You Knew: Part One

You knew it had to come to this. You knew, like some psychotic Matt Damon movie that I would be posting this from some fucking hotel room exactly -- I counted them -- forty four storeys above the ground in a seemingly godless place like Osaka, Japan, and that I would be as pissed off as a turd on a mushroom right about now. And you'd be thinking that even I, strong as I like to be seen as, would have become unhinged, shaken to the core, fodder for the white coats.

But you'd be wrong, my unwavering flock. The multitudes of times that you've misunderestimated me still elude me to this very day!

Actually, Japan is quite a pleasant place, as places go. You just couldn't imagine the view from the 44th floor. No, you sure the fuck couldn't imagine it after 16 fucking hours on bus, train, taxi and plane (add in the 23 mindless bureaucrats) and if I can actually arrange the dendrites and axons in my brain to manufacture something that resembles a working human being, I'll tell you why.

Because, my faithful few, all 26 of you, have been waiting, breathless, as you always are, you pleasant ones, the ones whom I live for just to type up what the latest goddamn catastrophe is now.

Well, as I type here, on the 44th floor of this delightful hotel, with the sunlight ghastlily (is that a word?) streaming in, I'm going to tell you how it all went down.

Let's start with names, because I have none. I have to call them "Airport Guy 1, Airport Guy 2, Restaurant Woman B, because I never asked their names, not that they would have given them to some slightly disheveled, unshaven asshole who seemed to have no clue whatsoever what he was doing at any given time.

Montreal: 5:30 a.m. Standing, bewildered, in a line that is not a line -- just a rabble. For an airline that is not an airline, but two. That's because Delta acquired Northwest but Continental fucked United in the ass and that's what I'm looking at in all the moving LCD monitors.

Human being? Get a life. If there was some autopilot they could create to ship you like an XPress Post package they would already have invented.

So first there was Airport Woman, some poor 60-something stranger that was only trying to go home to Phoenix. Then there was Airport Woman #2, who is a P.h.d. at McGill and was busy trying to figure out how to grade papers for her students.

Then there was Immigration. Or lack of it. Security, Immigration, Customs -- does it really matter any more? Does it matter that you have to fill out an entire form to fly through the US of A, present your passport and stand in line for 40 -- count them, I had to type this -- FORTY MINUTES. In a "state-of-the-art New US Terminal Facility", or whatever incredibly stupid euphemism they came up with last week, just to go to a bar somewhere and progress to a FUCKING FLIGHT TO JAPAN? Now we all know why Osama Da Mama brought down the entire Western World. BECAUSE WE STARTED WITH BEING STUPID, AND WE INTEND ON KEEPING ON BEING STUPID.

That's Part One. You'll get Parts Two and 3,000 as I go. That's what I exist for, is your reading pleasure. Buckle in, People, it only gets better from here! Remember, I have to live it in order to type it! All so you didn't!

Uhh, what would a plunge from the 44th floor feel like?