Ham. Ham, everywhere.

Dear Spain,

I like you. I truly do. You’re like Italy, but less mafioso-y. I begrudgingly appreciate how entire cities will shut down so that people can take naps. It’s absolute bullshit, and really annoying for tourists, but y’all are like, “FUCK IT! It’s 1pm. Let’s eat paella for 3 hours.” It’s hard not to be impressed with that level of impracticality. I, too, am weirdly committed to rice.

You have a bazillion types of ham, priced according to how much the pig in question seemed to appreciate the works of Cervantes. You came up with the idea of sangria. You gave us Javier Bardem and Antonio Banderas and Julio-Effing-Iglesias.

You also gave us the Spanish Inquisition, but I’m trying to focus on the good.

The point is, Spain, I can totally get behind you on a lot of stuff, and even excuse some of the batshit crazy things you do (like, seriously, chill out with the mayonnaise. There, I said it). But there is one thing that kept coming up, and it’s absolutely bullshit, and normally I wouldn’t give a shit except for Clayton.

Can we talk about Clayton?

Here he is with Rand at the Alhambra:

He’s quite adorable. Every time I tried to take a picture of him he kind of froze up and got a case of something I affectionately call “constipation face”, and I understand because I do that, too. Constipation face is a global epidemic that no one wants to talk about. We just scream, “LOOK NATURAL,” which, like screaming “RELAX” results in precisely the opposite reaction of what we are seeking. But look how cute he is when he doesn’t know he’s being photographed:

Clayton, at right, with his husband Rob, and yes, they look alike, and yes, they’ve heard it all before.

Now, under normal circumstances I would not be worried about this enormous tattooed gay muscle muffin. He can clearly take care of himself and fell entire forests while in the company of Babe, his Giant Blue Ox. But here’s the thing: Clayton is Canadian.

Have you ever been to Canada? It’s the most polite and unobtrusive country in the entire world. It’s like a giant Minnesota. Where apologizing is a national sport. Where people are so well-mannered that you think you might be hallucinating. Where someone once held a door open for me and then said they were sorry afterwards.

And here’s where the problem arose: Clayton is Canadian, and a vegan. Bless his crazy, protein-deprived heart. He realized that in Spain, this essentially equates to starving (even the water has cheese in it), so he downgraded this to just vegetarianism while we were there. He was compromising. He was being flexible.

This is where you let us down, Spain. Well, not us. (I love ham.) But this is where you let Clayton down, Spain.

And, if I’m to be perfectly honest, it’s where we let Clayton down, too. (But mostly, I’m blaming you.)

Because we went to countless restaurants – tapas bars and cafes and places that were well reviewed – and at most, there was one, maybe two items that Clayton could eat. I don’t mean entrees – I mean actual items.

Have you ever seen a 200+ pound man nibble of a crust of bread and some tomato slices while on the verge of collapsing from low blood sugar? It’s really funny but also sad. Like a sedated panda.  

In our determination to not let him starve (and rest assured, in every single one of these photos, Clayton is starving), we looked up a few places that were recommended by vegetarians. One night, we even splurged and went to a gorgeous rooftop restaurant, and beforehand let the staff know that we had one vegetarian in our midst. That won’t be a problem, they told us.

When we arrived, I mentioned it again, and the server nodded – it wouldn’t be a problem, he said.

“He eats fish, right?”

“What? NO. He’s a vegetarian. He doesn’t eat meat of any kind.”

“Ah, then we don’t have anything for him.”

This happened again and again. Because in Spain, “vegetarian” somehow means you eat fish. Now, as my eating habits and physique will clearly attest, I am no expert on vegetables, but I am pretty fucking sure that salmon isn’t one. Plants grow in the ground, by mechanisms that I’m entirely unclear on (something to do with compost?), and fish can be found in the sea and, if you are in Spain, IN EVERY FUCKING DISH ON THE MENU THAT IS LABELED “VEGETARIAN”.

(Apparently the phrase for an actual vegetarian in Spain is “vegetariano estricto”. All of this is theoretical, of course, because there are no vegetariano estrictos in Spain. They all starved or moved to London.)

“We can make him some risotto,” the waiter said. That was basically what Clayton ate for nearly two weeks. Risotto. Crust of bread. Wait, no, sorry. Not that bread. That bread is actually made of ham.

Oh, and guess what? Clayton doesn’t like risotto.

Clayton, staring at rocks, wondering if that’s what we’re going to force him to eat that evening.

Honestly, we should have left that restaurant then and there. We should have left all of those restaurants then and there. We didn’t. Most of the time, three out of four of us had a nice meal. And that’s just a shitty percentage. That’s our fault.

“You don’t eat meat? Okay, cool. Here’s an animal cooked it its own shell. ENJOY!”

The problem was we had no idea that Clayton was miserable half the time, because he’s so fucking polite. See, Rand and I are Americans. If we go to a restaurant and there’s nothing there that’s acceptable, we leave, but not before flipping over a few tables, dousing them with gasoline, and running around in circles with a match while screaming Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” That is how we gently communicate our displeasure at being inconvenienced.

For fuck’s sake, a major plot point in our country’s fight for independence involves tea. We are not afraid to lose our shit in the name of sustenance.

It wasn’t until Clayton’s husband, Rob (also giant, also tattooed, hunky, polite and Canadian because God is real) let us know that Clayton was having a hard time. Three courses in at dinner one night, he gently informed us. And we realized that most of the time, they were just too polite to make their unhappiness known in a way that we Americans could understand. By the time we caught on, it was too late.

A happy moment before we talked to the waiter and realized that one of us was going to starve.

Later, Clayton would say that he wanted other people to realize that vegetarianism is a viable option. Even if it was just once a month, or once a week. He needed to show them how happy he was – and he couldn’t do that by feeling or being miserable because there wasn’t anything for him to eat. He’s so committed to his cause, he didn’t even complain.

I’m so sorry, Clayton. You deserved better. You deserve sweeping smorgasbords of lentils and falafel and whatever the hell tempeh is. You deserve cookies made with flaxseed eggs and coconut oil. And while I’ve uttered those exact sentences as a threat to people in the past, I say them to you with utmost affection. I hope you never go hungry again.

So I realize that we were part of the problem, Spain, but you also somehow think that turbot is a plant, so a lot of this is on you, too. You need to understand that there are people out there who are, well, good. Really good. They care about animals and the planet and about other humans. And when they have decided to live their life with a commitment to that, you cannot say, “Great, here’s a fish. Its name was Javier and it probably had feelings and a family. ENJOY.”

We need to make those people are happy, because they are really good people. We need to make sure they’ve gotten enough ethically-sourced food to eat. Especially if they are 6-feet tall and mostly made of slow-twitch muscle fibers.

Eating candy underneath a dental clinic sign. As one does.

In anticipation of seeing Clayton again, I’m reading up on how to make lavender and cardamom cupcakes without animal products. You can step up, too, Spain. We did our research, and you let us down. You need to understand that if something can wiggle around and swim away from you and has eyes that IT IS NOT A VEGETABLE. If you don’t want to cater to vegetarians, then say that. Stop pretending that you have options for them because there’s sardines on the menu.

Maybe – and I really can’t believe I’m saying this – MAYBE STOP PUTTING FUCKING HAM IN EVERYTHING.

I don’t mean my order – I love ham.  But you know, consider having some options for the good people out there. For people like Clayton.

Dear Games of Thrones Obsessed Friend,

You know I love you, right? And that I always have? Well, maybe not always. To be honest, when we first met, I sort of found you annoying. But over time, you’ve become someone who I’ve grown to love and tolerate. Someone with whom I can be honest.

And in that spirit of honesty, I have to tell you: I’m never, ever going to watch Game of Thrones.

I know. I know. Clearly I must not know what I’m missing. But here’s the thing: all these characters you keep talking about? The ones you can barely keep straight? I do not care about any of them. Whether they live or die (and it seems like a lot of them die) means absolutely nothing to me, because I am not invested in them at all. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to being a sociopath, and it’s remarkably freeing.

No, I’m not going to tell you whether or not I liked Lord of the Rings. Why? Because there is absolutely no correct answer to that statement. If I say that I didn’t like it, they’ll you’ll say that the show is nothing like LOTR, which is the least persuasive argument ever. You know what else is nothing like Lord of the Rings? Diabetes. And the DMV. And Sex and the City. 

I do not like any of those things, either.

And if I say I do like Lord of the Rings? Then you’ll tell me that Games of Thrones is basically the same thing, except with more sex and gore.

Um, what? Why the hell would that be a selling point for me? What about our history together has led you to believe that the one thing I need more of in my television watching is sex and gore? I ALMOST HAD A PANIC ATTACK WATCHING DAREDEVIL. I made it through two episodes before I gave up and told Rand to only call me if there were any romantic or funny scenes. There were two.

I JUST SPENT HALF MY AFTERNOON WATCHING THIS GIF OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

I do not need to see people impaling their faces on things. Nor do I need to see boobs. I have boobs. And an internet connection. I am up to my boobs in boobs. I just want to see two romantic leads successfully fighting evil and then chastely making out on the couch for HOURS. I would watch the hell out of that.

And we need to talk about all the idiocy that you are spewing out on Facebook. I swear to god, Donald Trump’s bid for the presidential election makes more sense. You can’t believe they killed/attacked/maimed that one character that everyone loved? Seriously? HAVE YOU EVER READ OR WATCHED ANYTHING, EVER? The Wire? The Great Gatsby? A Tale of Two Cities? THE BIBLE? I mean, how did you NOT see that coming?

Then there’s the endless memes. “OMG, you can’t believe that the one actor on the show used to be on something else?”

THAT IS WHAT ACTORS DO. They play different roles. This should not be a revelation on par with the discovery of penicillin. Playing a bit part in Batman Begins and then playing an asshole isn’t that impressive. You know who’s impressive? Daniel Day-Fucking-Lewis. And Gary Oldman. I don’t even recognize them in most of their films. But do you see me clogging up the arteries of Facebook with a bunch of memes about that? NO.

You say the transformations are incredible?

That is called makeup. Anyone can do that. BEHOLD:

Also, calling them by their character’s names even when they aren’t in character is annoying. The only time that’s ever acceptable is with Peter Mayhew, who will always be Chewbacca, no matter what. Because Chewbacca.

Look, I don’t care if the show is so, so good. So is not spending my entire summer on the couch, binge-watching an incestual rapey gorefest. I swear to god, if you mention it one more time, I will go all Khaleesi on your ass. (Also, I had to spend 20 minutes figuring out an appropriate GoT analogy, which is time I could have spent watching my Daredevil kissing gif. I blame you.)

Sincerely,

Geraldine

P.S. – No, this is not like the time I tried to get you to watch Mad Men. This is totally different.

I never directly contacted the company about their crimes against candy. I simply blogged about it, screaming into the ether of the internet like any good lunatic would do.

Because some of the raisins weren’t covered in chocolate. And I just can’t deal with that.

I did not expect Nestlé to actually see my letter. I certainly did not expect a response. (I figure they have more important things to do than answer the incoherent ramblings of a crazy person.)

But today I received this email:

“Wifely adversity”? That is … crap. That’s brilliant.

This might be one of the best customer outreach moves I’ve seen, ever. Well done, Nestlé.

Naturally, I had to send one more reply:

But I think they win this round.

I am writing to you on behalf of my husband, Rand, even though he has disavowed any knowledge of this letter, and refuses to be held accountable for ‘the shit that I do when I am bored.’ But I am certain that he would agree with everything I am about to say.

We need to talk about this, because apparently I don’t have any bigger battles to fight.

Rand is a fan of your product. I assume this is because he lived a strange childhood deprived of both processed sugar and television, and therefore doesn’t know what candy is supposed to taste like. (I, conversely, grew up on pixie sticks, which is an incremental step below actually freebasing sugar.)

My husband is not an indulgent man. He diligently exercises and drinks plain hot water when his throat hurts. Were you to tell me that he is actually from Victorian times, sent to the future to be horrified by the excess of a culture that once gave an honorary degree to a Muppet, I would believe you.

Photo via USA Today. (And they say journalism is dead.)

Consequently, he enjoys Raisinets. He prefers the dark chocolate covered variety, because he’s turning 80 next month and they’re easiest on his gallbladder.

(Rand would like me to note that he’s going to be 36 and his gallbladder is just fine. Which means that he eats Raisinets for the laxative benefits.

Rand would also like me to note that I made up that part about the laxative. But I didn’t.

Rand says, “Yes, you did.”)

I, personally, have strong objections to the presence of raisins in food. There are inherent problems in taking a fruit that is mediocre to begin with, and then leaving it out in the sun until it resembles a tiny mummified testicle. I have enjoyed raisins exactly once, when they were soaked in rum and served alongside a fancy dessert.

Which probably just means that I like rum. And fancy desserts.

But raisins on their own are horrible. And while I have spent long hours trying to understand the development process behind Raisinets, I have trouble imagining it.

“We need ideas for a new type of candy that 98% of the population will find repellent.”
–
“Hmmm … how about a chocolate bar that’s full of raisins?”
–
“Still too appealing.”
–
“We could barely cover each individual raisin with chocolate, so that they sort of look like rabbit turds?”
–
“BINGO.”

Because we live in the great land of America, we often purchase these god-forsaken candies in sacks that, given their size and weight, could also be used to hold back rising waters in low areas where flooding is a risk. I assume that the intent behind this packaging was for customers to ladle the Raisinets directly out of the bag and into their mouth, rendering the nutritional information at back null and void, like our forefathers intended. But because my husband is convinced he’s the protagonist in some Dickensian novel, he just shook a meager few out onto a plate.

He did so the other night, and we both noticed something looked off about these Raisinets, which is a pretty damning statement to make about a candy that looks like something you’d find on the floor of a hamster cage to begin with.

Some of these Raisinets weren’t chocolate covered. Stripped of their coating, they ceased to be Raisinets. They were now simply raisins.

Raisins.

WHAT. THE. HELL.

Can you imagine the sort of carnage that Willy Wonka would unleash if this sort of substandard shit were to come out of his factory? The entire place would be littered with the broken bodies of Oompa Loompas and you’d have a handful of children near death from chocolate-coating asphyxiation, like that woman from Goldfinger.

Some of the raisins were rolling around loose in the bag. Others had affixed themselves to regular Raisinets, the candy equivalent of that creepy guy from Total Recall.

Even my husband, who is one of the 12 people in the continental U.S. who voluntarily buys your product, was horrified.

If he had wanted to eat a bunch of raisins, he might as well have … you know what? I can’t even think of anything comparable because THERE IS NO WAY ANYONE WOULD EVER WANT TO EAT A BUNCH OF RAISINS. You could lock me in a windowless room for days on end with no food, and if you tossed a box of raisins in, I would probably eat them, but slowly and disdainfully, and only after making sure there wasn’t another prisoner I could cannibalize.

And don’t you even think about telling me that “raisins are nature’s candy.”

THAT STATEMENT IS MEANINGLESS. It’s like saying that dysentery is “nature’s hot new celebrity diet” or human testicles are “nature’s cat toy.”

These are naked mole rats:

They sort of resemble pink raisins. I HAVE COME FULL CIRCLE.

THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE THAT. They are evidence that nature needs its driver’s license revoked, because it is clearly huffing paint.

Nature is horrible at almost everything. That’s why on those rare occasions when it does manage to create something of immense beauty – like the Grand Canyon or Beyoncé – we can only sit and marvel with our mouths hanging open.

My original intent in writing to you was to request a small number of replacement Raisinets to make up for those unholy shriveled morsels that had infiltrated the bag we purchased. But I realized that there is absolutely no guarantee that those won’t be subject to the same curse, and also, then we’d have more Raisinets. No one wants that.

So I’m just going to ask you to please, please, improve your quality control standards (such as they are) to make sure this doesn’t happen again to some poor schmuck with similarly terrible taste in candy. My husband eats your product voluntarily. He’s suffered enough.

Warm Regards,

Geraldine

The place was literally falling apart. Whatever. NBD.

–

Dear Vacation Palm Springs,

Hi guys!

I wanted to send you a letter just between us, you know? But since you aren’t answering any of our emails, and it’s pretty obvious you aren’t going to reimburse us for the money we sent you, I figured I’d just drag all our dirty laundry into the middle of the street and air it out here.

It smells a little like sewage, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

We spent a week in one of your rental homes in Palm Springs – a place with the rather cumbersome yet delightful title of Upscale Luxury Tuscany. Now, this name was grammatically troublesome, sure, but my bigger issue was its total inaccuracy. I feel it pertinent to note, Linda Richman style, that the place was neither upscale, nor luxury, nor was it Tuscany.

Maybe it was some sort of ironic thing? Like how I call my mom’s house The Chateau, even though there is usually at least one homeless person sleeping in her garage? If that’s the case, then you should really let people know. I realize that sarcasm is hard to convey in vacation rental listings, but you should really do a better job of communicating that, if that’s your angle.

Because, seriously, there was some crazy catfishing going on in those photos.

In hindsight, I find it charming that I was taking photos of little stains that I was worried we’d be charged for, when the real horror could not be seen.

–

Now, we are, as is evidenced by our eating habits, not a picky bunch. I once sat around my dining room table at 3am with that same group of people, eating lukewarm burgers and everyone talked about how we needed to do stuff like that more often. We ate the hell out of that specious pie I wrote about on Monday.

Similarly, we’re pretty happy with most places at which we stay, provided that the room is commensurate with the price we’re paying. I will sleep in a closet, but damn it, I better be paying closet prices, you know? If I would be better off BUYING an actual closet from IKEA and sleeping in that, then we have a problem.

Based on the pictures we found of your rental, the place looked pretty swank, and the price (a whopping $4k for one week) certainly suggested as much, too. So we went for it.

We were a little worried when we found ourselves driving up the narrow road to our place and realized there was massive construction going on just down the street, which had been conveniently left out of any forms we signed. We shrugged it off and told ourselves that sound waves don’t travel uphill. This was the start of our vacation, mind you, and that sort of self-deceit is necessary to have a good time. It’s the same delusion that you need to think it’s a good idea to pack a bikini when you are rocking a mid-winter body.

At first blush, the house seemed nice enough, a little pricey for what it was, but still quite pleasant. Of course, most houses seem like that at first, even in horror movies. You’re so caught up with how lovely the crown molding is, you neglect to notice that the walls are bleeding.

Anywho, we noticed a few things here and there, and I took my camera and snapped a picture or two, just to make sure we weren’t going to be charged for the damages. A broken picture frame here, a stained chair or four there, blinds that didn’t roll up, and a heated pool that we paid extra for, that didn’t actually heat up.

We fiddled with a few buttons on the control pad, and managed to get the hot tub to heat up, but that was about it.

We inspected our room. Once I removed the mound of decorative pillows from our bed (enough to make a suitable fort – well done. That should be in the brochure), I found that there was a rather odd colored stain on the comforter.

Not pictured: the specious stain we hoped was blood.

–

Again, because I want to illustrate our non-pickiness, here’s the interaction I had with my friends about it:

Me: Um, you guys? There’s a weird stain on our bed.

Rand: What color is it?

Me: Reddish-brown.

Rand: Oh, that’s fine.

Eric: Yeah, it’s probably just blood. If it were brown, well, then we’d have a problem.

Rand: Because brown probably means poo. But red is probably blood. And that’s okay.

I’m pretty sure they high-fived after that, but I can’t quite recall.

So I ignored the please-let-it-be-blood-because-that’s-the-better-alternative stain and took a peek into the bathroom, where I found a large tub of plastic Tupperware that was catching drips from our shower. I note this because later, when we called about the leaking shower, whoever answered the phone tried to claim that this leak had sprung up during our stay, and wasn’t there earlier.

–

Which would have been pretty amazing, because it meant that someone had put the Tupperware there in ANTICIPATION OF A LEAK, which, for the record, is the worst use of clairvoyance, possibly ever.

“Can you see the future?”

“Yes.”

“Aaaand?!”

“I need a piece of Tupperware.”

Then night fell.

Oh, the horrors.

It started slowly at first. Did the little one need changing? No. Did we need to take out the trash? No. Had someone defecated in the middle of the living room? No.

And yet, the smell. It wafted in every evening, filling the living and dining rooms with a rotten sewer smell. We gagged. We lit candles. We stayed close to the ground to avoid it. In the morning, we opened the doors and windows, and we called your repair hotline.

Here is the list of things we noted:

• Numerous fixtures (shower handles, faucets, toilet paper holders) were falling off the wall. Presumably an earlier guest was the Hulk? And had to use the toilet a lot?
  –
• One toilet did not flush. Another sink did not drain. One shower wouldn’t stop leaking (Funny thing about leaky showers. The noise seems almost imperceptible during the day, but at nighttime, some weird amplification happens, and the sound reverberates through the air like a friggin gong.)
  –
• Pervasive smell of sewage throughout the living room and kitchen.
  –
• Heated pool did not heat up.
  –
• Pillow fort kept collapsing (to be fair, this was more our fault than yours.)

On the second day, a plumber was finally sent, and he quietly explained that the couldn’t really fix most of the issues with the place, but he did tighten the fixture on the kitchen sink. And then he left.

And still, the house smelled like a sewer.

The next day, we called your hotline again, and were told that you guys weren’t responsible for things that broke during our stay. We explained that these things seemed to have been going on for a while, to little avail. After much insistence, we got another repair man to come out and fix the leaky shower. The broken toilet and sink remained, well, broken.

And still, the house smelled like a sewer.

We called a third time, because, frankly, we had started to miss the sound of your voice. Someone was finally sent out to fix the pool on our second to last day. They left us a note telling us to stop playing with the buttons, and it was our fault that we’d managed to override the controls.

And still, the house smelled like a sewer.

We requested some sort of refund for our rental. For the broken pool heater, the leaking shower, the busted toilet, the clogged sink, and all the other little issues that popped up. We even left the weird stain out of the discussion, and the fact that our pillow fort kept collapsing.

And of course we mentioned that still, the house smelled like a sewer.

We were told that no refund would be given, but were offered a free late check-out, which we declined, because we’d already paid for that.

And yet, in spite of all of that?

We had a nice time. We had a nice time, because it was all sort of funny, and ridiculous, to be paying $500 a night for such a place. We had a nice time, because guessing as to what the stain on our bed was, and whether or not we could get cholera from it, was sort of morbidly delightful.

We had a nice time, because we are very good at having nice times, wherever we are.

“The other houses in this neighborhood, except for this one, are really nice!” – Rand, pleasantly.

–

And I will say this for the Upscale Luxury Tuscany Rental: there was one good thing about it. There was an excellent mixing bowl in the kitchen. And that seems a risky thing, frankly. When the best thing about your rental is something that a disgruntled travel blogger could very easily shove into her carry-on bag and take with her.

I’m not saying that I did. I’m just saying that if I had, it would have been justified, as I certainly paid for that mixing bowl. I paid dearly for it.

If I had taken it, I mean.

Sincerely,

The Everywhereist

THERE IS A GREMLIN ON THE WING. No, I kid. It’s just a Celica.

–

Dear Alaska Airlines,

Hi! It’s me, Geraldine. You might remember me from such notable trips as AA Flight #476, Seattle to L.A. (the one that was so bumpy, NO SNACKS WERE HANDED OUT, which turned out to be not that big a deal because I spent the evening throwing up, anyway) or last month’s AA Flight #12, Seattle to Boston, during which I could not stop farting (a.k.a., Stinks on a Plane) and also, I lost my camera.

Let me know if that thing turns up, okay? There are some photos on there that I want. In particular, several snapshots of a collage I made of Elvis Presley being eaten by a robotic T-Rex wearing a bow-tie. I used my copy of Alaska Airlines Magazine to create the masterpiece. After all, you said it was mine to keep (also, your editorial staff keeps ignoring my article pitches on how to conceal your farts on cross-country flights. Granted, I am clearly unqualified to speak on that topic.)

I have utterly lost my train of thought.

No, wait, I got it!

I wanted to say thank you. And also, to tell you guys to stop wasting the nice seats on me.

Here’s the deal. On my last flight, I was given seat 17A, the window seat in an exit row. My beloved was sitting across the aisle in 17Q or something like that (the alphabet has never been my strong suit).

As far as riding in coach goes (because let’s face it: people like me do not get upgraded. We embarrass the patricians), my seat was pretty swank. It’s got lots of legroom.

–

I mean, lots of legroom. The seat directly in front of 17A is missing, either intentionally, or as a result of an incident with the Hulk, or maybe the architect was just drunk. That happens sometimes, you know? How else can you explain Antonio Gaudi?

Structure on the top of one of Gaudi’s buildings in Barcelona. Out of context, it looks a wee bit naughty, no?

–

While this seat is highly desirable, it was utterly wasted on me. I’m 5’2″, which isn’t very tall to begin with, but on top of that, I have “disproportionately short legs.” That’s an actual quote from the woman who taught that spin class I went to once and only once (I was emotionally scarred. Also? Spinning is awful. It’s like torture, except that no matter how many secrets you spill, it won’t stop. After I screamed my social security and pin numbers for the fifth time, I was asked to leave).

I don’t even use the 3/4 of an inch of legroom that regular airplane seats have. Even after I shove my bag underneath the seat in front of me (nobody does that, by the way. I’ve been watching), I still have gobs of room. Sometimes, my feet don’t touch the floor. They just dangle, much the way a child’s would.

If it sounds like I’m bragging, it’s because I am, just a weensy bit. It’s not often that a girl with “disproportionately short legs” (seriously, I should get that trademarked) has a leg up on everyone else, you know?

Also, did you notice that pun I just made? Go back and read it again, if you missed it. It’s very clever.

So what did I do with all the space I had on my last flight? I tried slumping down in my seat and extending my legs as far as they would go, just so I could say that I tried to appreciate the gift given to me, but people started staring and pointing.

“What the hell is the girl in 17 A doing?” someone asked.

“I don’t know,” someone else replied. “I think she’s drunk. And she may have designed the plane.”

Also, my extra legroom meant that my bag was waaaay up ahead of me, making it very difficult to reach the cookie I had in there. I finally got to it after we landed, but by then Rand had seen it and I had to share with him.

Stupid matrimony.

I would have much rather had the aisle seat, since I have a weensy bladder and need to get up often, but the guy sitting there thought I was kidding when I said I had too much legroom, and LAUGHED OFF MY REQUEST TO SWAP SEATS.

So I sat there, with my gobs of unused legroom and my full bladder, and tried to think of other things, but then I started obsessively dwelling on the fact that I was in a exit row.

Officially, let me state that I don’t have a problem with sitting in that row (I have clicked many a button confirming this fact while checking in online). You can be damn sure that the second anything goes wrong on a plane, I will be out of my seat and ready to use my pillow as a flotation device. Sometimes I bring my regular pillows into the shower, just to practice.

It’s just that I’m not sure I should be the first person with access to the door in case of an emergency, you know? I’m worried I might jump the gun and try cranking open that sucker in the event of something minor, like when someone gets a paper cut on their copy of US Weekly, or when the beverage cart runs out of Bloody Mary mix.

Plus, I’ve heard that the door weighs 50 pounds. Occasionally, I’ve tried lifting 50 pounds at the gym, and I can definitely do it, but damn – that’s a lot of weight, you know? Sometimes when I’m working out, I have to inspire myself, so I start screaming stuff like, “Don’t worry, fellow passengers, I WILL SAVE YOU ALL,” while bench-pressing.

That gets me almost as many weird looks as the seat slumping I mentioned earlier.

Anywho, please give some thought to the points I made in this letter. I can’t really remember what they were, but it was probably something important.

Sincerely,

Geraldine

P.S. – Please consider handing out more of those Biscoff cookies. Those damn things are delicious.

It seems we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.

I see this as largely your fault, of course. When you saw me quietly sleeping in my chair, you – for reasons that defy logic (Was it curiosity? Thoughtlessness? Demonic possession? I’m leaning towards the latter) – decided to shake the back of my seat vigorously until I woke up.

Now, I’m not one to claim I’m a heavy sleeper. I’ve been woken up by the ticking of a wrist watch before. But kid, I was out. I’d just spent days with my family, who conveniently live under the San Diego airport flight path in an uninsulated bungalow that shakes and trembles every time a plane screeches overhead. Not only will any sleep you get will be in fitful anticipation of the next arrival or departure, but, to add insult to exhaustion, some members of my family wake up at ungodly hours. Kid, did you know there was a 5 am? And that my uncle is almost always awake for it? And, for reasons that escape me, REARRANGING DISHES IN HIS KITCHEN?

Even at your tender age, little blond kid (what are you, eight? nine? At what age are children too old to be considered adorable, but still sticky? Because that’s where you are), I hope you realize how effed up it is for my uncle to be unloading the entirety of his china cabinet before the sun has dared shed light on our corner of the planet.

Between the earth-shaking boom of the planes and the antics of humans under the delusion that they are roosters, by the time Rand and I headed home the day after Thanksgiving, I was knackered.  Exhausted. You can imagine my relief when I found out we were upgraded. Even though we spend roughly 1/3 of all our waking hours in airports, first class is something that eludes us. It is a rare treat when I find that we have plush leather seats and a snack available to us. The second we started to ascend, I was out. Ironic, when you think that this same plane probably woke me up earlier this week.

What’s more, I was having that really good dream I have. The one where I’m at a thrift store, and all the expensive clothes I’ve ever wanted are there, and they’re barely used and super cheap and they’re all in my size! And I get to fill my cart up and the total for all my purchases is something like $15. It’s glorious.

What’s that? NO, it is NOT a stupid dream, KID. And no, it does not suggest that I am materialistic (who the hell taught you that word, but failed to teach you the basics of living in our society? WHO?). It just means that I love a good bargain! It is a wonderful dream, and you woke me from it, just as I was trying on that Madewell jersey blazer that I’ve wanted for months. What’s worse, you did so by shaking my chair like an epileptic in the throes of an orgasm ( … okay, you are far too young for me to have said that. But if your parents let you roam freely around the cabin like an aerial version of Lord of the Flies, I suspect you’ve heard worse.)

Kid, do you know what it is like to be woken up on a plane by being shaken violently? I’m not a nervous flyer, but I was hurled from the golden dew of sleep gasping, convinced that this was, in fact, the end. I was going to die in a hideous plane crash on the day after Thanksgiving, and no one in my family would be able to eat turkey again without weeping (or so I like to think).

Instead, I found, to a mix of relief and annoyance, it was not my imminent doom that woke me, but you. And as I stared at you with bloodshot eyes that sought for an explanation, you merely stared at me, and then proceeded to sneeze in my face before marching up to the front lavatory. You slammed the door shut, did your business, and when you can back down the aisle, you glared at me.

Rand, unaware of what abuses you’d inflicted on me before saw only your face and noted, “Man. That little kid just gave you the look of death.”

Later, when I myself heeded the call of nature, I’d discover that someone had given the bathroom floor a fresh misting of urine. In the interest of fairness, I will allow that it might not have been you, kid. It may have been the gentleman sitting across from me who is at least 50 years of age. But given that he has at least 40 years more experience peeing in toilets than you, I suspect it wasn’t him.

All of that is behind us, now, little blond kid. You returned to your seat one row behind me, next to your exhausted, dozing father. I considered for a brief moment waking him up in the same manner you did to me, but decided to let him sleep. He’s dealt with you every day for the last decade or so, and will deal with you every day for another decade. He needs his rest.

A very cranky Everywhereist (foreground) and the sleeping father of the demon child (background).

–

But while I did not voice my frustration to your father, I still felt it, kid. I was exhausted, yet my body was coursing with the adrenaline that had been released when I thought we were plunging towards the earth (as an aside, having a bunch of adrenaline in a situation like that WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL HOW?). And then something happened, kid, that made me forget all of that.

After we had landed, and we all were waiting to get off the plane, I heard sobbing. I turned around, and saw you wailing – absolutely wailing – while your dad attempted to comfort you. Apparently you had been jabbed in the eye by something (it may have been your little sister, your own fists of which you CLEARLY have no control, or the swift hand of fate. Whatever.) and were in hysterics.

I stared at you, kid, while you sobbed, and I actually felt sorry for your little demonic self. Because no matter how evil we are, how often we shake awake poor, exhausted strangers who have done nothing to us, we’re still human. We’re still squishy and mortal and we need sympathy and love.

Looking at you, kid, I understood this notion. And seeing your exhausted father try to comfort you, I knew that one day you’d understand it, too: that even the most obnoxious of us is fragile and delicate and needs to be hugged and comforted.

So here’s to the less shitty person you will one day be, kid. Until then? Cover your mouth when you sneeze, learn to aim your urine stream, and for the love of all that is holy, don’t wake me up unless the plane is actually crashing.

Actually, you know what? If we are going down, just let me sleep. Thanks.

Sincerely,

The Everywhereist

It's true.

–

I also felt it pertinent to include a post-script or two.

We are not bluffing.

–

I just need to know their president’s address, so I can mail it.

• Air France is operated by primates. And not even smart primates, like the ones on T.V. that smoke and can re-enact scenes from movies. No. Dumb primates.
• Our landlord is a misleading jerk.
• Apartments in Seattle are impossible to find and the stress is causing us to go all Mr. Hyde on one other. Rand said something to me that resulted in guilt so severe, tweeps were apologizing on his behalf. And in retaliation, I cut the crotches out of his boxers (he doesn’t know about that yet – SURPRISE, babe! HAPPY SUCKDAY!)

Sigh. Yes, things were not going well. Last night, Rand told me that he was pretty sure someone had put a hex on him. He told me this over the phone. He should have told me this in person, but, alas, he could not. Because he was stuck in Phoenix. And that gets us to the title of this post.

Lately, there has been a lot of craptacular stuff going on lately, and amidst all of that, I got to thinking about how Alaska Airlines was one of the few things that had not let us down recently (I mean, besides keeping us waiting for hours in San Diego a while back).

And then before I could blink, ALASKA WENT AND LET US DOWN. Rather, it let several thousand people down. And kept them there. Apparently Alaska’s computer system (which they use for their flight plans) failed yesterday morning. So no flight plans. And then, no flights (they canceled 140 of them). Rand was in the air during this time, flying from NOLA to Phoenix, where he would catch a connection to Seattle. And because he was in the air, he ended up being last in line to get rebooked.

When he landed, and found his flight canceled, he discovered the soonest (the absolute soonest!) Alaska could get him back to the Northwest (and not even Seattle, but Portland, no less) was TUESDAY. They expected him to stay THREE GODDAMN DAYS IN PHOENIX. Nevermind that he has to be in another country by Wednesday. Fortunately, Rand was quick on the trigger, and managed to get the last seat on a Southwest Airlines flight (god bless you, Southwest. You do not suck). So he’s coming back today (after a connection in Salt Lake City).

In the meantime, Alaska has been doing a great job of apologizing, but not actually fixing anything. I could wax on and on about how an airline of their size shouldn’t have problems of this nature, but that’s obvious. Alaska messed up. Big time. And Rand was the one who had to pay for it.

I truly hope he’s not cursed, though right now I can understand how having Gold status on Alaska might seem like that. But I have to give him props: Rand has been pretty understanding about the whole thing. Still, I suspect his patience is probably wearing thin by now, and he might be in need of a good laugh.

So in that spirit, Rand, I present Alaska Airline’s apology video for the events that transpired yesterday. It is painfully awkward (especially seeing the guy on the left read the teleprompter as he speaks, and the guy on the right doing his best impersonation of the robot from Lost in Space.) Enjoy.

Okay, I admit it: I’m officially worried about you. This post was going to be another Dick Move!, but when I started to consider things a little more, I switched gears from “blinded by rage” to “concerned about your well-being.”

Seriously, we need to talk.

Have you completely given up?

Because it’s starting to feel like it. When I visited back in the spring with Desiree, I had hoped that the things I witnessed (cranky personnel, jacked-up prices, and a general air of pure hate for mankind) were simply a phase you were going through. I mean, you have gone through phases. Remember this? Or the time you thought you should go back to your original color? Sigh. But we got through that together, didn’t we?

I figured, the next time I see Seattle Center, it will be cheerful and upbeat and back to its old tricks. But that wasn’t the case.

I once again had out-of-town visitors (including Katie and my poor, easily-corrupted cousin) and since none of them had ever visited the Space Needle, it seemed like an obvious excursion. Why? Because people LOVE you, Space Needle. And for some reason, you think that it gives you license to suck.

After waiting in line for a solid 40 minutes (part of which was in a glass corridor- I lack the ability to tell you how heinous that experience was, because the portion of my brain reserved for that sort of thing was COOKED), we finally made it!

No, not to the elevators. Of course not. We had made it to the cheesy promotional photo area! Whoo-hoo! I had been telling everyone that we needed to go all-out for our photo for the better part of our wait in line. It was, I am convinced, the only thing that held us together during the tortuous journey through the infernal glass hallway of doom. It was a promise of hope at the end of our pain, of novelty props and blue-screen backgrounds.

But when we got there, we found that the umbrella props were broken, and we quite literally had to FIGHT WITH THE FRIGGIN STAFF in order to use the other props available – mainly, a salmon and an over-sized Starbucks coffee cup. They grew incredibly impatient at our attempts to enjoy ourselves. They simply wanted us to grumble through the photo move on. Seriously? If want I want a picture of me looking miserable, I can just look at EVERY PHOTO OF ME EVER TAKEN DURING MIDDLE SCHOOL. Why not let folks have a little fun after they’ve cooked part of their brains while …

Wait, what? What’s going on? Anyway …

Now, it would seem logical that the staff would want to rush us through our picture, right? After all, there’s a huge line waiting behind us, slowly baking to death. But guess what? THERE WAS ALSO A LINE IN FRONT OF US.

That’s right. Your staff, dear Space Needle, wanted to rush us through our photo so we could HURRY UP AND WAIT IN ANOTHER LINE. I want you to take a moment to reflect on how little sense that makes.

But again, we waited, now somewhat upset at the scolding we received when attempting to find joy in your bowels, Space Needle. It was at this point, that I began to consider what exactly your hiring practices were. How does a institution like yourself amass a staff that is equal parts apathetic and hateful? You’d think the two ideas would cancel one another out, and YET THEY DIDN’T. I can only imagine the exchanges that happen in your HR department …

“This candidate apparently stabbed his application repeatedly with a ballpoint pen. Also, under last place of employment, he wrote, ‘your mom.'”

“Have him manage the gift shop.”

We eventually made it up to the top, where your employees seem slightly less hateful. Is it the lack of oxygen? Or the fear that if they really piss someone off, they might get tossed down to the bottom? Whatever the case, they seem to loathe humanity less. By comparison, it was like Christmas morning.

Of course, we were packed in with several other hundred tourists … and for what, I’m not exactly sure. $20 a person doesn’t really seem to buy that much. It’s not like you can redeem your ticket for a drink or anything. I just wish that after all the waiting and rushing to get up to the top, it wasn’t such a let down (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?).

You know what would be cool? A slide. Seriously, if you made some sort of slide that took people down to the bottom, I would TOTALLY pay $20 for that.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. We finally made it up to the top, circled around, snapped some photos, and decided to head back down.

So. We. Got. Back. In. Line.

Yeah, you heard me. THERE WAS A FRIGGIN LINE TO GET DOWN, TOO. Honestly, Space Needle, there I times when I think you are fucking with me.

And, because I’m sucker for punishment, I went to the photo kiosk in the gift shop, the scene of our last Dick Move. Why? We wanted to see our photo. Sadly, because we had to rush through it, it wasn’t nearly as awesome as I had envisioned. And for some reason, I’m grimacing. Also, the blue in my shirt was apparently the same color as the blue screen, so there are trees in my abdomen. Whatever.

Seriously, though, how friggin suave is my cousin? Coolest fifteen year old, EVER.

–

On the plus side, you’ve apparently given people the option to download their photos for free, should they decide they don’t want to spend an additional $20 on a low-quality print. So we’ll list that under “Pros”.

As for the “Cons” pile … sigh. There’s a joke there. Something about how one of your cons is that all of your employees are ex-cons. Or something. I don’t know. Like I said, that part of my brain got cooked.

The point is, I’m worried about you, Space Needle. I’m scared you’re going to start drinking too much or carrying on with QWEST field and YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK OF THAT. Just promise me, if you feel you need to talk, you’ll call me. Because despite all the rough times we’ve shared as of late, we’ve had good times, too. Remember senior prom? It was freezing cold and cloudy, but you managed to make that night magical.

And when I was a kid, you were, I swear, the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

So try to suck a little less, okay?

–

Sincerely,

The Everywhereist

–

P.S. – You’ll notice I didn’t even mention your restaurant. You’re welcome.

-P