Tis the Season
By Mink
I know it's almost mid-January but I want to tell you how much I enjoyed this winter holiday season. The annual holiday friendliness is always nice (especially on my visits to NY, where somehow the city's standard rudeness is replaced with an aura of cheeriness), but the thing that stood out about this year in particular has to be the unseasonably warm temperatures on the east coast. (I just can't tell you how many elevator conversations I've had about this topic).
But for some reason former Vice President and current meteorologist, Al Gore, seems to believe that this global warming thing is a full-scale disaster. I have to disagree. 70 degrees in January is just glorious. With apologies to my hypothetical grand-kids, I just can't really get all up in arms for something that may harm us in hundreds of years. For now, my pale-ass will enjoy the sun. (This carefree attitude on the global-warming situation pretty much ensures that my last words will feature a variation of "I'm melting.")
With that I will share a few anecdotes and thoughts from my winter break:
I had the pleasure of visiting Los Angeles a couple weeks ago. Now the trip was a blast and highlighted by an Israeli-rave (though I fell asleep due to my jet-lag), a B-list celeb sighting (the older bro from malcolm in the middle), and a trip to Venice Beach (the only jurisdiction in the U.S. where herb smoking is legal. Honestly I have never seen such public smoking, but maybe I am sheltered). The more noteworthy part of the journey, however, was the travel itself. On the way there, I was forced to go stand-by after my first flight to Denver was cancelled due to a blizzard (apparently global warming isn't so global). I ended up sleeping on a bench in Dulles Airport and entertaining myself as I asked airline employees how I could get to Krakozhia.
It turns out that life as a stand-by traveler isn't exactly fun, although by the end of the journey we sort of formed a fraternity of stranded travelers. My favorite activity was rooting for the confirmed travelers to miss their flights, which would obviously open up spots for us. Poor Mrs. Jenkins was standing around the gift shop and didn't hear the final boarding call. When the 60-something-year-old lady in a hot pink jumpsuit finally emerged, she was told that her seat had been given away. The stand-by contingency thereby erupted into a smattering of chants to the tune of "Back of the line, Ms. Jenkins!" I felt kind of bad, but I certainly was leading the chants.
By the end of the trip we hugged mothers, girlfriends and siblings of other stand-byers on our way out of LAX airport. We even planned a 5 year reunion. The whole 19 hour experience seemed like some kind of bizarre reality TV show experience, and I would rank it up there in my top ten worst bodily odor moments. (this could be a future posting if I could remember the other nine).
Following the eventful trip to Cali and a long New Year's weekend of absurdity in NY, I returned to MD, and immediately got into an altercation with a homeless man. Beggars apparently can be choosers. (What the hell is a chooser anyway? Do we ever use that term other than this context? I mean you just never hear: "Zev, are you seriously going to dump this girl just because she insists that at all times you refer to her as 'pumpkin'? Man, you are such a chooser!") The point is a homeless man in downtown Baltimore refused my bagel offer. Granted, it was one of my roommates' gross and overly healthy whole-wheat ones, but it was in a sealed Ziploc and was actually pretty fresh.
Of course his refusal caused quite a scene as a random woman witnessing the event jumped in and started yelling at the "chooser" for declining the carbo snack. The event capped off a rough week between the poor man and myself. Just a few days prior to the bagel incident, the dude also chose to drop his blanket, roll over to his side, pull out his member and urinate inches from my leg as I walked to work.
I know it's almost mid-January but I want to tell you how much I enjoyed this winter holiday season. The annual holiday friendliness is always nice (especially on my visits to NY, where somehow the city's standard rudeness is replaced with an aura of cheeriness), but the thing that stood out about this year in particular has to be the unseasonably warm temperatures on the east coast. (I just can't tell you how many elevator conversations I've had about this topic).
But for some reason former Vice President and current meteorologist, Al Gore, seems to believe that this global warming thing is a full-scale disaster. I have to disagree. 70 degrees in January is just glorious. With apologies to my hypothetical grand-kids, I just can't really get all up in arms for something that may harm us in hundreds of years. For now, my pale-ass will enjoy the sun. (This carefree attitude on the global-warming situation pretty much ensures that my last words will feature a variation of "I'm melting.")
With that I will share a few anecdotes and thoughts from my winter break:
I had the pleasure of visiting Los Angeles a couple weeks ago. Now the trip was a blast and highlighted by an Israeli-rave (though I fell asleep due to my jet-lag), a B-list celeb sighting (the older bro from malcolm in the middle), and a trip to Venice Beach (the only jurisdiction in the U.S. where herb smoking is legal. Honestly I have never seen such public smoking, but maybe I am sheltered). The more noteworthy part of the journey, however, was the travel itself. On the way there, I was forced to go stand-by after my first flight to Denver was cancelled due to a blizzard (apparently global warming isn't so global). I ended up sleeping on a bench in Dulles Airport and entertaining myself as I asked airline employees how I could get to Krakozhia.
It turns out that life as a stand-by traveler isn't exactly fun, although by the end of the journey we sort of formed a fraternity of stranded travelers. My favorite activity was rooting for the confirmed travelers to miss their flights, which would obviously open up spots for us. Poor Mrs. Jenkins was standing around the gift shop and didn't hear the final boarding call. When the 60-something-year-old lady in a hot pink jumpsuit finally emerged, she was told that her seat had been given away. The stand-by contingency thereby erupted into a smattering of chants to the tune of "Back of the line, Ms. Jenkins!" I felt kind of bad, but I certainly was leading the chants.
By the end of the trip we hugged mothers, girlfriends and siblings of other stand-byers on our way out of LAX airport. We even planned a 5 year reunion. The whole 19 hour experience seemed like some kind of bizarre reality TV show experience, and I would rank it up there in my top ten worst bodily odor moments. (this could be a future posting if I could remember the other nine).
Following the eventful trip to Cali and a long New Year's weekend of absurdity in NY, I returned to MD, and immediately got into an altercation with a homeless man. Beggars apparently can be choosers. (What the hell is a chooser anyway? Do we ever use that term other than this context? I mean you just never hear: "Zev, are you seriously going to dump this girl just because she insists that at all times you refer to her as 'pumpkin'? Man, you are such a chooser!") The point is a homeless man in downtown Baltimore refused my bagel offer. Granted, it was one of my roommates' gross and overly healthy whole-wheat ones, but it was in a sealed Ziploc and was actually pretty fresh.
Of course his refusal caused quite a scene as a random woman witnessing the event jumped in and started yelling at the "chooser" for declining the carbo snack. The event capped off a rough week between the poor man and myself. Just a few days prior to the bagel incident, the dude also chose to drop his blanket, roll over to his side, pull out his member and urinate inches from my leg as I walked to work.
posted by The Mink at 3:14 PM
3 Comments:
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LETS GO COLTS!
Just looking out for your readers who were curious about the other top nine bodily odor experiences on the list- I believe a certain fecal matter was smeared onto your chest back in the old Rubin 4th floor days. Not sure at the time where you placed that, possibly top 5. No need to thank me for filling everybody in- I just don't want anyone thinking you're being disingenuous when you post these seemingly crazy things.
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