ran. Panting, I smashed my way through a long line at Starbucks, parting it like the Red Sea, all in an effort to catch the flight that might shorten my already lengthened travel day. My running was pointless, this I should have known. The Charlotte flight was delayed, naturally. I got my ticket at the gate, and saw my seat number. 14E. An optimist would probably think of this middle seat assignment as not one but two opportunities to win the seat lottery. Me, being a pessimist, I knew I’d probably end up being the meat in a human blubber sandwich.

The flight boarded, and I am sure people sat next to me, but I was too busy being unconscious to know, or care. Sometimes the best way to deal with air travel is simply by blacking out. At the very least, it keeps the drink carts cleaner. I’m sure we sat on the runway for a long time before taking off, because the plane landed at Charlotte exactly fifteen minutes before my third flight of the day boarded. The pessimist inside me knew this flight would be the one and only flight of the day that would be on time.

It was. I ran to the gate again, dodging and ducking, bobbing and weaving, and made it with literally one minute to spare. I staggered down the aisle; a sweaty, wild-eyed mess, to the dismay of my seatmate, who instantly realized he was the world’s most recent seat lottery loser. I knew the look he gave me all too well. I shrugged, and promptly fell asleep.

And when I woke up, I was in Providence, the nightmare of this Wednesday/Friday travel day safely behind me.

Of course my luggage never made it, but that’s another story for another day.

The Show that Never Ends is in Chicago today, at the Allstate Arena. One of the best features of this arena is the TV trucks park outside. Another of the best features of this arena is it is located a quarter of a mile from the end of one of the busiest runways at the busiest airport in the world.

Makes for a nice, peaceful day at work, with a huge jet roaring overhead every three minutes or so coming in for a landing.

I stood outside for fifteen minutes, and in that fifteen minutes, I took these pictures:

And finally:

These pictures were taken last Friday on Deals Gap by famed photographer Killboy. There are at least three places on The Dragon where pro photographers stand and shoot pictures of motorcycles (and sometimes women passengers flashing) all day long, which can then be purchased for around $6 each. I’m a fan of supporting the arts, so I purchased a few of Killboy’s pictures.

Of us, not the flashers.

Me and Fiona on Rain Cloud Follows

Jason Tames The Dragon on his BMW Montauk

Abi, Color Coordinated To Match His New Concours

Away We Go!

My epic motorcycle journey continues, this time stopping in Norfolk to visit my brother for a few days. Visiting Virginia is always fun, because I get to channel my ‘inner redneck.’ Of course, my brother, an avid gun lover always seems to help with this channeling.

The Huntin’ Club

Before blowing the crap out of defenseless inanimate objects, we stopped by to visit with the beagles in the hunt club kennel. On slow days at the club, hunters use these beagles for target practice. No, seriously, hunters send the beagles out into the woods to flush out deer on certain hunting days.

After saying goodbye to the puppies, it was time to drive the adventure truck to the secret spot to kill pigeons. Clay pigeons of course.

Eric brought along 125 clay pigeons, 150 shotgun shells, and a few sets of earplugs.

We spent a few hours throwing and shooting clay pigeons. Well, Eric was shooting the clay pigeons, I missed most of them. I also spent a lot of time shooting leaves off the trees, and somehow ending up with empty shells stuck in the shotgun chamber.

Before long, we were out of shells, but that didn’t mean the day was over. Eric, the consummate redneck ambassador brought an entire arsenal of toys to play with.

Oh yeah! This little peashooter is an AR-15, the civilian version of the M-16. It holds gigantic bullets in a clip, and produces an incredibly satisfying BOOM! when the trigger is pulled.

Note the very satisfying dust cloud behind the target.

Oh yeah! Redneck fun at it’s finest!

The rest of the day was spent firing many different caliber handguns, from a 9mm all the way up to a .45.

Having never fired a pistol before, I was surprised at the amount of kickback from these little hand held weapons.

I was also surprised at how hard it was to hit the target, though Eric had no problem in that department.

Then, for the grand finale, my brother took out the big gun. A literally big gun. A Ruger Super Redhawk 44 Magnum with a nine inch barrel and sighting scope. Real manly, ‘Go ahead, make my day, punk.’ stuff. This thing looked like a movie prop, but it was all business, as Eric proved to a poor, defenseless Coke bottle.

Yes, bro, I’ll get the picture of the bottle exploding, don’t worry!

Wow.

Virginia may be for lovers, but it’s also a great place to be a redneck. Rednecks certainly know how to have a good time, and I am glad my brother has become one!