Pictured: Rand, the best person on this plane. Also pictured: Dude in headphones who screamed when people got too close to him.

I have this terrible habit of assuming that most people are generally good, contributing members of society, and not bat-shit barely-functioning assholes. Every now and then we may deviate from this norm (I once woke up angry with Rand because he’d done something to piss me off in a dream) but for the most part we adhere to a social contract that requires us to at least pretend that we’re simply scratching our nose when we are actually digging around for boogers.

And while I have seen all manner of weird things while on the road, I can safely say that nothing compares to what I saw on the Southwest flight that Rand and I took from Albuquerque to San Diego.

Generally, I don’t fly Southwest because I don’t hate myself. I fly Alaska Airlines, and the delta (ha!) between the two airlines is the same one that exists between Donald Trump and Obama: on some level, these two things are fundamentally the same (men who have held the office of president; commercial airlines) – but seriously, fuck no. No way. These things are not the same. One will get you where you need to go and the other is probably going to get us all killed OH GOD HOW DID THIS HAPPEN.

Ahem.

Anyway, Alaska’s big flaw is that they don’t really operate anywhere but the Pacific Northwest. Outside of the west coast, everyone assumes flying Alaska Air means you are from Alaska. They inevitably start asking questions, and I’m too embarrassed to admit I’m from Seattle so I just say things like “YES PENGUIN MEAT IS DELICIOUS”.

For those of you who are itching to point out that there are no penguins in Alaska: that is not the biggest problem you should have with that sentence.

ANYWAY.

Southwest does not have assigned seating. I mean, I’ve been to movie theaters that have assigned seating. It the cornerstone of any functioning society. It is what separates us from the Italians. Remove it, and people start strangling one another for free t-shirts. I’ve seen it.

Instead, Southwest is a fucking free-for-all. First come, first served. And that is where I think the root of all appalling behavior on Southwest flights originates.

Rand paid extra to have us board in an early group, because Southwest isn’t going to let its running-of-the-bulls-but-with-children-and-old-people-and-carry-ons seating structure stop them from having a social hierarchy.

I should note that the crew was actually lovely. But they are still part of this evil empire so I blame them, too. Sometimes the devil brings you ginger ale.

We boarded, and the crew announced that there was plenty of room on this flight, which meant that everyone became Gollum, screaming “MY PRECIOUS” while lying across an entire row. I’ve seen this tactic before.

Other people go the more passive aggressive route: they wear paper masks over their faces, despite showing no discernible signs of illness, to frighten away hypochondriacs.

Or they just act like assholes, which seemed to be the school of thought that most of the people on this flight adhered to.

We boarded, and as Rand was graciously putting my carry-on in the overhead, I guess he took a second too long to do it, because some woman passed him and said haughtily, “Uh, they check bags for free.”

OH SHIT, REALLY, LADY? THEY DO? Sorry I’m not fucking up to speed on Southwest’s amenities, but since they can’t even get seating right DO YOU REALLY THINK I’M GOING TO CHECK MY BAG SO THEY CAN SEND IT TO A DUMPSTER ON WHICH SOMEONE HAS HASTILY SPRAY-PAINTED THE LETTERS “SFO”?

I wanted to hurl myself at her like a cat thrown from a car. Instead, I restrained myself. For that, I deserved a cookie, which, like social contracts, is something else that Southwest does not have.

The problem with Rand is that when there is a fight for limited resources he is not strategic at all. He will absolutely not push over an octogenarian for a free sandwich, and that is why he will never get ahead in life or on a Southwest flight.

(Sorry. I don’t actually believe this. It’s the airline talking.)

Rand pointed to aisle and middle seat that were free, but taking a middle seat on a non-full Southwest Airlines flight is basically asking to get shivved.

By the time I realized that wasn’t going to work, the nearest seat available to me was an aisle seat a few rows back. There was a woman already in this row, seated by the window. She’d pulled the tray table for the middle seat down – a subtle way of saying “back the fuck up” – and glared at me as I sat down. Over the course of the flight, she proceeded to eat numerous hard-boiled eggs with her bare fingers. I hate her.

Opposite me was seated the asshole in headphones pictured above.

I call him an asshole because when another another passenger asked if they could take the window seat, this guy yelled, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THE ENTIRE PLANE IS EMPTY.” He then refused to move, but the other passenger just stood there, calmly waiting, and finally the guy stood up, visibly pissed, and let him take the window. He then mumbled a bunch of unrepeatable things under his breath.

And while I think there is a special circle of hell for all of these people, it does not compare to the gentleman who was seated across the aisle from me and one row back.

His actions made me question whether or not I was hallucinating. I thought my club soda had been drugged.

Roughly halfway through the flight, I heard a metallic clicking sound.

*CLICK*CLICK*CLICK*

I furrowed my brow. I knew that sound. But … no. No way. I turned, trying to identify the source.

And then I found it.

HE WAS CLIPPING HIS FINGERNAILS. I kid you not. They were flying everywhere like some unholy confetti. There is never a time in which that many pieces of genetic material should be airborne.

There are so many questions that I wanted to ask him.

What is wrong with you?

Are you actually an alien who is pretending to be human, and failing in the endeavor?

Why didn’t you do this in the bathroom? OR AT HOME?

You’re going to pick that shit up when you’re done, right?

What is wrong with you?

Is this your first time on a plane? And around other humans?

No, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? 

Alas, only one of these was answered. When he was done, HE. SWEPT. HIS. FINGERNAILS. ON. TO. THE. GROUND.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DO NOT HAVE ASSIGNED SEATING. Everyone has an “it’s me or them” mentality that extends to the entire flight. *I* want to sit here. *I* want to be an asshole. *I* do not give a fuck that other people exist.

I stared, disbelieving. I looked around, to see if anyone else was appalled. Rand was asleep and rows ahead. Asshole dude was watching some video, oblivious to his surroundings. Hard-boiled egg woman was … holy shit, where did she get more eggs?

No. I was the only one who witnessed it. On Southwest, no one can hear you scream.

–

It’s taken me a while to get around to writing this post. First, I needed to wait until my rage subsided.

That took longer than I thought it would.

Before then, I was running around, sputtering obscenities and leaving a path of destruction in my wake. I was not unlike a human version of the Tasmanian Devil: slobbering, unintelligible, and desperately hungry for rabbit.

It did not help that I had a ridiculous amount of steroids coursing through me – the remnants of the medication I had to take for my brain surgery, which had been a scant 2 weeks prior.

I had hoped, that in addition to a kicky new bald spot and a graveyard of orchids in my living room, my surgery would have provided me with a new perspective on life. That I would realize what was important, and that I wouldn’t stress out over the small stuff. That I would be kind and generous and caring and … wait. This sounds like someone I know.

–

Yeah. I had hoped my surgery would make me more like Rand.

I’ve seen him wronged, and watched him shrug it off. I’ve seen people say and do heinous and unforgivable things to him, and I’ve seen him hug them afterwards. It isn’t for show. It’s not some sort of Machiavellian master plan. For a guy who isn’t religious, he really knows to turn the other cheek.

And sometimes, people take advantage of this fact.

It began all the way back in March. Rand was stressed out with work, and did what he often does when present obligations weigh down too heavily upon him: he started planning for a future trip. In this case, it was our annual pilgrimage to Ashland. We’d had to move it up this year and were going to go in mid-July as opposed to September.

Rand went online and booked a week’s stay at … well, I can’t tell you where. That was part of my agreement with him in writing this post. He didn’t want me to skewer their online reputation. He didn’t want to burn that bridge.

Me, I’m all for burning bridges. I toss the match over my shoulder and don’t think twice. I watch the flames rise – flames of nasty tweets and Dick Move blog posts and scathing Yelp reviews. I have no problem cutting people off if I think they’ve wronged me (and god help them if they’ve wronged Rand). I’ve been called heartless and unforgiving more than once.

But in this instance, he’s asked me to not reveal the hotel, so I won’t.  Let’s just call it the Dick Move Inn.

Rand went online, and booked us a week at the Inn. He was excited – and may have even done the happy dance that occasionally comes with preparing for a trip to Ashland. The happiness lasted for the better part of ten minutes, when we promptly received a phone call from the Inn.

They explained that his ability to book online had been an error on their part – they didn’t actually have any rooms available for that week. They cancelled the reservation, and Rand took it in stride. In fact, he commended them for telling him about the error so promptly. I was in the same room for the entire call, and remember being impressed: even when he’s stressed, Rand doesn’t get flustered.

He immediately went back online to book other accommodations.

Months passed, and by the time our Ashland trip was actually on the horizon, we weren’t sure if I could go. My brain surgery had been two weeks before, and while my doctor had cleared me for travel, I wasn’t anywhere near fighting form. I was sleeping a lot, incredibly groggy when I was up, and my face and stomach were round from the steroids. My head still hurt, and my bald spot itched. I felt awful.

But Rand really wanted to go to Ashland. And I really wanted to go with him. I felt like, in the wake of everything that had happened, I owed it to him. I owed it to us. So, without any awareness of what I was putting in my suitcase (I took three sweaters for 90 degree weather and had barely enough underwear), we headed down. Things went swimmingly for about 24 hours. Then, the morning after the first night of our vacation, we received a call from the Dick Move Inn. They had expected us the night before, and wanted to know where we were.

Rand explained that someone had called us and cancelled our reservation immediately after we had made it.

“I have no record of that,” the woman on the phone said. She asked if we had proof of the cancellation.

“Proof of the cancellation? No. It was a phone call. It happened months ago,” Rand replied.

She asked if we had received a reservation reminder  – they send them out to folks a month prior to their stay.

“No,” Rand said. “If we’d have received that, we’d have known about the reservation – and cancelled it.”

She then asked if we’d be honoring the rest of our reservation. Rand explained that we couldn’t – that prior to now, we had no idea that we even had a reservation.

And then the woman on the line earned her title as the reigning Queen of the Dick Move Inn (yes, it’s a monarchy). She explained that since we had no proof that our reservation had been cancelled, she was going to charge us for the full length of our stay. It was a staggering amount – $1,400.00.

She was going to charge us, even though Rand had received a phone call cancelling the reservation. She was charging us, even though I could bear witness to the fact that the call had taken place. She was charging us, even though they hadn’t sent us a reservation reminder (which was clear evidence that WE DIDN’T HAVE A RESERVATION) a month before our stay.

And, perhaps most significantly, she was charging us even though she didn’t have the legal grounds to do so. Rand and I never signed for the charges. We entered into an agreement with them that they cancelled.

The Dick Move Inn had screwed up. And they were making us pay for it.

Upon overhearing this, I almost immediately began doing my very best impression of a broken blender (In that I made mostly whirring noises and unintelligible sounds, and if you got too close, you might lose a finger. Not in the sense that I was preparing anyone delicious drinks. Which was unfortunate).

Rand though, remained calm. He said that he was disappointed in what had happened. He never raised his voice. He never got angry. He even blamed himself.

In the end, Rand made a compromise with the Inn. They wouldn’t charge us for the nights that they could rent out the room. Of course, the first night had already passed. We’d be charged for that. And let’s not forget, we were taking them at their word. We’d done that before and gotten burned.

“They are terrible people, ” I raged. “They deserve to go out of business. I hope their Inn gets infested with bed bugs. Bed bugs that are in turn infested with crabs.”

And while I cast all manner of hexes on them (“I hope they get eyelash lice!” and “May their favorite contestant on American Idol come in fourth!“), Rand merely sighed.

He pleaded with me to be calm. He reminded me of how lucky we were. How fortunate that we’d been able to go on this vacation in the first place. And how damn charmed our existence was, that even though we were getting fleeced by the Dick Move Inn, we could actually afford it without going into debt. He reminded me of all the times I’d been angry about something and then had it turn out okay. Every Dick Move! that had made me cringe with rage that I’d now forgotten. He was right. After enough time, very little matters. Even your first love is forgiven for breaking your heart.

The perspective that I had hoped to glean after brain surgery, my husband already had in spades.

And I realized that while the last few weeks had been rough on me, they’d been worse for him. He’s the one who’d been making me meals and feeding me pills and checking the staples in my head for sign of infection. All I did was sleep and eat chocolate pudding. He’d needed a vacation far more than I did. And he didn’t want to spend it worrying about the miserable managerial staff at a mediocre inn.

So for him, I tried to calm down. To keep things in perspective. I made a few casual jokes. I teased him about going to visit our other hotel room. I’m not saying I succeeded entirely. I still occasionally released a trail of expletives that I can’t really repeat. The sort of thing that would make Lenny Bruce proud.

But I tried.

In the end, the Inn was able to rent out the room for a few nights. They did charge us $525 – still a lot, but by no means what they had planned to originally. I’m still infuriated at them, but I’m trying not to dwell on it. I’m not posting their name online. I’m not leaving a nasty review.

I let this battle go because Rand asked me to. Because there are bigger things to worry about. And he’s right: in the end, so much of the enraging stuff sorts itself out. He told me to keep that in mind. To be grateful for all that I have.

–

I did my best to listen to him. Because while brain surgery didn’t make me a better person, my husband just might.

I stood, sniffling, as women around me buzzed in and out of stalls, chatting with friends and helping children wash their hands. I tried to compose myself: it wasn’t working. I was holding back the tears, but only barely.

It was stupid, really, when I thought about it. We’d been in the Lego store in Aventura Mall in southern Florida. The friggin Lego store. Not exactly the place you’d imagine would be the site of spite and vitriol. We wandered around with my cousin’s kids, who were excitedly pointing out things that they liked. I pointed to something, and in the process, came within a foot of touching a fellow shopper – a well-dressed middle-aged woman. I did not, I would like to note, actually touch her. But I am sure I interacted with some molecules that later grazed her personal space, and for this, she was not happy.

She gave me a look one usually reserves for little pieces of poo we find at the bottom of shoes after a pleasant walk in the park.

I sighed heavily. It had been a stressful few weeks. I decided the best way to deal with this woman’s clear irritation at the sight of me would be to kill her with kindness.

“I am so sorry,” I said brightly and as sincerely as I could muster. I gently patted her arm, “It’s so crazy in here, and I was just pointing something out at the kids. I didn’t mean to point at you, of course! I’m really and truly -”

The woman cut me off.

“Look,” she said gruffly. “It’s over now. The thing that I want to know is, why are you still touching me?”

I froze. Wait, what?

She looked at my hand, which was gently patting her forearm, the way one does when trying to tenderly extend a bit of humanity and kindness to a stranger in an otherwise cold and miserable world.

“You’ve touched my arm TWICE and YOU ARE STILL TOUCHING IT. WHY are you touching me?”

I don’t know what I replied to her next. I’m fairly sure I simply walked away. I was shaking. Perhaps because it was so unexpected. Perhaps because I was simply trying to be nice. Rand saw the whole thing, came over to talk to me.

“I … I …” I had no words.

“I know,” he said, looking at me sympathetically. “She’s … trouble.”

I nodded. I tried to pull it together in the hustle and bustle of the store, but couldn’t. One of the men who worked there saw the exchange and gently told me, “Yeah … that woman is in a bad place.”

And she’d put me in one, too.

She’s the one in white. May it be engraved on her tombstone: “You cannot kill evil.”

–

Later, when it was far too late to do anything about it, I came up with a dozen or so brilliant responses to her question, “Why are you touching me?”

• “I always pet my food before eating it.”
• “Why? Is bitchiness communicable?”
• “Sorry. I thought you needed a little human interaction. I didn’t realize you were another species.”
• “Oh, honey, don’t worry. The clap isn’t that contagious.” (I like this, because it implies that either of us might have the clap. Which we might. GET YOURSELVES CHECKED, KIDS!)
• “You remind me of a hamster I once had. It’s dead now.”
• “Does this mean French-braiding your hair is now out of the question?”
• “Because god knows your husband hasn’t in a while.”
• “Because Snuggle Club meets in FIVE MINUTES. And you’re the newest inductee.”
• “Your mustache reminds me of my father.”
  

  My father is the only person on the planet who can looked pissed off while eating ice cream. (Love you, dad!)

  –

• “I like how squishy you are. You’re like a human version of those little stress balls.”
• “Because I’ve always found angry, middle-aged Jewish women to be sexy.”
• And lastly, my personal favorite, “Fuck you, you miserable whore!”

I know. Glamorous, right?  I got to hobnob with Idaho’s elite and get outbid on art created by 6-year-olds. In all fairness, the event was lovely (Ballgowns. Tuxedos. IDAHO. Do not ask more of life.) and when we left, we found that whoever was working coat check had placed little tubes of expensive hand cream everyone’s pockets. They smelled wonderful and looked like something you’d find in the regular-priced section of Anthropologie (which is literally the fanciest place I can think of). I realized they were TSA-compliant (less than 3oz) and they’d easily fit in my toiletry bag, so I figured I’d take them home with me.

Damn it. I just realized that I now can't re-gift these to any of my friends who read the blog. Poop.

Of course, I’d left my massive purse at coat check as well, but I didn’t think to look through it to see if anyone had slipped anything in there. I mean, why would they? Besides, my purse had been with my coat, and a lady only has so much lotion she can put on her skin before she gets the hose again.

When we got to the airport to head back to Seattle, Rand handed me my boarding pass, which I promptly misplaced (this a trait I inherited from my mother. She can literally lose something before you are done telling her the significance of whatever it is and why she shouldn’t lose it). I frantically began searching through my purse, and there, at the bottom of my huge satchel, I felt something.

“What the fuh …?”

It was a huge tube of lotion. Like, HUGE. Roughly twice the size of the other two that had been nestled in our coat pockets, and literally as BIG AS MY TOOTHPASTE:

The tube on the bottom is 4.7 oz, so I'm guessing the lotion is, oh, I'd know ... WAY OVER THE TSA LIMIT.

–

That quarter is there not for scale, but rather because I like to show off my wealth.

–

Now, obviously the folks at coat check had no idea that we were going to take a flight the very next day, and it was a lovely gesture to give us such a nice gift, but still. It seems like if you are going to start sneaking things into purses, you might want to give folks fair warning (Like, “There’s a surprise in your bag from us!” But you know, less sexual and creepy sounding). After all, my purse is roughly the size of a couch cushion. I can’t find things that I put in there, much less what someone else stashed without my knowledge.

I stood, just on the other side of airport security, somewhat freaked out. If I hadn’t lost my boarding pass (which I found, thankfully) and hadn’t rummaged into my purse, and hadn’t landed upon the huge tube of lotion, I might have found myself in a huge mess.

“Ma’am, is this hand cream yours?”

“What? No. I’ve never seen that before in my life.”

“It was in your bag.”

“It was what? Oh, yeah! I left my purse unattended last night. Someone must have put it in there without my knowledge or consent.”

At which point, an ill-tempered TSA agent would have treated me to a  a strip search and possibly a colonoscopy.

I know that the people at the event meant well. I know it was a nice gesture. And I truly love fancy hand creams and sweet smelling sundries (plus, dude, they’re pretty damn pricey). But still, Dick Move, Coat Check People. I don’t care how expensive health care is in this country. My next pelvic exam is coming from my doctor, and NOT from some underpaid agent working the security line.

Breaking Philip's number one rule.

–

My friend Philip gave me a great piece of advice many years ago, around the time that he himself became a father.

The rule, simply, was this: do not take photos of children you do not know.

If you think about it, it’s rather genius. No one wants to be the creepy photographer, standing in the corner, snapping photos of children that aren’t theirs. No parent wants to have that awkward exchange with a stranger (and yet, I am told, they will have it. And if they do, you’d better listen).

Over the years, I’ve tried to followed Philip’s advice. Even if I know a child, I try to remove as much identifying information as possible before putting photos of them online.

Because that child is not mine. I have no right to their image, no right to that infinitesimally small portion of their soul that I might have stolen on my camera. Philip’s words follow me when I travel. It’s one of the few rules I heed. (That, and “Don’t eat sushi in a landlocked state.”)

Recently, though, I broke his rule. And I’m not quite sure what to do about it.

We’d spent an afternoon in the Peruvian village of Pisac, shopping in the market. The morning had been sunny, but was slowly turning in to a cold, grey afternoon. The sky threatened to rain, the wind came down off the hills and whipped through the alleys of the ancient town in which we stood. Vendors scrambled to still their wares with every chilly gust, and I understood why, even in South America, everyone wears wool.

I wandered through the village in a state of shopping paralysis. It was too, too much. Too many vendors, too many llama wool hats, too many necklaces. If I had the chance to go back, I’d return with a suitcase full of treasures, but at that moment I could only look – wandering in a daze, occasionally snapping photos.

As I passed yet another display of scarves that could easily be found at Anthropologie for 50 times their current selling rate, I encountered a trio of little girls, elaborately dressed in traditional Peruvian costumes. They looked remarkably similar save for their sizes – little Russian nesting dolls of each other.

“Photo, photo, take photo,” the eldest said to me, in broken English.

Blissfully, I understood the game right away. I’d taken their photos, and pay them for the privilege of doing so. I pulled out my camera and took a few shots, feeling incredibly awkward as I did so. I reached into my pocket and pressed a coin into each of their hands.

Pretty sure I traded my soul for this shot.

–

And yes, I thought twice before posting these. I thought four times, actually.

–

“No!” the eldest said. “Un sole.” No. One sol.

I stood, confused. I had given her more than that. 2 soles, in fact. And another sole to her little colleagues.

“Un sole,” she said.

“Son dos soles,” I said, pointing to the coin I gave her.

“Nooooo,” she whined quietly. I wondered if perhaps she didn’t recognize the coin I had given her – it was definitely 2 soles. Mayber her parents had showed her a single sol coin, made her remember it, and that was all she knew. Or maybe she was shrewd as hell.

She pleaded with me, her eyes enormous, her voice high and whiney.

For the record, I do not do well with whining children. I will do anything to make them stop. Buy them presents, feed them candy, dance like a monkey. Whatever. I have no shame. Anything to stop the high pitched moaning and sniffling – to stifle it before the dreaded temper tantrum is unleashed. I would make an awful parent.

I quickly reached into my pocket and dug out some more coins, handing them to all three girls, and left. As I walked away, I saw the smallest one fighting off her older sister, who was trying to take the coin from her. It was one sol – the kind of coin the oldest had been asking for. I sighed heavily.

Later, sitting in our hotel room, I felt awful. Awful for taking the photo, awful for not having more money for those children (in the end, I gave them five times their asking rate, but the oldest kept repeating “No, un sol …”). Awful that, in the end, a child had bickered with me over money.

I sat on my bed and cried.

A day or two later, we found ourselves in the open air market in Cuzco. I saw an American woman stooped down, snapping photos of a child. I figured it was the same situation I had encountered before, until I saw the little girl. She was not dressed up. She was not asking for money. She was simply standing in the market, eating a bun. The woman was ridiculously close to the girl, not looking at her, but at the digital preview screen on her camera.

“Por que?” The little girl asked, again and again. Why? Why are you talking my photo?

“Por que es hermosa.” Because you are beautiful, the woman replied, never taking her eyes off her viewfinder. But the littler girl, wise to the game, was not soothed by this compliment. She was clearly bothered, and confused by what was happening.

My reaction to this was rather reasonable.

“Rand,” I said quietly, “I think I am going to go punch that woman.”

As I began removing my earrings and rings, Rand reminded me that violence is not the answer (“BUT SOMETIMES IT IS!” was my astute reply), and that I might not enjoy getting deported or spending time in a Peruvian prison.

I wondered if I could at least get in the woman’s face, and snap a few dozen photos of her. When she asked me why I was taking her picture I’d scream, “BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT HERMOSA!” and then I’d run off.

But I chickened out.

I chickened out, because deep down, I knew I wasn’t any better than her. Hadn’t I snapped photos of a little girl I didn’t know? Did an exchange of a few coins really make it all okay? On some level, didn’t I want to punch that woman because I was, in fact, angry at myself for having done the same thing? (Yes, No, YES.) I was a rotten hypocrite. And, as a colleague of my husband’s had so harshly and perceptively put it the other day, I’m a coward to boot.

I thought again of Philip’s rule – the one that sits at the top of my mental list of travel guidelines: Don’t take photos of children you don’t know. I’m considering adding another rule to that list. Something like: During your travels, don’t punch the annoying people you encounter.

But I’m not sure how effective that would be. After all, I’ve already broken one of those rules, and I really wanted to break the other. The good news? I’m pretty sure Philip would have forgiven me for popping that woman in the mouth. But for taking photos of those little girls? That might be a bit harder to forgive.

Now, keep in mind, despite being a fairly notable city, Seattle isn’t exactly an exciting news town. Other things that have made it to the local news include: “Bald eagle saved by mouth-to-beak CPR” and “Washington woman in court for trying to sell baby to Taco Bell.” So the bar for a story being newsworthy is set kind of excruciating low in our neck of the woods, but since it happened right in front of us, and wigged me out substantially, I figured I’d talk about it.
 Rand and I recently moved to Capitol Hill, a rather hip and exciting neighborhood of Seattle, which is home to a large LGBT community and a thriving counterculture, and lots of students and young people. Rand and I frequently make cracks that we’re not cool enough to live here, and how we’re really going to need to take up midnight bicycle polo or contact juggling if we want to renew our lease. Or at the very least, one of us is going to have to get a tribal tattoo.

I vote him, just for the record (it would be delightfully anachronistic. Like a duck wearing pants).

There’s also a large number of homeless folks in our neighborhood, and a few kids who clearly have had a rough go of it in the brief time that they’ve been on the earth. And while our home is generally quiet, Friday and Saturday nights on the The Hill are a bit noisier and crazier than most other places that we’ve lived. None of this particularly bothers me all that much. We’re kind of the Benjamin Buttons of domiciles: we started out living in cute, family-friendly neighborhoods, and as we got older moved to party-central. By the time we’re in our forties, we’ll have taken up residence in the middle of a rave (do kids still go to raves? Anyway, you get my point).

Rand and I were walking down Broadway the other day, one of the main drags in Capitol Hill, where a good deal of construction is going on to put in a new light-rail station. There are huge wooden walls put up along Broadway’s east side, to block out the construction, and (with the city’s permission) a number of banners and art installations have gone up.

This was one of them:
–

It’s a timeline commemorating thirty years of HIV/AIDS awareness sponsored by HIV30. When we passed it last weekend, we noticed a young man (late teens/early twenties), methodically cutting at the side of the poster in a effort to take it down. Since a lot of the signs and banners rotate out in this area, I didn’t see anything out-of-sorts. Plus, he was fairly calm about the whole thing.

“That guy’s supposed to be doing that, right?” I asked Rand.

My husband surveyed the situation. The kid had a box-cutter (we figured people don’t just run around with those) and a large bag in which to place the banner.

“Pretty sure, yeah.” Rand replied.

So we continued on our walk, and moments later heard some commotion back from whence we came. A young woman had confronted the kid, who evidently was not suppose to be taking down the banner. She stood between him and the wall. He subsequently went ballistic, screaming, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” and frantically started tearing at the banner behind her, while she stood her ground.

Oh, and did I mention HE HAD A BOX CUTTER?

There were a few people nearby (including the girl’s boyfriend), so when Rand tried to go, I grabbed his arm.

“Baby, no,” I pleaded. As soon as there is an emergency, Rand always jumps in. Noble? Sure. But it freaks me out. Can’t he just call 911 at a reasonable distance from the commotion like a normal person? The kid was completely hysterical, and the woman who confronted him wasn’t alone. Her boyfriend was with her, and there were people around. “It’s fine,” I said, unconvincingly. “There are other people …”

And that’s when I learned several things. First, that I am a huge coward. I will stare blankly at a situation and even when I think, “Something should be done”, I expect someone else to step in. This was a rather upsetting revelation. I had sort of figured that I’d be the type to speak up. Disappointingly, I am not. At least, not when Rand is involved. I’d like to put him in some sort of giant plastic bubble, ensuring that not even bacteria can get to him.

Sigh. I’ve said in the past this blog makes me look terrible. It does. But at least it’s honest.

Secondly, I learned that my husband doesn’t have any of my faults. People generally run from burning buildings. Rand runs towards them. (In all fairness, I knew this already. It keeps me up at night, to be honest – I can imagine him being part of a tragic good Samaritan story. The kind that ends up on local news.)

I kept trying to hold him back, but he said to me, in that tone of voice that I rarely hear, the one reserved for only the most serious of situations, “Geraldine, you have to let me go help.”

And I let go of his shirt. And he ran towards the scene. And then I ran after him. There was more yelling. My husband was in the middle of it, now, too. Within seconds, the police had been called, and the kid, now woefully outnumbered,  ran off.

I stood in a semi-daze, when I finally noticed the girl who had put herself between the guy and the banner. I asked her if she was okay.

“Yeah,” she said, rather calmly. “I knew he wasn’t going to hit me.”

And I wondered how on earth she knew that.

Soon after (literally a matter of minutes) people arrived with tape, and began patching up the sign. A couple who had passed moments before, and seen it pristine, were visibly crushed that it had been damaged so quickly.

Part of where the banner was cut, now patched up with tape.

–

After everything had calmed down, everyone parted ways and walked on (the police were called, but never arrived). Later, I apologized to Rand for trying to stop him.

“I was just so freaked out,” I said, clutching his arm. “He could have had a knife.”

“Aw, baby,” Rand said gently, “He did have a knife.”

Right. Like I said, my husband is a lot braver than I am. It’s just one of the reasons I love him. So I hope you’ll forgive me for trying to keep him safe.

–

(Later in the day, I walked by the sign and started chatting with the guy who runs the Capitol Hill Seattle blog about what happened.)

Bastard.

–

I’m referring to the one on the right, closest to the window. I realize that he doesn’t look that evil from this picture, but neither did that little kid from The Omen, and he was the son of Lucifer.

So I’m simply saying don’t dismiss a douchebag by his cover. Context is everything in this picture. As you can glean from his surroundings, the entire cabin was dark, and the overhead lights were turned off. The stilted, I-spit-in-your-general-direction in-flight service that Air France is known for had stopped. It was midnight in Paris, our port of departure, and people were exhausted and struggling to sleep. But it was incredibly difficult to do so. Why?

That asshole in the photo above would not close his damn window. And for that, I say, Dick Move.

The people in the cabin tossed and turned, squinting in his general direction, hoping he’d get a clue. He did not. He kept it open for the entire trans-Atlantic international flight. It was as though he had never been on a plane before (though I doubt that was true – he was clearly on a business trip) and couldn’t bare to miss one second of all the nothingness passing below us. At one point, I peeked out of our window to check if there was anything worth seeing. It was like staring at a lightbulb.

But wait – it got worse. He had his cell phone out, and was doing something with it (seriously, I only vaguely understand what you can do with a smartphone on a plane. After a few hours, Angry Birds loses its appeal). Whatever it was, it meant that the light from the window was hitting the screen on his camera, and reflecting blinding rays of light directly onto – you guessed it – me and Rand. It was like he was signaling planes with a mirror … right onto our faces.

Now, I know – he got a window seat, it’s his right to keep it open, blah, blah, blah. It’s also his right to fart freely and not wear deodorant, but I wouldn’t condone those behaviors, either, and particularly not on a plane.

People in the cabin turned to stare at us, exhausted and sympathetic. A few lifted their sleep masks and shook their heads sadly (you can, in fact, see at man at left in the phone, struggling to sleep). Tired of having our retinas seared, Rand and I stood up. The look of hope on the other passengers’ faces was apparent. Someone was going to do something!

A lovely French woman leaned over to me.

“Are you going to zay zometing?” she asked, in a excited whisper. “Because he is very rude. I cannot sleep! We are so very tired.”

“I know. He’s a douche.” (Note: “douche” does not translate into French.)

We stood, flapping our arms to get the guy’s attention. He was obviously quite good at ignoring the feelings and sufferings of others, as quite literally the entire cabin noticed us before he did.

He looked up, utterly confused, and it was only as he sat there staring at us, and the reflection of the sunlight off of his phone hit us square in our faces and we fell to the ground, blinded, that he realized what the problem was. Making sure we saw exactly how much of a burden it was for him, he slowly lowered the shade of his window.

The entire cabin nearly erupted in applause. I heard sighs and whispers of relief.

Until, literally four seconds later, he proceeded to open his other window.

I shit you not. This asshole had access to TWO WINDOWS, and when we asked him to close one, he opened the other. The faces in the cabin, brightly lit by the harsh light of his window, were etched with pain and desperation. Somewhere, someone began to weep, softly. I heard prayers whispered in a variety of languages, all of them quietly imploring the mercy of a god who had clearly forsaken them.

Not ready to be defeated this close to success, Rand stood again, and flapped his arms, a majestic pigeon of hope. Our foe looked at him again, and closed his second window … only to reopen the first one.

Rand looked at me, incredulous. He sat down, defeated. It was hopeless.

And it was that point, dear readers, that I took out my camera and decided to document this asshole. Seriously, DICK MOVE INCONSIDERATE WINDOW SEAT GUY. You are heinous and rotten and selfish – and likely have a bright future ahead of you should you ever decide to work for AirFrance.

Um, no. "Phishing" not "fishing."

I like to think that I possess a healthy dose of skepticism. I never truly bought into the whole “Santa” myth as a kid, though I totally pretended to in order to bond with a friend of mine (my commitment to the Catholic church also had similar origins). I have been known to call shenanigans on people when I don’t believe them – a process that involves, quite literally, me screaming “SHENANIGANS! I CALL SHENANIGANS!” with little regard to volume or social mores.

In short, I’d like to think that I’m not a complete and utter mark (well, mostly).

And yet, and yet, and yet …

On Friday, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, having just returned from Germany the night before. After three lonely hours on my computer, relishing in the joy of being (I assume, at least) the first person in Seattle to see today’s Groupon offers, I received a chat from a friend of mine, who I shall call L, because really, girlfriend deserves some anonymity after the last few days.

Now, L and I are not terribly close, owing to the newness of our friendship, but I get her, and I have a pretty clear feel for what she’s like and how she reacts to things. Nevertheless, at the time I received her chat, we’d hung out a whopping two times, ever, and we were scheduled to hang out again on Sunday. So even though we weren’t yet at the gmail-chat-level of friendship, it made sense that I was hearing from her to talk about our weekend plans.

She asked me how I was doing, and I told her fine, except that I had been up since 4 am. She noted that things were not going well on her front. I assumed this was a prelude to her having to cancel on Sunday, and I figured that one of her children had gotten sick or something to that effect.

Instead, she wrote that she and her husband had been robbed at gunpoint.

Now, this somewhat snapped me out of my jet-lagged state. I promptly freaked and inquired about the kids and tried to figure out how the hell that sort of thing could happen in Seattle. She didn’t follow up on the kids, but instead proceeded to tell me they were in the U.K.

Wait, what? In the fog of not-enough-hours-of-sleep, I tried to figure out why she was in the U.K. and why she had made no mention of it when we were making our weekend plans. And also, how, exactly, one gets robbed at gunpoint in London when there are no guns in Britain. But the strangest thing was that she wasn’t elaborating on whether or not the kids were okay after telling me she had been ROBBED AT GUNPOINT. I knew her well enough to peg that as being instantly out of character.

“Shenanigans,” a voice whispered quietly in the back of my head.

But no – this was clearly my friend’s account. I had heard of email scams like this, but not scams via chat.

“Do you want me to call Will?” I wrote, thinking of Rand’s London-based colleague who is always reliable in times of crisis (he recently helped a hungover Rand get on a plane after a rough night in New Orleans. Assisting sober people in his hometown should have posed little challenge).

“No,” she wrote. She explained that they lost their credit cards and cash, but still had their passports (and again, the voice in my head said, “Shenanigans,” this time a little louder). Then came the clincher: they had unpaid bills in the U.K., and they needed someone to wire them money – $1750.

“SHENANIGANS!”

My hands were shaking. I was talking to an actual, real-life con-artist. On my friend’s account. The faker proceeded to tell me how she had been hit on the head in the attack and had “brain trauma” and how her husband had hurt his arm (Really? He hurt his arm and you have brain trauma and you’re the one typing? SERIOUSLY?). I asked “her” to hold on, I would check with Rand to see how we could help, and proceeded to bolt down the hall to find him.

I told him how I had gotten a message that our friends had gotten robbed and how they were supposedly in the U.K. and now needed us to wire them money (the transformation of my husband’s face in those few seconds was remarkable – from concern to skepticism in 0.5 seconds. I wish my actor brother had been there to see it). Immediately, Rand got on the phone with the supposed victims, while I continued chatting.

“They’re fine,” Rand said to me, “But L’s account has been hacked.” Obviously.

And then he said the sort of thing every writer dreams of hearing.

“Can you keep the scammer busy for a while?”

Oh, sweet heavenly father, CAN I? Things were about to get fun.

Apparently, L had received a phone call earlier in the night from a worried friend – the scammer had also infiltrated her facebook account, and the friend thought that she been seriously hurt. L logged on, and saw the scammer chatting with her friends – she tried to type over him, explaining that it was all fake, but he kept deleting what she wrote (this, understandably, freaked her out. I’d have peed my pants, personally). They needed to lock him out of both accounts, but were having trouble.

So a distraction was in order.

I kept the scammer chatting and was able to create a rather beautiful soap-operatic tale while they locked him out of L’s accounts. My tangled web included:

• Insisting that Fake L pray to Jesus and thank him for sparing her life in the attack.
  Me: Did you thank him? Did you thank Jesus?
  Fake L:  yeah … sure.
• Adding superfluous details that made little to no sense. L’s husband had supposedly hurt his arm in the attack- I noted that this was particularly tragic since he had already lost fingers on that hand (I wanted to go further with this, but didn’t want them to grow suspicious. In real life, L’s husband thankfully has all his digits).
• Confessing undying love to L, and asking if she felt the same way (the reply: “Ugh?”)

In the end, I am pleased to say that L got the scammer locked out of her accounts. They’re still cleaning up some stuff (and worried about how much information was accessed), but I’m comforted by the fact that anyone who tries to scam people through something so obvious and idiotic probably isn’t a criminal mastermind.

Of course, there’s still a lot to be concerned about. No, the person didn’t do a great job of impersonating L, but they did know her husband’s name, and had access to all her information on Facebook (so theoretically they could have). And apparently all Western Union requires for someone to pick up a wire transfer of money is a friggin name. No I.D., no other means of verification necessary. So while I’ve talked a lot about how not to get robbed while traveling and securing your home while you’re away on a trip, it’s good to remember that there are plenty of other ways you can get ripped off.

As for those of you who do get robbed while overseas, my condolences. If you need help, I strongly suggest you  visit the consulate or call someone collect. An email just won’t cut it anymore.

P.S. – Dick Move, scammers! Though it was really fun messing with you. I suspect you were psyched when you thought I was going to send you some cash.

• 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, so clearly I'm not ready to move on.

When we got back from Europe this past weekend, I had hoped to spend this week blogging. It’s been ages since I’ve really been able to sit down and write, so I was looking forward to recounting all my tales of adventure (and a few of woe, because, hey, you know me) to you guys. Unfortunately, it looks like all of that is going to have to wait, because right now I have the unexpected task of finding a new place to live and moving out.

Rand and I have lived in a condo (one we rent from a private owner) for the last two years. Though “live” isn’t really the right word, since we’re hardly ever here. Rand and I joke that it’s more “the place where we keep all our stuff.” Our landlord seems a bit AWOL, too. In two years, I’ve met him once (Rand has never met him). He wasn’t even the person to show us our place. Instead, it was a lovely real estate agent whom he described as “a good friend”; the agent later told me she barely knew the guy. He never replied to my emails when anything broke (we had to fix a lot of things ourselves, because after  weeks of emailing him, calling the phone numbers I had for him, and receiving no reply, I got fed up.)

We heard from our landlord once – when it was time to renew our lease last year. I politely told him that, as we had discussed when we moved in, we’d like to move to a month-to-month lease. When we first moved in, he had promised me it would be totally fine with him. Of course, it wasn’t in writing, and a man’s word isn’t worth more than he is. So when he resolutely refused to keep his promise, I was upset, but I realized I had no legal recourse. He explained that he wanted long-term renters, and that we needed to sign up for another year, or move out immediately.

We signed up for another year. We had to – we had no time to move (with all our scheduled travel) and besides, I hate moving. I realize most people do, but I loathe it so acutely, so painfully and intensely, that I have lived in absolute crap shacks (a friend of mine once described an old apartment of mine as being down “rape alley”) for years simply to avoid moving.

Of course, our place was pretty nice, so it wasn’t a huge concern staying here a while longer. I liked having a home base, and even though it wasn’t perfect, I could see us living here for a while. Again, when we moved in, I double-checked with our landlord that he wouldn’t want to move back in soon, effectively booting us out in the process. His reply (in an email to the real estate agent) was this:

Assure them that indeed I do love Seattle and intend to return but have no intention of occupying that condo again in the near future. My space requirements have changed since I acquired that unit and a long term renter that enjoys the space is EXACTLY what I have been hoping for. I am very flexible and want them to feel at home and am even amenable to things like painting (with-in reason) or other minor customizations that suit their requirements for the long term.

And stupid us, we believed him. As cynical and jaded as I am, I tend to believe what people tell me. It never occurred to me that he simply told us this because no renter would take a condo for only two years … I’m sure you see where this is going, right?

This month, our lease was up. After not hearing from our landlord for nearly a year, he sent us a letter, wondering why we had yet to vacate our home.

Rand and I were dumbfounded. We explained that we hadn’t heard from him in ages, and that, as per Washington state law, our lease automatically became a month-to-month after a year had elapsed. We figured that, since he hadn’t contacted us in over a year, he was okay with this. Instead, he told us we needed to leave immediately (as much as it baffles the mind, he wanted us gone that day so he could move back in).

Dick Move, Landlord.

Obviously, he’s entirely within his rights to move back in, but it still stinks. Plus, the way he handled it was downright surreal (had he really expected us to move out without giving notice? Without turning in our keys? Without talking to him once about it? It made no sense). We told him we couldn’t leave immediately, and asked to renew our lease. He refused. Per Washington state law, he has to give us until April 30th to move out, which he begrudgingly has. I’ve sent him a few emails, which he has refused to answer.

So now? We need to find a new home. I’m not taking it well at all. I hate moving. I’m upset about the situation, but completely powerless to do anything about it (anyone who tells you that tenants have all the rights are full of it). Worse still, Rand and I had a lot of travel planned this month. We actually said to ourselves, a few months back, “Well, we certainly can’t move this year, because we won’t be around for March or April.”

But right now, that’s exactly what we have to do. I’m going to be canceling a few trips, and trying to find us a new home in the Seattle area (I’ve checked out more than 10 places in 2 days. Things are not looking promising). And I’m off to see another half dozen or so today. I can’t even keep the places straight anymore. They’ve merged into a single apartment in my brain: one with over-priced parking and too-small bedrooms.

Sigh.

So forgive me if the blog is a little thin these next couple of weeks. I’ll be taking a break from travel, and looking for a new home. Wish me luck.