It's not the destination...
It's the journey.
I may have, on occasion, mentioned that I don't always have a clear idea of
what I am doing or where I am going. While this is par for the course, and
the odd change to the schedule is to be expected, This week was the gold
medal of diversions.
If you were to sum up all the the standard problems I bitch about, twist
them into some sort of artistic representation of what this whole road
warrior thing looks like and, say, to turn it into a movie, you
would come up with something close to what I experienced.
See it wasn't just one bad experience. That sort of plot device is too
short and kills the character in the first act. Instead this was just a
slow decline of one bad vignette after another where, if I was writing
this, the hero would either defeat the gorgons for the third and final
In the background we can see that all the flights are delayed and he is
waiting standby for anything that will make his connection.
Cut to : The usual cramped seat in the back of coach and the comical farce
that is people trying to fit supersized bags in undersized overheads.
Cut to : Arriving at the far end of a terminal in Chicago, the
connecting flight is leaving from the far end of another terminal. Begin
the Long Walk.
Cut to : The toilets. Focus on the intermittent fluorescent light
overhead. Pan down to the Old Guy at the sink. He has had one of those
operations that leave him with a hole at the base of his neck. He is
hacking badly and doing his best to clear the hole and his throat.
Cut to : Waiting at the gate, all the flights are delayed again.
Cut to : Drinks service on the next plane. He has free drink vouchers.
Just as the Flight Attendants get to him, the plane hits turbulence and
they seat the staff for the duration of the flight.
Cut to : The Hero getting out of the plane after midnight and walking down the
long terminal. He is at the last gate. The terminal is a ghost town.
Cut to : Him trying to get past other passengers to old and deaf to get
out of the way.
Cut to : Those same passengers overtaking him later in a golf cart.
Cut to : Waiting outside for the rental car shuttle. Standing right next
to him is a Businessmen, smoking a cigar. Our hero is downwind from the
smoke. Pull back to reveal that the area is completely empty. There is
no-one else around.
Cut to : Arriving at the rental lot, It is windy and cold. His car is
a convertible mustang.
Cut to : The clock in the car says 1am. He is on a deserted country
road. The driving directions seem meaningless.
Cut to : The hotel. He is looking down a very long corridor. The room he
is given is at the far end of the building.
Cut to : The next morning, there is no breakfast on the hotel.
Cut to : He is back in the car, A coffee shop can be seen in the
distance. But the road is blocked by sequential 'no left turn signs'. No
matter how much he turns, the cafe is getting no closer.
Cut To : The cafe parking lot, as seen from inside The Mustang. Focus
on the BMW parked diagonally. It is taking the only 2 parking spots left
Cut to : The dashboard of the mustang. A coffee is in the cup holder. The
clock shows that he is late, He is speeding.
Cut to : The lobby of an office. He meets The Customer.
You're 8 hours early, we aren't doing anything until 6pm.
Cut to : Back in the hotel room, the hero is reading email :
MSP may catch fire again.
Need you back there next week for a few days
Need to delay trip to UK by 1 or 2 weeks
Cut to : A chain restaurant in a mall, around it is nothing but carpark
and cars. It is late evening, his work is done for the day. Our hero
parks in an empty spot miles from anything. It is still cold and windy.
He gets out of the convertible. The restaurant is called the 'Bahama
Breeze'.
Cut to : The Hero, he is sitting at the bar, reading the menu. He speaks
to the barman.
What do people do here ?
BARMAN
Drink
Fade out.
Tags travel,philly,hotel,restaurant,bar
