I had intended to post entries daily on this protracted sojourn abroad but I have got a bit behind what with driving around, looking at tasty boats and, I nearly forgot, attending the conference that was the original idea of the whole trip. As I sit somewhere over Virginia finally and thankfully on my way back to a country in which I am comfortable it would amuse me to jot down a few random thoughts that have come to me during my week in the Land of the Free.
I think I wanted to hate the place (vide supra the comments about the woman who really got up my nose in Frankfurt Airport) but I haven’t. Washington DC is almost passable as a conurbation if you have to have such things. The local law that prohibits any building being taller than the US Capitol building gives the place an architectural ambience that disappears if you fill a city with glass and chrome monstrosities a squillion stories high. I don’t know where the city fathers go for their huge blocks of white stone to build DC but the quarry must be damned nigh empty by now. The streets are wide and green spaces are liberally dotted around downtown. That these are filled with the homeless and consumers of dry cleaning fluid is not my business as long as they don’t try to relieve me of my New Zealand dollars at the end of a firearm – which they didn’t. OK so the building blocks are good, what about the denizens and their habits?
A few random thoughts in no particular order.
Suits. What a singularly useless vestment is the business suit. Expensive, impractical, if not well fitting looks dreadful, has to be worn with a tie (a garment even more useless than the suit) and America is full of the stupid things. This in the land that gave us Levis. What is wrong with a pair of jeans when it is a bit chilly or shorts when it is warm? I was at a medical conference and everyone (except me – jeans three days, shorts one) was wearing a suit. Not a patient in sight and it was hot. Why would you wear a suit? There is a fellow conference attendee on the plane with me just across the aisle and he’s still wearing his bloody suit – and tie. Anyone who is so attached to his suit that he wears it on the plane deserves an ugly wife and a life of misery. I’m sure Dr 2A has both.
Which brings us nicely, or more correctly exceedingly unpleasantly, onto United Airlines. Because I bought a round the world ticket for this jaunt, I mean educational voyage of discovery, I got shouted a free upgrade to First on the cattle drove to San Francisco. This is ghastly. I, therefore, have enormous pity for the poor sods sitting in Belsen behind me. They have just been invited to buy (with money) beers at US$5 a pop and a ‘turkey wrap’ (something a turkey wears on a cold night?) at the same price. So they can, for US$10, drink dreadful beer and put on weight by eating high fat cardboard. A steward (not sure about this ‘bloke’ but the alternative blokess makes Helen Clarke look appealing) is about to give me a ‘meal’. The only advantage I can see to this Vis a vie the turkey’s scarf is that it is hot and I don’t have to shell out ten slides. I’ve just eaten bits of the ‘meal’ and it should be reported to the trades description wallahs. I really enjoying travelling and I don’t need United Airlines turning what can be a pleasurable part of a trip into an endurance course. And you pay them to do this to you. I suppose I knew this flight was going to be dire but my greed for Airpoints made me do it. Greed is not a bedfellow of sloth, avarice, lust, gluttony and all the other nice things of life for no reason. I would like to say ‘Never again’ but how else would you get from the East coast of the States to the West? Walk?
The price of things. How would you know? The price advertised on everything is not the price at all but a basis for negotiations. First, Tax is added on. I’m not sure whose tax this is - State, Federal, Holy Roman Empire - but it is always there and of an amount that seems to be calculated in the same way you would work out what time high tide is at London Bridge. If this wasn’t bad enough we than have the ‘Gratuity’. Stupid, naïve me thought this might be something you gave (voluntarily) to someone who had dished out exemplary service above and beyond what was expected by his job description – for which he gets paid. Oh no. Everyone who comes inside a hundred metre radius of you within five minutes of any commercial transaction expects a tip. Don’t give one and you get a knee in the groin. If I buy something I want the price to be that on the invoice and not that sum plus x% here and y% there.
Gushing insincerity. The Septics are quite rightly World Champs at this and I can’t see anyone getting even close at the next World Cup. ‘Now you have nice day, won’t you’ through a sprayed on plastic smile after you’ve just tipped them for not beating you up. F*** off.
Black ladies’ bottoms. I think these start off as normal bottoms but as the owner puts on vast amounts of weight they go feral. First they enlarge in a lateral horizontal plane at twice the rate of increase in either the antero-posterior horizontal or vertical planes. This makes them look like they’ve got an airbed strapped to the base of their spine. I’m sure you could actually lie down on some of these derrieres if you were brave enough. Then they start walking and the final piece of the puzzle becomes apparent. They’ve grown an extra joint somewhere near the bottom department. This makes the airbed move in directions totally independent to the rest of the body. I couldn’t quite work out the precise mechanics of what goes on here without staring long enough to get arrested. I’m not sure if these changes are reversible at Jenny Craig.
Everyday hi-tech. The Yanks really are very good at this. You can’t look the part in your business suit if you haven’t got a Blackberry in your pocket and a Bluetooth headset Araldited to your lug’ole. You are only allowed to buy a pound of spuds if you order them over the Internet. Every vehicle I have been in during the last week (except Mr. Hertz’s Korean junkmobile) has had a GPS navigator in it - and they are very good. If was ever foolish enough to live in a place that had big cities and lots of people I would get one. But I can’t see much point if my main highway navigational conundrum is going to be getting from Whangaroa to Houhora. All restaurants take orders on PDAs etc, etc. and they are in general well in front of everywhere I’ve recently been to in putting electronics into everyday life. I’m not sure it makes things better or more efficient. The Internet ordered SuperShuttle Van was still twenty minutes late picking me up from the hotel. You could do that with paper and a pencil.
Coffee. In the States this is a black art. A long black is an ‘Americano’ and you then have to specify whether you want it in a wheelie bin, a forty four gallon drum or a spa pool. You take your place ‘in line’ to wait for your order and the bloke behind you orders, wait for it, a trim soy milk decaf latte. I’m serious, it happened this morning. What the hell is that? It certainly isn’t a cup of coffee or ‘It’s coffee Jim, but not as we know it’. And we haven’t even touched upon ‘Do you want syrup with that?’ Syrup of Figs, perchance? I said ‘no’ not knowing what I was saying no to but certain it was the correct response.
I’ll try and post this in San Francisco during the four hour wait for NZ7 to take me to Auckland. I’m really looking forward to getting on a Kiwi plane and getting back to the place you appreciate best when you spend a few weeks away. I’ll put up with Keith Locke, political correctness, incompetent f***wits running the country, Auckland’s wet winters, bureaucracy on steroids, a Mickey Mouse economy, crap roads, a laughable pay packet, the worship of native trees, the inability of anyone ‘in authority’ to decide anything to live in the best place in the world anyone could bring a 30 foot American express boat to.
I suppose I’ll have to start reading Granny Herald again next week.
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