A woman just came in to the radio station to pick up the tickets she won from the country station to tonight’s County Fair demolition derby. Short, gaunt, ragged clothes, stringy blonde hair, bad (and missing) teeth, bad skin, two dirty toddlers in tow. Spoke with a serious backwoods twang. Drove away in a battered pickup truck.

It was a very hillbilly moment.

The Waffle House bathroom is tiny, barely the size of a closet, with just the one toilet in it. Strictly a one-man operation. But the lock on the door is one seriously heavy-duty industrial strength piece of hardware.

It took me a minute to realize why such a beefy lock is on the inside. Why would you need such a huge lock to keep people out of a one-hole bathroom? Because it’s the Waffle House bathroom, and it only has one hole.

I’ve spent most of every minute of the last two days at work running. They have my workspace set up in the absolute worst possible place — I’m in the corner furthest from everything in the office (and don’t think I’m not taking it personally) — so all day long I’m basically just lapping the building, going from Person A to Production Studio B to Office C, back to my laptop at Corner Z, then doing it all over again. I stop in each place for about 5 – 10 minutes, answer 49 questions ranging from not-dumb-at-all to holy-shit-you’re-a-fucking-moron, then move on to the next.

And all along the way, I’m farting. Oh yeah, I’m gassing the joint, big-time. I dunno what it is, but I’m a walking methane plant right now. Maybe it’s residual from Waffle House the other night, I dunno. Whatever, all the walking is working out okay since it lets me spread it around while on the move and not draw attention to myself (“Who farted?” is no doubt echoing 30 seconds behind me all day). The hard part is not, uh, venting when I’m standing next to someone’s desk showing them how to do something. Especially the stupid ones. Especially the stupid ones. I don’t think I’m going to be able to resist the temptation to just let one rip while I’m in a small office — I’ll blow the foghorn and say, “Oh gosh, I’m sorry.” And then give them the loooooong answer to their incredibly stupid question.

Poot.

You thought I was going to forget the seat belt and parking lot pictures, didn’t you? Oh ye of little faith!

I guess I’m good with seat belts. I never seem to need help.
(Yes, I know these seat belt signs are stupid, but I think they’re funny anyway. Maybe I’m just overly proud of myself for knowing how to work the buckle, who knows?)

The view from my room here in beautiful Fort Smith, AR. I’m pretty sure they roped off the parking lot as a crowd control measure for when my groupies get here.

Things are improving here, but so far life in Fort Smith is only half worth living. My luggage finally showed up. That should have been enough to make me fall in love with Fort Smith again for the very first time, but no, not quite.

When I reported the luggage missing, the counter-drone offered me a phone number to call “In case you decide you want your luggage to be delivered to your ho–” And I interrupted her with “I just decided: I want it delivered.” (No, no, I’d love to make an extra trip to the airport, don’t go to any trouble to bring me my fucking bag that you lost. Morons.)

She gave me a tracking number for my suitcase and an 800 number to call to track their progress and told me they’d call if/when the bag turned up and they’d deliver it to my hotel. You know, since I’d decided that’s what I wanted. An hour after the next flight from Dallas had arrived, I called to track my bag’s progress and sure enough, it hadn’t been found yet — but they (via the recorded message) sure were sorry. Another hour later it still hadn’t been found and they were still awfully sorry. So I did the only sensible thing: I went back to the airport.

I went back because I had a vision of my bag sitting on a carousel, unnoticed and unattended while I waited for something to actually do their job by a) finding it, b) calling me, and c) delivering it. And when I got to the airport, sure enough, there are unattended bags sitting on a dead carousel — except they weren’t mine. So I went to the counter and discovered that they had just packed up and closed for the night. I asked a cop there to track someone down to help me, and he finally turned up some 18 year old kid from the ground crew. The kid went behind the counter and, hey, what do you know? They had my bag! No call, and no delivery, but they had the bag.

I was so happy to have my underwear back that I stopped at Waffle House for dinner, and it was waffle-icious. That’s the worth-living half.

The icing on the cake? That 800 number still lists my bag as missing. I sure hope they find it soon.

Fort Smith is not off to a good start. The airline lost my luggage, the hotel’s high-speed internet doesn’t work, and my dial-up connection is currently smoking at 665 B/sec. That’s B, not KB. Thus far, I am not impressed with Arkansas in general and Fort Smith in particular.

There is a bright side, though: Waffle House, the finest restaurant in all the land. There’s one right next door to the hotel.

I think I know where I’m having dinner for the next 10 days. I just hope I don’t have to be wearing the same clothes at each meal — but I’ll fit right in if I am.

Sigh… I’m going back out on the road again tomorrow. Fort Smith, Arkansas.

I was originally assigned to the Santa Barbara market for this month’s conversion and I and my team were very excited about it. Two weeks’ paid semi-vacation, plus hotel, plus per diem in sunny Santa Barbara? “Sweet” was the universal comment.

Then Santa Barbara was pulled from the schedule. I checked to see where else they might send me instead and saw that New Orleans was converting this month. I could stand me some New Orleans. Let the lobbying begin!

I emailed my boss and volunteered, “Since Santa Barbara’s off, I’d love to help out in New Orleans.”

She writes back, “Sorry, you’ll be going to Fort Smith instead.”

“Where’s Fort Smith?”

“Arkansas.”

“No, really, I don’t mind helping out in New Orleans.”

So Fort Smith it is. Arkansas. Woo.

Check out their Chamber of Commerce’s website, where the slogan is “Life is worth living in Fort Smith, Arkansas.”

If you never hear from me again? They were lying.

Bicycling, that is.

Zoe and I just got back from a trip to the No Training Wheels Proving Grounds (aka Valley College‘s parking lot, right around the corner) and I’m happy to report that the training wheels have been retired and she’s off and running solo on two wheels. I still have to give her a little push to get her started every few tries, but once she’s going she’s going strong.

We’ve been working on this off-and-on for a little while now, but she has suddenly become extra motivated by a motocross riding school I found recently. When I showed her what she could be riding there (a little Honda XR70) and explained that she’d have to be able to ride sans training wheels before we could sign her up… Well, that was all the incentive she needed. We hit the parking lot, took off the training wheels, and I did the run-beside-her-while-holding-her-up thing maybe three times, and then she was riding solo. She wants to take that class in a big bad way.

She also wants her own motorcycle bad. We give her an allowance and she is always brainstorming jobs she can do for money, and every penny she gets goes straight into the piggy bank. She’s saving for a motorcycle. She has been resolute about this for months now. It’s not a passing fancy; she really wants to get a motorcycle.

I think I’m raising a biker chick.

Cool.

Listening to more John Mayer tonight and it’s still getting an emotional response. I really like his music; I’ve just about worn out his first CD and this new one is now in heavy rotation. This kid is either wise beyond his years or I’m a pathetic 40-year old luzer because I’m inspired by a 26-year old’s music. Maybe both. Whatever, his stuff strikes a chord in me and that’s what matters to me.

Something’s Missing
John Mayer

How come everything I think I need
Always comes with batteries?

I copied these lyrics directly from the CD insert (except the last two verses, which I transcribed from the song itself). I had to go to the insert to get them right: every single lyric web page I went to had them wrong. The second verse, the one that starts with being dizzy from the shopping mall, most got wrong as:

A desert frown, the shopping malls
I search for joy, then plot it out.
And all is well, I can?t complain.
It is just a game, it’s just a phase.

And the verse that makes up the heart of the song, the one this entry’s title is from, was most commonly presented as:

And it all comes, it doesn’t last
It just walks in, with a bad you lash
And you never know, when it starts
until this fog inside the glass around your summer heart

Yeah, “a bad you lash.” Whatever the hell that is. Sounds like another entry for the Archive Of Misheard Song Lyrics.

“Sounds like.” Ha.

An email I received from a co-worker this morning:

Hi Chuck,

Co-worker

About the error message: Duh.
About deleting the email: You got it.
About there being no written record of you owing me one: Dream on.