Traveling Sucks

Flying to a different city each week gets really old sometimes. And some weeks are much worse than others, depending on a variety of factors.

Take transportation for example. I landed in Baltimore Wednesday night around 8 pm looking foward to getting to my hotel as quickly as possible after a really long day in airplanes. So I bopped down to the Super Shuttle desk to wait for my ride to the Hilton in Pikesville (burby area westside of Baltimore). After 45 minutes, the driver shows up, and I get in the van and join two other passengers. The driver pulls out from the airport and slowly pulls onto the interstate- and I mean slowly. He's going about 40 miles an hour on the Beltway. With his brights on. And drifting to and fro like the white lines have grown kinks. I look at the military-looking guy sitting next to me with alarm, and he returns the expression with an added shrug, but he does ask the driver if it's possible to speed it up a bit. So the driver complies for a few minutes, until he forgets, and slows down again, while resuming his game of 'hit me if you can' with the other cars on the freeway. At one point, as I'm looking at the rearview mirrow at the driver, I notice his eyes begin to close like he's about to fall asleep...

So in a panic, I clap my hands next to his head (I'm sitting right behind him) to wake him up and shout "what the hell is wrong with you?!" He spins around and yells, "What are you doing?! I'm trying to pay attention to get you people where you need to go!" To which I reply, "Well, you're OBVIOUSLY not doing such a great job of that, and how much does it take to go the speed limit and stay between the lines?" By the way, at this point I'm only getting support from the guy sitting next to me, the other passenger has been in the back of the van talking on his cellphone the whole time (in Russian), seemingly oblivious to the current situation.

So I'm getting completely freaked out and I start whispering with the guy sitting next to me about what to do, and as we're trying to devise a plan, the driver has just gone through a toll booth, and is now driving in reverse (still on the freeway by the way), to our horror and the irritation of a few semi's that blare their horns at us as they nearly jackknife to avoid us. Evidently, he was too far to the left to get off at the exit he was looking for, so he went past it, but decided it would be more convenient to just pop it into reverse and get off that way. So I'm in a real panic now, heart thumping, wildly looking for a gas station or anywhere to get off this Shuttle from Hell, but there is nothing, and I have no clue where we are (and neither does the guy next to me- I asked him if he knew and he told me he'd just moved to Baltimore a week ago...yeesh).

So, we are now driving through this dark industrial wharf area at about ten miles an hour, and I've begun to try to dig my cellphone out of my bag to call 911 because I've become convinced that the driver is going to rob us, and then kill us in brutal Quentin Tarantino style...but alas, the blob in the back pipes up to tell the driver he's missed his turn. So the Russian guy lives on one of the boats in this scary place. He gets out and while the driver is out back pulling his luggage free, me and the other guy are furiously whispering about what exactly is wrong with our driver, and how do we get out of this in one piece. We don't get much worked out (other than that soldier boy will kick his ass if he doesn't get his act together), and next thing I know, we're back on the road heading to where soldier boy lives. I'm still on the lookout for semi-safe looking places to get out, but we're back on the interstate...and more of the same, but I'm actually a little relieved that he's not going to chop us into little pieces, but that he's just drunk or high, and dying in a crumpled and blazing automobile is sooo much better...

Anyway, to wrap this story up, I ended up getting off before my stop and calling a cab to take me to the Hilton. So, the lesson here is, well, don't hire Super Shuttle in Baltimore.

Okay, not really, there's actually no lesson here, because you can't plan for everything, and you can only control how you react to a situation that's beyond your control. Which anyone who travels often knows, much of what you encounter traveling is beyond your control. The lady who insisted on bathing in Chanel before boarding the plane, the asshole who takes up a whole overhead bin with his too large luggage, the other asshole sitting in front of you who throws his seat back with little warning, the stupid automated toilet flusher in all the airport bathrooms now that flush before you've had a chance to get off the pot (I really hate this one- more on this later), the taxi driver who's windows advertise that he takes credit cards, but when you try to pay with one, the swipey machine is conveniently broken, the bitch at the reception desk who doesn't care that you've paid 161.00 a night for the room, the stupid blanket on the bed that's not even fit for a hobo, and on and on and on....

Now, the best solution I've ever heard for most of these problems and more: a squirt gun.

Yep.

That suggestion was from Brad, who is convinced that a little pfft pfft action from a five and dime squirt gun is the only tool you need to deal with the assholes of the world. Picture it: you arrive at your hotel and the twat at reception can't "find" your reservation (because those assholes routinely overbook), so you just pull out your trusty squirt gun from your pocket and pfft pfft right on her forehead, and voila! after a few seconds of stammering and confusion, your reservation has miraculoulsly appeared.

I wish I'd had one to use on the Super Shuttle driver... But, I don't recommend you use this on everyone; the guy in the seat in front of you on the plane is okay, but the flight attendant...not so much. Unless you want to be frog-marched on CNN.

Also, it won't work on those dumb automatic toilet flushers. Actually it will make it worse.

God, I hope the Birmingham trip next week goes better.