Friday, July 9, 2010
Boyfriend and I moved into our awesome new place on the 12th of May, and on the 15th, caught a plane back to Tulsa. We were going to visit for two weeks, all the while packing the rest of my transportable things. The trek back to Seattle would be a three day drive. 2,000 miles in three days. We're professionals by now.

Friday night (May 14th) we went out to the guys' show, and had a jolly good time. The guys got to play with one of their buddy bands, so we knew it was going to be a good show. Right before the guys went up on stage, Boyfriend and D gave me their drink tickets, so that I could get them a shot of Fireball Whiskey. It's a cinnamon flavored whiskey. It's amazing. Every time I drink it, I think of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey from Harry Potter, and it makes me smile.


A big, happy, dorky smile.

Later on during their set, I approached the bar only to see a sizable line. I asked an older man in an Hawaiian shirt if it was 'the line for beer.' He looked at my face briefly, but his eyes quickly fell a few inches lower, where most mens usually do, and he said, "I'll buy you that beer."

It was pretty obvious from his slurred speech that he was already three thousand sheets to the wind. I smiled and said, "Thanks, but I'm getting beer for my boyfriend and his band mates."

Still staring at my chest, he said, "I'll buy them beer, too."

And he did. He bought us a pitcher of Guinness, put a cigarette in his mouth and said, "I'm gonna go outside and smoke. Bring me a pint, will you?" I thanked him, got our pitcher and cups, and poured four out before I poured his. Shitty of me, I know, but he was old enough to be my father and he was staring down my shirt pretty steadily for a full minute. So yeah, I made sure me and my guys got beer first.

He'd also thrown down $30 for one pitcher of Guinness. The bartender made change, handed it to me, and I tipped him $3. He seemed confused, as well. When I brought Drunky McOldman his beer, I tried to give him his change. He told me (in the aforementioned slurred speech) that he'd left the extra $18 as a tip for the bartender, since they were taking care of his car keys for him. I told him I'd tipped the bartenders, but I could go back and give them the rest if he wanted me to. He told me to buy us all more beer.

So halfway through the show my guys not only got the cinnamon whiskey they were expecting, but two pitchers of beer they weren't. It was a very happy surprise. I even splurged later and treated Boyfriend and myself to a whiskey and coke while we were waiting for the buddy band to play (my guys played first, they played last.) It was during this time that Boyfriend and I spotted a time traveler. He was quite obviously someone from the 1880's, coming into the future, just to play pinball.


Obviously.

We watched him for the better part of half an hour, and all he ever did was play pinball. No drinking, no smoking, no socializing. Just pinball. Now, the reason he was so fascinating (and why I'm so disappointed in the poor quality of the cell phone picture), is how he was dressed. His hair was combed and slicked to the side, and his mustache was impressive. Not quite Sam Elliot impressive, but still. He was wearing a white shirt with billowing sleeves, suspenders, a form fitting vest (complete with pocket watch chain), and a belt with an empty holster. He had loose fitting cotton pants tucked into black boots. Even his posture seemed out of place. The only conclusion Boyfriend and I could come to was that he must have been a time traveler. After a defeat that had visibly angered him, he checked his pocket watch, and walked outside. Back to his Tardis, I guess.

The buddy band played later and the guys watched with great enthusiasm. The thrashing around in the mosh pit kind. Okay, that was all Boyfriend. I stood in the back of the room by the sound booth, watching the crowd carefully to make sure none of my guys took an elbow to the face. Even with my careful eye on them, Boyfriend took a bad gouge to the eye, which resulted in a pretty wicked red mark that lasted throughout our entire Tulsa visit.


He was so proud.

After the show we went back to G's house, and quickly packed the rest of our things. We borrowed the Ogre for the first trip, and took Boyfriend's car on the second. I had packed our suitcase (we shared one again, just like tour) before the show, so we didn't have to worry about that. We unloaded the perishable food from the car, grabbed the suitcase, and started for the bus station (which is delightfully nearby.) Our plane was scheduled to leave at 9:35, and the bus would drop us at the airport at 8:17, according to the schedule. We stopped at the grocery store to get cash back for the bus fare, and still made it to the station with time to spare. The bus arrived on time, we climbed aboard, and the driver looked at our suitcase and asked, "Airport?"

We took a seat behind the driver, and the bus lurched into motion. We drove through a little bit of downtown Burien, then through a residential area. Within a few minutes, we were driving past the back side of the airport (employee parking, hangers with dismembered planes, etc.) I was looking for the bus stop, but didn't see any of the public side of the airport. Soon we were passing hotels and restaurants. I thought, 'All right, any minute now it'll be our stop.'

Then suddenly, we were back in a residential area. Boyfriend and I were ridiculously tired (we'd been awake for about 20 hours, which included a show for him, and lots of moving of our/his possessions.) So it was understandable that we weren't on our A-game. I checked my phone for the time, and saw that it was 8:26; nine minutes past our scheduled stop time at the airport. I walked up to the driver to ask him, and he stopped his conversation with the pretty jogger that was sitting in the front most seat.

"Oh, no. Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, oh, Lord," he said. He pulled over to the side of the road just then (no bus stop in sight) and handed me two transfers. He told us to cross the street, which bus number we needed to look for, and told us which exit to take once we were on it. Boyfriend and I were spacey and tired (and enjoying people watching too much), and the bus driver was too busy getting his flirt on. Neither party acknowledged our mutual errors. Instead, we simply thanked him, and crossed the street.

I called my dad, explained what happened, and asked him to look up the bus schedule for us. Before he could navigate the site, the bus had arrived. Exactly twenty minutes later, Boyfriend and I got off at the hotel and restaurant saturated bus stop. The airport itself was across the street, behind a train station and airport parking. With less than half an hour to go, we began to run. I know for a fact that some of my habitual readers are 'endowed' with the same 'gifts' that I have. You will sympathize when I tell you that Santiago y Diego were not 'strapped in' for running. I had to jog carefully to keep myself from becoming indecent.

When we finally got into the airport itself, we saw the baggage check line for Southwest wrapping back and forth within it's elastic maze. We'd planned on checking our bag, but luckily it was the smaller of our two suitcases, designed to be carried on. With fifteen minutes to go, we bypassed the baggage check and headed straight for security. Boyfriend wasn't even out of breath. I, however, was frantically removing my shoes, and putting my laptop, bag and purse into their own bins, all while trying to figure out how I could rearrange the bald Cubans in my shirt in a discreet manner to relieve myself of my severe case of quadraboob.


I tried to draw what was going on, but MS Paint crashed, like, three bazillionty times from the abundance of unruly boobies.

Discretion was impossible, since airport security is pretty much paid to look at you. As we were putting everything back in place (except my chest), one of the security guys informed us that our bag needed to be searched.

I knew instantly it was because of some of our toiletries. Sure enough, it was explained to us that we could check our bag, or they could throw away our toiletries, or we could fill out paperwork to have it mailed to us or picked up from the airport at a later date. Considering it was a $3 bottle of hair detangler (Boyfriend and I go through about a gallon a week) and a $5 tub of old lady cold cream, and our plane was going to take off in less than 15 minutes, I tried to hurry the meek little security guy along. He verified twice that we were okay with our toiletries being thrown away before giving us our bag and sending us on our way.

Strangely enough, they let me carry on a super sharp pair of scissors....

Shoes tied, bags slung over shoulders, we started jogging again towards our gate. Which of course, was the very last gate in the terminal. Surprisingly, we weren't the last people on the plane. An old couple we ran past boarded after us, and then a family of five. Still, Boyfriend and I didn't get to sit next to each other on our first flight together. (Grrr!) People didn't even move for the family of five, whose three boys all looked younger than school age. The flight crew even offered free alcohol to people if they would move for the family, but no one did.

Boyfriend was sitting across the aisle from me, doing his best to distract me from how terrified I am of flying. Once the flight attendants had us all strapped in and explained how to survive a crash and taken their seats again for take off, Boyfriend turned in his seat and held my hand.

Luckily, it was a very smooth take off and landing. The flying part doesn't bother me. It's actually pretty cool. But leaving the ground and finding it again scare the shit out of me. We had a short layover in St. Louis, and Boyfriend treated me to ludicrously expensive airport Burger King.

We got to sit next to each other on our very short jaunt from St. Louis to Tulsa, thankfully. Our only legitimate complaint with this flight was the fact that no snacks were served, due to a passenger having a severe peanut allergy. So severe I don't even get my Chips Ahoy 100 calorie snack? You jerk. I'd be angrier, but I'm pretty sure that passenger was the two year old sitting in front of me that I was flirting with/making faces at/playing peek-a-boo with during taxiing.

We landed in Tulsa, and my Brother greeted us at the airport. We didn't have to wait at baggage claim, so headed straight back to my parents' house for a well earned nap before my Mom got off work, and my parents began their ritualistic stuffing of Boyfriend and I with awesome food.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

*LOL* I love it. Santiago and Diego. That's still killing me.

Lori said...

Ha ha! Boyfriend named them while he was still just Friend-that-is-obviously-in-love-with-me. Nowadays he says to them, "Santiago y Diego, mis amigos en su camisa."

Sara Louise said...

I'm very intrigued by the time traveller.

And nothing beats airport Burger King :-)

Heatherly said...

That blog had me laughing! I personally love it when you get free drinks. Those things are so blasted expensive sometimes! I can't wait to try that cinnamon whiskey. Yum!

I have the opposite fear of flying that you do. I LOVE taking off and I don't mind landing at all. It's what happens up in the air that can bother me sometimes.

Casey Robinson said...

Hello Lori! I just wanted to say that I have absolutely fallen in love with your blog! You have such wit and such an entertaining writing style! You've found another follower out of me. I got so far as reading your adventure with finding your new apartment (and the subsequent Super Villainy that it entailed) and I was instantly hooked.

I am very jealous of your writing ability and can only aspire to have half the talent you do at painting a picture. Thanks for this!

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Lori
Seattle, United States
During this course of study, you will come to learn much about the strange eating, sleeping and mating habits of the Instrospective Lori under stress. We will observe as she moves halfway across the country to start a life with her own Captain Wentworth, takes a year off of work to pursue a writing career, and incessantly references Jane Austen.
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