Flight 666 to Hell, Pt. 2

So this is the second part of my story of how I managed to get home despite the best efforts of the airline companies. (Read Part One here).

So now I’m checking into my hotel, which is called the Sleep Inn. I now realize that the reason they call it the Sleep Inn is that sleeping is literally the only thing you can do there. It was not exactly Caesars Palace (or even Caesar’s outhouse for that matter). So I’m checking in at the front desk with the concierge, who is clearly upset that some idiot had the nerve to actually stay at her hotel. I’m pretty sure the only reason this hotel exists is because of the incompetency of Phoenix International Airport. It’s like a love motel, except instead of going there to get screwed by your mistress, you go there to get screwed by US Airways. The only people I ever saw in the building were the workers and one of the other travelers who had missed the Kona flight.

Of course, it was barely past noon at this point, and I was stuck in this place until 11:30 the next morning, so I figured I would make the most of it. Instead of moping around in my hotel room, I was going to go explore an area that I might never come back to, absorb the culture and sights and experience what made this city truly unique. So I went to the hotel bar.

You see, I had no car and my toe still hurt so I didn’t want to walk very far (and even if I did want to walk, apparently nobody in Phoenix has ever heard of sidewalks). So I was restricted to the tourist attractions that were in the immediate vicinity of my hotel bed. As far as I could tell, that consisted of lots of cactuses and dirt. I was sort of hoping to catch a cop in action enforcing one of Arizona’s many racist immigration laws, but I wasn’t that lucky.

So after a drinking for a while, I realized that it was still barely even 3 p.m. Then I tried the hot tub before realizing scalding chlorinated water was probably not the best thing for my bloody toe, and eventually settled for watching TV in my room. Luckily at that moment, Avatar was on HBO, which meant I had a diversion for at least the next four hours. Speaking of which, falling asleep while watching Avatar after drinking is going to lead to some very strange dreams. And for your sake that is as much as I’m going to say about that particular subject.

Anyway, when I woke up I suddenly realized that I hadn’t eaten anything for almost ten hours. Planes don’t give away food for free anymore, even if you are flying at lunch time, as I was. In fact, planes charge you for everything these days. There are now coin slots where the emergency oxygen masks come out. So I looked at the room service menu before quickly deciding that I was not going to pay $25 for a hotel sandwich.

Unfortunately, the only place to eat within walking distance was a Denny’s. Now, I had been at Denny’s only two nights before to say goodbye to a friend. Human beings are not designed to eat at Denny’s more than twice a month, and here I was eating it twice in one week. What made it worse is that I was the only guy in the entire restaurant the whole time I was eating. It was so depressing at one point I just slammed my forehead into my plate of Moons Over My Hammy.

I was so tired from my ordeal that I got home from dinner at 7 and was asleep by 7:30. That is, until my alarm went off one hour later, because I had accidentally set my alarm for 8:30 p.m. instead of a.m., which meant I was running around in a dark hotel room trying to get ready for a shuttle that was not going to leave for another twelve hours. I think it was around this point that what little sanity I had flew out the window (when of course Phoenix air traffic control told it to wait on the runway for another hour).

The next morning I headed down to the lobby to eat the continental breakfast. I love how hotels always brag that they have free continental breakfast. Of course it should be free; all it consists of is stale bagels, generic cereal and a waffle maker that never quite cooks the waffles enough. Plus, considering I was paying $65 for a hotel room I should never have had to rent in the first place, I hardly considered it free.

Finally, I hopped into the shuttle and once again arrived at Phoenix airport to see how they could possibly mess up my travel plans today. Thankfully, aside from some confusion about seating and a last-minute gate change, my plane left without any further problems. Six hours later I finally landed in Kona, where I proceeded to French kiss the tarmac. Sure, I looked like hell since I hadn’t been able to shave or change my clothes in a day, but I was home. But next time I want to travel, I’m riding a donkey. After all, if I have to deal with asses when I travel, it might as well be one that doesn’t talk.

Flight 666 to Hell, Pt. 1

Now, my friends always used to tell me that one day karma would catch up to me for all the horrible things I’ve done and I would end up being struck by lightning, hit by a bus and eaten by a bear at the same time while suffering from syphilis. Unfortunately, this past weekend karma had an even crueler fate in store for me: airline travel.

Now, let’s start off this story where all stories begin: with drunken French people. I was at a party the night before I flew home when one of them accidentally kicked my one healthy big toe and ripped my toenail off. Now, just as a refresher, the same exact thing had already happened to my other toe. So now, I had two gimpy toes and I was about as mobile as a truck with square wheels.

On top of that, the weather, which had been nice all week, decided to turn on me and start snowing. So I’m sitting at a bus stop by myself crying in the snow at 4 in the morning in shorts and slippers with toilet paper wrapped around my toe. You couldn’t have taken a sadder picture unless you threw kittens into a pot of boiling water.

Anyway, I finally get on my US Airways 8 a.m. flight to Phoenix and we begin taxiing to the runway. But while we are sitting on the runway, our pilot comes over the intercom. I’ve been flying often enough to know that it is never a good thing when the pilot comes over the intercom. He never announces anything good, like the flight attendants are giving out free backrubs. No, he is always announcing in the most soothing voice he can muster that something is wrong with the plane, but don’t worry, it is a minor problem. It is always a minor problem. The right engine could be on fire and the left wing could have fallen off over the Pacific Ocean and they would say it was a minor problem.

Anyway, the pilot came on and announced that due to fog in Phoenix, we were not allowed to take off. Instead, we sat on the plane for two hours, and the flight attendants wouldn’t let us recline our chairs or put down our tray tables, because that would upset the airline gods. Now, my connecting flight was supposed to leave Phoenix at 11:45, so with the delay I was cutting it very close. Luckily, or so I thought, we finally took off and it appeared I would still be able to make my flight.

Now, you experienced travelers are laughing heartily to yourself. “Haha,” they are saying. “Nothing ever works out during holiday travel. What a cretin.” Sure enough, we land in Phoenix at 11:30, and it seems like I can still make it. Then, the pilot came on the speakers and announced that they could not find somebody to drive the rampway. After 15 more minutes, the pilot announced that they had found a driver, but the rampway was not working. This is why I like Kona airport, where there is no rampway. They just toss you out of the cabin and onto the tarmac. Sure, you are left on your own to dodge planes and baggage carts, but at least you never get stuck on the plane for 45 minutes, like I was in Phoenix. I swear, if Leslie Nielsen wasn't dead I would have bet money that I was in some sort of bad "Airplane" sequel.

I finally get off the plane, and even though I realized I have a better chance of catching a cold in hell than this flight, I decided to try and make a run for my flight. But whoever designed Phoenix International Airport needs to be stranded on an isolated island with an irritating person, like Robin Williams or Fran Drescher. To get to a different gate area, you have to leave security. And even though my connecting flight was on the same airline, I had to change gate areas. Add to this the fact my toe was limiting my movement, and by the time I get to the gate, the flight had been gone for about an hour.

In a show of maturity and manners, I proceeded to spew strings of expletives and gobs of spittle at the gate attendant while gesturing at them with my bloody slipper, which I still had in my hand because I had not bothered to put it back on since I got molested at the security checkpoint. The gate attendant then told me there wasn’t another flight to Kona until the next day, and told me to call a hotel. Then, as I was walking away, she remarked in a sarcastic tone, “and try to show up on time this time.”

At that point I lost it. What follows is a rough estimation of what I said to her, minus several words that I omitted to keep this post family-friendly:

“Listen up, it’s not like I overslept in my soft bed and waltzed over here an hour late hoping you would make the plane wait for me. I’m late because your airline doesn’t know how to land planes in a little fog and this airport doesn’t have people to drive rampways or organize your gates. I would rather swim all the way to Kona and get eaten by sharks than ride your goddam airline ever again.”

Sure, I’m not proud of this moment. I’m normally a pretty calm guy, but traveling could make Mother Teresa shake a baby. Thankfully, my tirade scared her or something, because she gave me a slip and told me to call the number on it to get a discounted room. So I booked my room, and walked out of the airport when I realized that I had a bigger problem on my hand. I was now going to have to spend the day in… Phoenix.

DUN DUN DUN

To be continued…

Dude, Where's My Car?

So I have spent the past few days shopping around for a GPS unit for my car, since I have become painfully aware in the past few days that I have no sense of direction when it comes to driving in Colorado.

Although in my defense it is not just my fault. As usual, there are women who are mainly to blame. I get lost mainly because these women send me out into the night with a set of directions that skipped an important step. So instead of getting me to the highway, their directions landed me in the middle of an abandoned construction site on a dead-end road. I was certain I was about to get abducted (which makes me think that they knew what they were doing with the directions the whole time).

Whenever I get lost following their directions (which is inevitable), I try to call them, but that rarely helps. You know that stereo-type that men never ask for directions? It isn't because of our egos, it's because we have learned that normally it just gets us lost even worse. Here is a conversation that I had while trying to get instructions from one of them:

Maddie: “Do you see a big house? Or a brick wall?”

Me: “Only a neighborhood filled with them.”

Maddie: “Well it’s right next to… Oooh look at the bunnies!! Do you see the bunnies?”

The next time I tried to call them, I had to sit and listen through about five minutes of screaming since apparently a spider had entered their room. So you can see why I’m thinking of getting a GPS. But from all of my experiences with GPS, I don’t know if they are any better. While I was up in Silverthorne for a birthday party, we tried to find a park to play some whiffle ball (which is way more fun than you would think by the way). Our GPS originally told us that there was a park two miles away. But then in the middle of our drive the GPS told us that our destination was now seven miles away, which either meant that we were playing on a magical floating infield or our GPS was on crack. We followed it anyway, but we started to get suspicious when our route started to take us into the mountains. Sure enough, the GPS had taken us to a National Park, which as it turns out did not have an infield.

It’s better than the GPS brand TomTom, which the aforementioned women have. Not only does it not have some roads in its system and try and get us to turn off of cliffs, but gives all of these directions in a British accent. The last thing I need when I am frustrated behind the wheel is a British accent talking to me. I want a GPS that has Morgan Freeman or Optimus Prime giving me directions. Actually, scratch that, I want Arnold Schwarzenegger giving me my directions.

Arnold GPS: “Get to the exit ramp!! DO IT! DO IT NOW!”

I want to know how the heck GPS works anyway. I mean, is there a satellite orbiting space whose sole job is to track where I am at the moment? I’m not going to lie, considering the negative things I’ve said about NASA, I’m a bit concerned about the government knowing where I’m driving all the time. They might launch a missile at me (of course, this is NASA, so the launch would probably be delayed).

Speaking of people who have a hard time finding their way around, I stumbled upon a story the other day about people who are trying to design a car for blind people. Now I’m not saying this is a bad idea. I’m saying this is a horrible idea. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be blind; of all the disabilities in the world it is the one that seems the worst. But as much as I appreciate that they want to live as normal a life as possible, some people were just not meant to drive, like Lindsay Lohan. I think they are just trying to copy my idea, which is to design a safe car for women (it has no tires or ignition). I mean, knowing I’m driving on the same road as the elderly, teenage girls texting, and drunk people is scary enough. But blind people? I’m not saying they won’t be safe, but how are they supposed to know people are flipping them off in traffic?

What would solve this if somebody invented a car that drove itself, and I could just sit down and listen to music and fall asleep. But until then I think I’m going to stick with the bus.

Meet the Parents

You know I sometimes get asked, “Mitchell, why are you such an idiotic, bumbling, blibberish speaking blob of self-love?” Well, I was reminded of the answer this past week, because my parents were in town.

Now, my parents have not visited me in Boulder since my freshman year almost three years ago. It’s not that they dislike traveling; it’s just that for some reason their plane always seems to get stuck in Las Vegas. In the three years I’ve been up here, they’ve been to Vegas about six times.

Mom: “We really wanted to come and see you, but our connecting flight ran into a flock of geese. Luckily the pilot saved everybody by landing in the Hudson River, but we’re going to be stuck in Vegas.”

Me: “Isn’t that what happened to U.S. Airways flight 1549 in January?”

Mom: “Hold on, I’m trying to win back all the money I’m paying for your darn out of state tuition. Hit me… 23? Dammit!” *click*

But since I didn’t go home this summer, they decided to stop by in Boulder for a few days before going to Vegas. Unfortunately, the Greeley Tribune only makes us work two days a week, so that meant I was going to have to be with them during all of this. It’s not that I don’t like my parents, but when you think about it, there is very little to do in Boulder unless you want to go off and hike and climb and raft, which of course nobody in my family ever wants to do because all of those activities result in death. So my parents were planning on coming up here mainly to drink at bars, but with me along this now put a wrench in their plans.

For instance, when I picked them up from the airport, I asked them what they wanted to do. My mother immediately replied that she wanted to get a massage. I politely asked her if she had really flown 3,000 miles to get a massage, which was not exclusive to Colorado the last time I checked. But she replied that this was a special massage that was not available on the Big Island. It was called cranial sacrum therapy, or cro-magnum sacrial or cromial sagro or something like that. When it comes to the newest health scams, my mother is as gullible as a two-year old on laughing gas. Every time I go home, she is trying some new form of physical therapy or taking some sort of berry powder.

After several days of searching, we found a place that offered this massage, so she made my dad and I also go in. Now, it lasted an hour and cost more than a dollar a minute, so I expected five Swedish models to come out and give me an oil bath. Instead, this lady came in and simply sat there with her hands resting on various parts of my body. Not even pressing hard, just laying them there. I’m assuming that the back relief was supposed to come from taking money out of your wallet and thus improving your posture when you sit down. I couldn’t help but feel like I paid to take a one hour nap. Eliot Spitzer has paid hookers less to do more.

Anyway, we also decided to go into Denver, seeing as all of the things to do in Boulder require avoiding mountain lions or being very high. When we arrived in Denver to visit 16^th Street, I ran into a bit of a problem. Namely, all of the roads were closed. We finally figured out that they were having something called the People’s Fair, which was basically a swap meet on steroids. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of swap meets, mainly because they involve walking around in the hot sun looking at things that people tried to make in their backyard, presumably under the influence of several hallucinogens. Luckily, there was a live band that was pretty good. Their biggest fan was a mentally-challenged (that is the pc term right?) man up in the front that was bouncing around and air-guitaring to the music. As much as I wanted to laugh, I had a suspicious feeling that my roommate Chris and I didn’t look much different at the Eagles concert we went to a few weeks ago.

After the fair, I decided it would be an awesome idea to try and go to Cherry Creek Mall. I say try because I myself have only been to this mall once in my life, and I was getting directions from the two Coloradoans in the car with me and I still got lost. But somehow, I managed to get to the mall while only disobeying about twelve street signs. Then I realized that I probably would have been better off getting lost.

You see, I’m not a big shopper, and large malls scare me. Plus, Cherry Creek is made up mainly of stores that are catered to people who have way more money than me. But for some reason, when women travel they always want to go into malls. It doesn’t matter that every state has them, or that they have all the same stores in them. I mean, they travel all that way, and they end up in Macy’s. Then you have benches full of men waiting outside Macy’s, whose souls are slowly being drained out of their bodies.

Not that the trip wasn’t fun. They got to meet some of my friends, visited at least four different liquor stores, and watched the University of Hawaii softball team make it to the playoffs by upsetting top-seeded Alabama. But detailing the parts that were strange always makes for funnier stories, and there were some strange parts of this visit. Or as my mother said, “Hurry up and graduate so we never have to come here again.”

Shoes On a Plane

On Wednesday night, my roommate and I were sitting peacefully watching TV when all of a sudden the station broke away to an alert. Apparently some guy tried to light a shoe bomb on a plane that was headed for Denver. Of course as with all news, most of it was completely false (except for the “guy” and “plane” parts). This is what actually happened.

So I’m not saying that this guy is off the hook. This idiot did several things wrong. First off, how stupid do you have to be to try and smoke in an airplane bathroom? That’s like the first thing the lady on the speakers tells you when you get on the plane, right after the part about paying in exact change for alcohol. A 5-year-old child who’s been on a round trip flight could tell you that you aren’t supposed to smoke on planes. Plus, any insensitive a**hole that jokes about a bomb on a plane these days should just be tossed off of the plane in midair.

The only problem with this situation is that this guy is a diplomat from a foreign country, so he has diplomatic immunity, which is bull. I mean, supposedly this guy is from a country from Qatar, which clearly does not exist. Or at least I’ve never heard of it. Besides, why would we even need a diplomat from a country called Qatar? I’m tired of the spoiled arrogant sons of Middle Eastern oil sheiks riding their camels around like they own this country. We need to get rid of diplomatic immunity. I don’t care if you have naked pictures of the president, you stay in our country you play by our rules; it’s called “home-field advantage.” The last thing we need are foreign people who can do whatever they want; the next thing you know the French will be running around punching babies in the face, and we can’t have that. One of the babies might punch back and make the Frenchies cry and then they will declare war on babies around the world (and probably lose).

Of course, this guy was lucky he was just held in custody by the air marshals. After what happened at 9/11, this guy is lucky the passengers didn’t beat the brown off of him. If I were the air marshal, I would have cuffed him and then let each passenger on the plane hit him as hard as they want wherever they wanted (I would also highly encourage children and the elderly to aim for the crotch). At least it would be more entertaining than the in-flight movie. Then when we landed I would simply say that he struggled and we had to “forcefully apprehend him.”

But I’m sure this would-be bomber will get what is coming to him. We need to focus on how this happened. I thought that they made you take off your shoes at the gates so we wouldn’t have this problem? (This is also why I always wear slippers to airports. Have you ever heard of a slipper bomber? I didn’t think so). I know that technically he had nothing that would have set off security, but this is why I am encouraging security workers to engage in ruthless racial profiling. I mean, security officials have no problems being jerks. They sure had no problem trying to kick this girl off of a plane for wearing a revealing outfit. They also have no problem kicking off fat people.

Now, I can understand the fat people one, because planes are crowded enough without some guy overflowing onto your armrests. But the chick? For one thing, anyone who thinks that outfit is any more revealing than what people wear everyday needs to move back to the 18^th century. I’ve seen girls wear more revealing outfits to funerals. Besides, I’m sure they could have found some brave guy who would have tolerated her outfit (by that I mean stared at it the entire flight). And I’ve never been on a Southwest flight, but since when are they a “family friendly airline?” What the hell is a family friendly airline anyway? Do they serve applesauce and show cartoons on the monitors? I would argue that planes are not friendly to anyone, and judging by the amount of screaming babies that are always on my flight, they are definitely not “family friendly.”

But I have a business proposition that, as with all of my business propositions, ignores ethics and safety in the hopes of making me very rich. I will start my own airline company that sells round trip tickets for $1. The great part is that I won’t have security, so anyone can get on the plane and bring whatever they want! That way I’ll get all the rejects and not have to pay security guards to sit around and grope people. Also, I can’t guarantee all of the pilots will necessary know how to fly actual planes, per se. They just have to watch Top Gun a few times. I will call it “Sweet Chariot Airlines,” and our motto will be “Taking You Home” (and just to be clear, I mean “home” in a spiritual sense here). We will even let you smoke and light shoe bombs on the plane! But I can’t guarantee the other passengers will.

Drinking On A Jet Plane

The great thing about having neighbors that you know really well is you can steal things from them all the time. For instance, I routinely steal the “New York Times” off the Mosher’s and Ariana’s doormat. In my defense, they are technically stealing it too. They didn’t subscribe to it; yet it randomly appears on the doorstep every day. Besides, they are women so they can’t read anyway; they just put it in their angry parrot’s cage (I’m assuming here that somehow the parrot does know how to read). I of course, do read the “Times” in order to enlighten myself to the goings on of the world around me. Or not. Actually, I just steal the papers for the crosswords.

Anyway, I was searching through one of the papers looking for the crosswords when I came upon an interesting and disturbing story. Apparently, a United Airlines pilot was recently arrested for trying to fly a plane drunk. Luckily, his copilot caught him before he was able to take off with 124 people on board. Of course, the signs were probably pretty obvious. For one thing, he kept singing Elton John’s “Take Me to the Pilot” to the control tower and kept asking why the man outside with the traffic cones was doing the Macarena.

Now, I’m not going to defend this guy. After all, I regularly fly on United, and they don’t let me get drunk on planes and if there is anything I don’t stand for, it is double standards. But let’s consider some of the facts. He was taking off from London (where there is nothing to do but drink because the weather outside sucks) and was going to land in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport (which was designed by people clearly also under the influence of alcohol). Besides, what is he going to hit up there? It’s not like driving a car drunk, when evil trees and road signs can leap out at you and hit your car. Speaking of being in the air, do you think that the pilot was drinking Skyy Vodka? (If you were even slightly amused by that pun, you need to find the highest point near you and jump off of it now head first.)

According to the article, many people are now starting to really become concerned with what pilots are really doing during flights. I am not one of these people. I have way more important things to be worried about than what two men locked for hours alone in a small room called a “cock pit” are doing. For instance, my roommate and I are fairly confident that there is a pumpkin rotting somewhere in our house, but neither of us can remember for the life of us where we put it. Anyway, apparently last month, two pilots overshot Minneapolis by an hour because they were doing things on their laptop. I bet they were Twittering too.

Bob: “Kicking back in the cockpit. Almost to St. Louis.” (an hour ago)

Bob: “Wait, the flight is to Minneapolis?” (almost a minute ago)

Bob: “Oh s**t.” (five seconds ago)

Of course, there probably is an alternative explanation. For one, I’m pretty sure they just didn’t want to go to Minnesota. I bet when they announced that they overshot Minnesota over the loud speaker, the entire plane cheered. I mean, I have been on flights that have lasted for eight hours. That’s a lot of time to just sit in a chair and stare at the sky. And they don’t even get to watch the stupid in-flight movie (today’s movie: “Gigli”). I heard that these planes fly themselves anyway; the pilots could probably drink and sober up in time to greet the passengers leaving to take credit for staring at a computer doing all of the actual work.

But that is still no excuse for these pilots to drink. Thousands of people pay good money and get sexually harassed by airport security to put their lives in the hands of these people. When I fly, I don’t expect my final destination to be the scene of the crash. There are plenty of other jobs where drinking on the job is acceptable, like surgeons or prime minister of Russia.

Believe it or not, at one point I wanted to be a pilot. Of course by “I” I mean “my parents.” I frankly don’t like flying much. But my parents figured if I was a pilot that they could fly around the world for free. Or at least to Vegas. It’s not like they don’t go there now anyways; since I’ve been up here they’ve visited me once and gone to Las Vegas five times. But the less money they lose on plane tickets the more money they can lose at the crap tables. In fact, that is also the reason my parents wanted me to go to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, work as a dealer, or become a Vegas prostitute.

Anyways, back to my main point, which was… well I don’t really have a main point. I rarely do. But as far as planes, knowing my pilots are drunk is not going to stop me from flying. Mainly because I live on an island. If there was a boat I would take the boat. At least on the boat back home I could bask on the deck and stare at women in bikinis. Whereas normally wearing bikinis on a plane is frowned upon. Or at least it is when I do it; they might not be as opposed to it if I were a hot woman. Which is once again evidence of the sexist attitudes that make this country great. Speaking of which, I’m going to go steal wireless internet from the neighbors.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto

I have to be honest, there are a few times that I wish I was my sister. Like that one time I got caught with Hillary Duff on my search history… Anyway, right now is one of those times, because my sister is currently running around in Japan. That’s right, Japan: land of short pasty people with bad teeth and horrible weather. Wait, no that’s England. My bad, Japan is home to short pasty people with bad teeth and decent weather.

Okay, so I’m being a little bitter, I actually love Japan. I’ve been there three times, and I’ve had fun all three times. Japan truly combines all of the positives of traveling to a different country (exotic hotels, great food, lower drinking ages) with none of the drawbacks you often encounter on trips to other foreign countries (French people).

With that said, Japan is definitely a foreign country. It’s not like Canada, where the only real difference is that everybody adds an “eh” onto the end of their sentences and it’s suddenly okay to openly like Celine Dion. The second you step off the plane in Japan, you are instantly aware of the fact that, as Dorothy so eloquently put it, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in AHHHH!!!” At that point, Dorothy was run over by a mob of Japanese business men in a rush to get off of the plane. As you will quickly realize, people in Japan really want to get to wherever they are going. This becomes painfully obvious when you attempt to get around via public transportation, which takes pride in being on time. In Japan, when they say the train leaves at noon, the train will leave at noon, even if there are business men currently stuck in their doors because they were only at the stop for five seconds. Slow people like me spend most of their trip looking at the back of the trains they were supposed to catch (coincidentally, all of the English ads are on the back of buses in Japan).

Anyway, once you somehow figure out how to get around, you can get a feel for the Japanese people. The first thing you notice is that Japanese people are ridiculously polite and bow a lot. Of course, there is a certain etiquette to bowing, but as an ignorant American, the best you can hope to do is just keep randomly bowing like some kind of drunken weeble-wobble doll. But as polite as they are, it turns out that Japanese people (prepare yourself) speak Japanese. This is inconvenient, because Japanese is not English, which is what I supposedly speak most of the time. Luckily I took three years of Japanese in high school, so I was able to (with awestruck fellow Americans watching) order my food at a Japanese restaurant:

Me: “I’ll order THIS.” (Points randomly at Japanese words on menu.)

Okay, so I actually know absolutely nothing about Japanese. The only thing I learned from my three years of Japanese is that my Japanese teacher hates me. So to get past the language barrier I just speak slowly and pronounce key words really loud and gesture randomly a lot with my hands, which would work if they were deaf or retarded but doesn’t help much with Japanese. When it comes to ordering food at restaurants without pictures, we employed the strategy of pointing at random words and hoping the food was good. This is of course how we end up with a dinner consisting of five different types of ice cream, ten beers, and one actual entrée (which was liver). We also confused the waiter when we apparently were pointing at words that actually said “Breakfast served until 11 am.”

Speaking of which, another great thing about Japan is their vending machines. Japanese currency is very coin intensive, and by the end of the day your pants are around your heels because of all the coins you have to put in your pocket. So to alleviate you of all those pesky coins, the Japanese put vending machines every five feet everywhere in the country, and they sell everything from drinks to food to cameras. But I’ll give you three guesses as to what my favorite vending machines sell. I’ll give you a hint; it rhymes with “beer” (no, not deer, although there are numerous deer parks throughout Japan where you can be molested by overly aggressive and hungry deer).

Anyways, these machines are great, because they sell beer and can’t check IDs. The only thing is that they stop working after midnight, which is information that I probably could have used before my trip. I looked like some kind of degenerate gambler at the Vegas slots, just muttering to myself and trying to put coins into the slot until I got frustrated and just sat down on the ground and cried to myself. You also have to be careful, because they don’t let you wear shoes indoors and so they give you these little indoor slippers that never fit and fall off if you lift your feet. This means you will be hung over and shuffling your feet and leaving a winding trail of small fires on their tatami mats.

So most of you are saying to yourselves “Mitchell, you said Japan was great, yet you’ve done nothing but complain about Japan. The only positive you’ve written about is beer in vending machines.” In response, I would like to again reiterate, this is beer. In a vending machine. Yeah, there are other great things about Japan like culture, history, blah blah blah blah beer in vending machines. But if you insist on getting a feel for what the “natives” do there, go to a karaoke bar and convince the drunkest Japanese person there to sing Elvis Pressley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” What follows will inspire you to the point of tears (trust me; I’ve seen it in person):

“But I can’t herrup, farring in ruv, wiz YOUUUUU….”

Texas: It Should Be A Whole 'Nother Country

So as you could probably tell by the collective sound of groaning across the country on Monday, spring break recently came to an end. Students around the country had to come back from home or some tropical beach somewhere and go back to pretending to care about things like chemistry. Like many students, I went on a trip, and like many students, I spent that trip surrounded by Mexicans. That’s right: I went to Texas.

Let me explain what an Asian guy from Hawaii in shorts and slippers was doing in Texas. I decided to join my family and head down to Texas to visit my dad’s step-brothers and their families in San Antonio. As with all trips, it seemed like a good idea when we were planning it. Since my step-uncles dislike venturing outside of Texas, I haven’t seen them in over 15 years and I have never seen their families.

As soon as we got to Texas, I realized why we had never made a visit before. My dad and I instantly became confused by the road system, and simple ten minute drives became long sightseeing tours. Whoever designed mainland roads clearly didn’t like people. There are so many different types of roads: interstates, routes, highways, farm-to-market roads (whatever those are) and they all are just numbered in some illogical order that means you go from I-10 to I-410 to F.M 1976, plus each one actually has an east road and a north road plus they don’t label their exits well and people don’t know how to drive and are going 80 miles an hour AND IT CAN GET A LITTLE FRUSTRATING OKAY?! I’M NOT YELLING!!! I DON’T HAVE ROAD RAGE!! Sorry about that. It’s just that back home on the Big Island driving is much simpler. There is only one highway, and you just drive along at a brisk 35 miles an hour until you see your destination, when you just turn. Plus we name our highways things like Mamalahoa and Napoopoo, so they’re easy to remember (and it’s fun to watch tourists try to pronounce them). Whereas on the mainland, when you see your destination, it’s always on the wrong side of the road or it’s on a one-way road going the wrong way, so you have to drive ten minutes in the opposite direction before you finally get on the right road, where you get to drive another ten minutes to finally get there (and don’t get me started on the parking).

But anyway, once we figured out how to get around, we decided to go see the sights of San Antonio. Whatever those are. We tried the Riverwalk, but the crowds freaked out my step-uncle, who lives with his wife and dog on a 64 acre-piece of land in a pile of bushes called Junction, Texas, where the number of Chevy trucks outnumber the people. Besides, the Riverwalk is a scam. It’s not even a natural river. It’s like if I were to dig a hole in my backyard, open a shop and restaurant, play music and call it the Big Ditch Center. We did get to see the Alamo, the famous building where a band of outnumbered Texas soldiers bravely stood their ground as they were slaughtered by a large throng of tourists, and trust me, they are still there today (the tourists that is, the soldiers are dead). Still, it was an awe-inspiring moment to turn the corner and look upon the mighty Alamo, and exclaim, “That’s IT?!” As it turns out, the Alamo is a little hole in the wall (literally, it’s a wall, and in the wall there’s a hole) in the middle of a business area. I was more impressed by the Haagen-Daas across the street. It’s hard to see how a pile of bricks inspired one of the best known battle cries of the day (“Let’s Go Spurs!”).

So, having seen everything in San Antonio, we decided to look at some other parts of Texas. That’s when we discovered another thing about Texas: Everything is really far apart. Coming from a small island where four hours driving takes you in a complete circle around the island (and we’re the Big Island, imagine the smaller ones), we were unable to comprehend the concept of driving four hours one way to go see some old rockets in Houston (which is what we did).

Of course, the long drives were good for somebody. My sister, being a girl, wanted to see deer and armadillos. So you can imagine her joy when she saw tons of them… splattered on the side of the road. My dad and I played guess the road kill whenever we were on long drives (among other things we saw deer, armadillos, possums, porcupines, cats, raccoons, and the remains of several Dallas Cowboys).

“Hey, that looks like a deer.”

“Hey, there’s another over there… oh wait, that’s the other half.”

My mother of course decided that she wanted to get a picture of the dead animals, and asked us to pull over so we could see them. However, the rest of the car decided that we did not want to walk around next to a busy interstate long enough to join Bambi as the special of the day at the Alamo Café, so as usual we ignored her and kept driving.

Overall, Texas was an interesting experience, and I got to see the family, so that was nice. But the best thing about the trip is that we don’t need to visit for another 15 years at least. Now it’s their turn to come to Hawaii. Here’s hoping they have a little less trouble navigating the Queen Kaahumanu Highway than we did I-10 East.

F**k the Friendly Skies

Do you know what my favorite thing about the holidays is? Winter break. Yeah, sure Christmas is nice, but it really lost most of its luster when a friend told me last week that Santa doesn’t exist. Besides, the whole winter wonderland vibe is overrated, which is why I was excited about winter break. I would be leaving cold Colorado, where I could count the temperature in degrees on my fingers (which isn’t saying much, especially since three of my fingers fell of due to frostbite and I can only count to four anyway) Hawaii, on the other hand, would be 75 degrees and sunny even in an ice age.

So needless to say, after I woke up and walked out of my last final I was pretty happy about going back. There was just one thing I was dreading: flying. Hawaii, as you would see on a map, is in a box in the middle of the Pacific Ocean along with Alaska. So to get to Hawaii from Colorado, I would have to take an eight hour plane flight. Now, let me clarify why I do not like flying. By all reasoning I should love flying. I mean, I love sitting for hours and not moving and drifting in and out of consciousness, and being from Hawaii I fly a lot. Normally, I just fall asleep for the whole flight. The reason I don’t like flying is people. Something about traveling turns regular people into crazed lunatics waving their luggage tags at you.

When I fly back to Hawaii, most of the people I fly back with are families or couples going on vacation. They’ve probably planned this trip for months, a chance to bond and have the time of their lives in paradise. Needless to say, by the time they get to the gate they are foaming at the mouth and on the verge of killing each other (and nobody would stop them because they are in arguments of their own). It starts out with Dad forgetting where he put the boarding pass, then Bobby realizes he didn’t pack Molly’s slippers and then Mom wants to shop at the duty free shop but we don’t have time because our flight is here already and then we rush to the gate but now it’s delayed and Jimmy stop bothering Amanda I don’t care if she started it and now our gate is changed and you Mr. Airplane person what do you mean you lost our luggage and no, we don’t have a window seat EVERY BODY SHUT UP! OKAY! WE ARE HERE TO HAVE FUN GODDAMIT!

Then there is security. When I came back I only had a backpack and I was wearing rubber slippers, so the screening was easy for me. But the security procedures can get complicated. At one point, they held my ID under one of those blue lights they use in CSI. I don’t know what they expected to find. Semen? (Not that there was any on mine). It doesn’t get any better when you get on the plane. With airlines charging for baggage, people have resorted to carrying on as much baggage as they can. It is no longer unusual for a person to walk onto a plane carrying, for instance, recreational vehicles. And of course, they stand in the isle for days holding up the line trying to fit their carry on into the overhead compartments even though everyone else on the plane can tell it will not fit (there is a “she said” joke somewhere in there).

Once everyone is finally seated (allow two to three days), the plane finally takes off. Unfortunately, airlines have started charging for things that used to be free, such as food, headphones for your in-flight crappy movie (mine was Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2), pillows, drinks, air, life vests, etc. But it could be worse. You could be the DeMaltha High School basketball team. The team, on their way from Maryland to a tournament on Oahu consisted of about twenty players and coaches on my flight from Denver. Not one of them was shorter than six feet, and they had been traveling for the better part of two days. If you want to see what a person looks like when their body is still living but their soul has died, you should have seen these poor kids. They looked like they just wanted to die. One of the taller ones, a lanky kid around 6’5’’, walked around the isles almost the entire flight (now you know why it’s so hard to play the University of Hawaii at home).

TANGENT ALERT: Over Thanksgiving break I saw the movie “Soul Plane,” which is quite possibly the worst movie ever made. What made it worse is that we watched it on YouTube in ten segments. Which means that ten separate times, we made a conscious decision to keep watching it. One day when I die and stand before the gates of heaven, I will have to answer for this. Anyway, the plot (if you could call it that) is that this guy tries to make his own airline that runs the way he wants. The plane had bars, clubs, sofas, and hot flight attendants. If I ever become rich, I plan to have a plane built for me exactly as in the movie. In fact, I will run for President solely for the purpose of pimping Air Force One.

But I digress. Our plane finally landed in Honolulu. Eight hours of hell, but we’re here in paradise. It was all worth it, right? Do you know what the first thing we smelled as we walked through the moving tunnel? Mildew. Apparently it had rained really hard that day so the carpet got wet and moldy, and it smelled pretty dank (think that’s bad? Kona airport doesn’t even have those tunnel things; you just walk down the stairs onto the tarmac). Well at least the weather is nice… oh wait, did I mention rain? So needless to say, I saw some disappointed tourists.

But not me. After another thirty-minute connecting flight, I was home! And do you know what the first thing I did after nine hours of sitting in a chair and sleeping? I went straight to bed.