Finding Dustyn
After weeks of “vacation” and not knowing when my next job would be or what my future might hold, I pounced on the opportunity to return to San Jose for a week of work that hardly qualifies as “work” so much as showing off. Almost more importantly, though, this meant I got a weekend of San Fran Shenanigans with my friend Dustyn, the self-declared empress of drama, slang-uage, always being right, and general hullabaloo (and no, she is NOT spoiled… not at all). Departing from the airport in south bend Indiana at about two o’clock in the afternoon, I thought I was in for a relaxing trip to Cali, where people might be crazy but at least the whether is nice. Little did I know that as that plane took off it ascended through every last strata of reason, as we cruised at our cruising altitude we passed through some wormhole into the alternate reality where everything that could go right simply doesn’t, and by the time I stepped off of the plane in Chicago for my layover, I was already stepping into the bowels of hell.
The funny thing about being in hell is that you don’t really realize you are actually in hell, at least not right away. My first clue was when I noticed an imp. In case you are unfamiliar with imps they are the pudgy little hate-mongers with stumpy horns and hayforks that poke you and prod you and baste you with a delicious lemon-pepper sauce whilst you are rotisseried over an open flame at Satan’s BBQ.
In my case, the imp at the airport was cleverly disguised as a portly woman who smelled as though she was about due for her quarterly hose down and de-lousing. One way that I have learned to recognize the agents of the dark side is to watch for an utter lack of manners, respect for human beings, or even common sense. This she-devil demonstrated all three. At this point in my tale I should apologize, for it would seem that I have already lied to you. When I said that this imp, this harbinger of apocalyptic horror, was cleverly disguised, I lied. Aside from the lack of morals, which is sometimes hard to notice in our modern society, she also had grimy sweat on every part of exposed flesh (and there was WAY too much exposed flesh). She had wandering eyes, and not the kind of wandering eyes that focus in on an attractive member of the opposite sex, but the kind of wandering eyes that split up so that one dilated oculus can watch an airplane take off while the other yellowed orb enviously monitors a little boy eating an ice cream cone.
As though these first two clues alone wouldn’t be enough to convince any passer-by that she was a servant of the Morning Star, she actually had stink vapors rising off of her vast surface area. I want you to stop reading this for a minute now and actually take the time to think about that.
Stink Vapors.
If life was a cartoon there would have been squiggly lines over her head. These vapors did not appear as fog or steam like one might expect to see on a cold winter day when you can see your own breath. These were more like the heat distortions that rise up from a hot highway in the summer, the density and temperature differentials in the air that precede mirages and heat stroke related delusions. This of course only adds support to my hypothesis that this woman was not in fact a woman but a being from hell whose inner most core was comprised not of the holy magic we refer to as a soul, but rather of demonic fire that could barely resist consuming her own corpulent vessel of a body.
As I am now running out of creative names to call this imp, I will refer to her as Beshuzu, the name of the demon in “The Exorcist” for the rest of this account. Beshuzu spent at least half an hour harassing the poor girl at the boarding counter trying to get better seats, or some type of assurance that her stand-by status would guarantee her a place on the plane. When she finally got tired of being told no she wandered off towards the smell of micro waved meat in one of the airports restaurants. I happened to notice several mothers clutch their babies tighter as she passed, as though instinctively protecting their offspring from the likes of a hyena, or jackal. As I noticed that I also realized that Beshuzu did in fact have a saber-tooth which supports my hypothesis once again.
Finally my plane started to board passengers. Glancing at my ticket I took note of the fact that I was in seating group 2, meaning that I would be the second group of four called to board the plane. As my group was called I gathered my bag and slowly and politely made my way over to the ambiguous mob that was the end of the line. Seating section three was called while I was still towards the end of the line, but I opted to politely allowed two elderly people and a family with 3 children to go ahead of me in line. As we made our way closer and closer to the front of the line Beshuzu made her obnoxious return. I could hear her before I saw her, and fortunately before I could smell her. She was loudly asking everyone and no one if we were boarding already; if this was the flight to San Jose; Why nobody had told her we were boarding already, and what seating section was in line now. At this point it seems to me that any rational being, any humanoid creature with a soul would simply merge into the end of the line and quietly go about boarding the plane without disturbing the other passengers. Beshuzu has no soul.
Beshuzu took it upon herself to query every one in line, starting near the front of the line, to find out where seating group 3 started, as she was apparently the most important member of seating group 3, and deserved to be at the head of their section. Apparently the family that I had let cut ahead of me in line was actually part of group 3 as well so when she got to them she simply slipped into light with that smug, googly-eyed, hairy-lipped, saber-toothed grin on her face. At this point I considered it my duty as a bastion of decency to correct her mistake before someone got hurt. The problem was that my own rage had become so potent I could hardly think straight. Luckily I still had the clarity of mind to realize that saying something like, “I know what you are you F@#!ING DEMON, and I am going to chop your head off and shove garlic down your throat hole!” isn’t really the way you want go in an airport. Instead I simply said “Excuse me miss, what seating section are you? 3? Oh well I am actually seating section 2… you’ll let me cut ahead of you? No, no thanks. How about instead of me cutting ahead of you, you go to the back of line like everyone else and actually make an attempt to act like a decent human being? Sound good? Okay thanks.”
I never actually saw her board the plane, which causes me to wonder if she even really existed, if her standby seating status was revoked, or if she was stuck being punished for her dark karma in the limbo-esque hell known as O’Hare International Airport. What didn’t realize was that though I may have just stepped out of hell, I was now aboard the aircraft that would torture my every sense until it delivered me a California unlike the one I had visited before. This would be a place that was more closely likened one of Dr. Seuss’s nightmares about Moebius strips.
Finding Dustyn Pt2
As my arduous journey continued, I was unaware that I had yet to encounter my most venomous foe; A beast of epic proportions, eviscerating stench, and pernicious sliminess. Trust me when I tell you that, although I may have exaggerated my description of this ogre’s features, he still possessed a foulness only attainable through many years of determination and commitment to the practice of making other people vomit uncontrollably. Luckily for me I had not had anything to eat for several hours, so the dry heaving was fairly moderate. His epic proportions not only pertained to overall girth, but also to the chubbiness of each individual body part. I am by no means a small man. I have never bean mistaken for an anorexic person, prison camp survivor, or even a marathon participant, but at least I have come to terms with my size, and at least I can still fit in an airline seat without pouring five gallons of gelatinous gut over the armrests on each side of me.
When it comes to matters of fitness I may not live in a glass house, but I certainly have some large windows. So, far be it for me to cast the first stone when it comes to weight. Hygiene however is a wholly separate matter, one that I take quite seriously and cannot help but to scorn others for lacking. I MEAN, IT IS HYGIENE FOR GOD’S SAKE! How can you not brush your teeth? How can you not put on deodorant? How can you not wash your hair or scrub the grime off of your nasty grimy body once in a while? This obese monstrosity of a Sasquatch sitting next to me (and kind of on top of me) stank of hotdogs, and hotdog accoutrements; of body odor, talcum powder, and some type of medicated jelly; of three different variations of wrongness that I don’t think I am allowed to type about on this website, and of that unholy bacteria that only grows in the darkest parts of a public restroom. I don’t know if the food related odors were the result of a preflight snack or if they were possibly emanating from food that had some how missed his mouth and become lodged in his cleavage. I am fairly certain, however, that the other odors were nature’s way of telling me that the sweaty, greasy, primordial ooze, that flowed from his pores, glazed his skin, and saturated the shaggy fur which covered eighty percent of his body, was probably teeming with necrotizing fasciitis as well as a dozen other micro organisms that the CDC would love to study.
Since I was in the window seat I really didn’t have any way of escaping exposure to this terrifying ecosystem of parasites. I managed to choke down several vitamins in the hopes of boosting my immune system enough to prevent any long term infections from setting in. I then tucked myself into the corner of the seat and the window as much as I could, closed my eyes and tried to find my happy place. Finding my happy place was impossible while I was being choked out by the fumes of death, so I decided to turn on the little re-circulated air fan above my seat. At this point I almost broke down and cried.
At this point of my narrative I must pause to express my vehement loathing of the sick, sadistic, money-hungry, inconsiderate, sadistic bastards who are responsible for planning and distributing airplane food. As you continue to read this account you will see why I needed to use the adjective “sadistic” twice. The food served on airplanes has never been anything that I would actually want to pay money for, but at least it used to be FREE, and at least it usually smelled like something edible. Now an in-flight snack will cost you five dollars, and, although you may be presented with the illusion of choices, most of these snack boxes consist of crackers, chips, and the driest cheese available; as if the re-circulated air conditioning wasn’t already enough to dry your mouth to the point of cheek blistering and tongue swelling. Apparently the dry salty food strategy was the devious plan behind four out of five snack boxes. The fifth box was more closely likened to Pandora’s Box. Only, after all of the evil has been let out of Box #5, the only thing left in the box is not hope, but rather despair covered in bile.
Back to my story.
I had just turned on the air conditioner; I had just unleashed the toxic vapors of hell. My face was sprayed with the stench of decaying meat. The aroma was now so thick that my dry heaving returned full force. I had a series of post-traumatic flashbacks to a war in the South Pacific. The strangest part of which, is that I have never fought in a war, and, in fact, I don’t even know where the South Pacific is. At one point the pungency of the putrid odor reached a particularly potent state, and I began to hallucinate that I was surrounded by zombie fish mongers.
Having come to the realization that thinking happy thoughts simply would not improve my dire circumstances at this point, I resigned myself to trying to sleep. Falling asleep was made easy by the lack of oxygen reaching my brain, which was the direct result of not wanting to breathe any more than was absolutely necessary. Passing out was probably my worst tactical blunder yet. I awoke to the announcement that the snack boxes would soon be served. When I opened my eyes they were dry and bloodshot. My head was cocked back, facing the cabin ceiling, and my mouth was agape.
Then I felt it.
Something moved inside my mouth.
At first it was almost unnoticeable because my mouth was so dry and sticky, but something was definitely moving in my mouth. As I snapped to attention, gagging, choking and spitting, the most horrifying aspect of my flight smacked me in the face one more time. Recoiling back into my corner, I realized what it was that had been moving in my mouth and then smacking my face. Apparently, as hairy as the Sasquatch was, he still suffered from male pattern baldness. His remedy for this was a comb-over. About two dozen hairs on the side of his head were grown to about 18” long to cover the top of his massive dome. While I had been sleeping he had also turned on his personal-overhead-re-circulated-air-jet. An air jet just strong enough to blow the aforementioned, sweaty, greasy, pomade coated, dandruff encrusted hair off of his head and set it flapping into my mouth.
At this point my mind possessed only one thought. On an airplane, where explosives, guns, knives and scissors are all forbidden, I needed a spork. I needed a spork to stab Sasquatch in the neck with. I needed a spork to cut my tongue out and scrape the lining from my cheeks. I needed a spork to scratch frantically at my wrists with in hopes of opening a major artery. I began flipping through the airplane magazine to find the descriptions of the snack box options, so that I might find one with the multi-use plastic utensil I needed.
That was when I discovered box number 5, a snack box that includes a pouch of tuna. That was when the last fragile infrastructure of my sanity, strength, and composure was finally shattered. Why, IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS REASONABLE, would anyone put a pouch of stinky fish meat on an airline menu?!?! That was when I broke down and cried; having realized that there was nothing sacred or beautiful left in my world. This was not the kind of crying you do when the supermarket is out of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream. This was the kind of crying you do under the spray of a cold shower, with your clothes on but your pants torn, lying on the floor, in prison. I wept uncontrollably for the rest of the flight I sobbed my way through the airport to baggage claim. My lamentations only intensified when I was informed that my luggage was lost. The tide of my despair began to ebb when I found out that my rental car had a moon-roof. It’s the simple things in life that make me happy, and it’s probably good that this was one of them. Being the macho kind of guy that I am, I wouldn’t want to meet a pretty girl with tears and snot running down my face.
On the drive to San Fran, with the moon-roof open and the radio rocking, I began to feel better. Even when I got lost I didn’t feel too distraught. With the setting sun kissing my cheeks and the warm wind blowing the travel stench out of my hair, I began to feel more and more like a human, and less and less like a refugee from the underworld.
When I finally pulled up in front of Dustyn’s apartment, when I saw her waiting for me, when she hugged me, when we were nothing but smiles, when I was once again assures that beautiful people with beautiful personalities are not yet extinct, a revelation came to me. All of the horrible people, horrible smells and tastes, the horrible things that had touched me, the risk of being contaminated with botulism, all of it, it was all worth it. The simple happiness of such a good friend, and the happy simplicity of being with them, is worth any price.
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