"You know, I got a call from Martha saying they had just the best time on their trip. She said they made so many great friends and the group got along so well and it was just such a memorable trip for them." These were the words being spoken by the elderly woman to her husband as we shared a bench seat on the Hertz shuttle to the terminal at Denver International Airport. Except, she had a very thick Midwestern accent and, with my pseudo-expertise, I was able to determine that she was probably from the desolate and undesirable plains of Minnesota, a land that I dare say 80% of Americans can't even place on a map. Therefore, imagine her sounding more like this: "Ya knoh, I gat a call from Martha sayin they hee-ad just the best tayme on der tree-ip. She said tha group, well dey just hee-ad such a gash darn good tayme. Dey mayde so many great friends, dontcha knoh? Soda pop." It was 6 am, and I wondered what kind of unprocessed foods and hormone-free milk they consumed in Minnesota that makes these people so energized and superfluously chatty at such an ungodly hour. Where I'm from, the industrialized foods filled to the brim with pesticide spray, hormones, preservatives, and trans fatty acids that I consume make me a complete and utter hairy, unkempt, ugly walking dick anytime before 10:30am. Scratch that, I'm a vagina with teeth that foams at the mouth prior to 11am; like a rabid mongoose. I'll keep my two-headed cows and genetically modified headless chicken torsos, though, thank you very much. There's something about my morning moods that I find refreshingly evil. I think I get this from my mother, who is a real nasty bitch for the first 2 hours of every day, slowly waning to a sedated and mild bitch by noon if you're lucky. "But Martha did mention that one of them got sick on the 10th day. The Oriental family they stayed with said that's the longest anyone's lasted! Turns out one of the guys ate some bad chicken nipples. That'll get ya every time. You don't eat animal nipples in a foreign country. You just don't. Especially China. Those Orientals will eat just about anything, even live baby monkeys I heard. It's just awful. Come to think of it, I don't know why the heck Martha and that group even ventured over there. You're just asking to come back with some type of god awful bird disease." The whole time, her husband just nodded and stared ahead, as though he was performing a routine he had down to a science. I guess this must be what happens after being together for so many years, you just learn to tune out the bullshit. The term "Oriental" was definitely a blast from the past.
In general, Americans are very ignorant and oblivious to their surroundings. As a culture we're just so afraid of everything that's unknown or foreign, such as the city of Washington, DC (allegedly). I went out to a bar called JR's in downtown Denver and was met with crowds of lesbians and gays galore. I always wondered why lesbians seem like such an exotic, seemingly endangered species. Well, it seems they've all uprooted to Denver, Colorado, where they can drive Ford Broncos and ride tandem bicycles without the awkward gawks from "sophisticated" urbanites. I sat at the bar talking to a guy who claimed he was "not from around here" but turned out he was actually from 30 minutes south of Denver. Of course, in the DC area you can be from Pennsylvania and still claim status as a "local". Eventually, our conversation was interrupted by a blond girl who reminded me of a lot of my female friends back home. In other words, she was completely trashed and about a half a catwalk away from having her left nipple pop out of her push-up bra. "Do you believe in fate?" she slurs to me. "It depends. How attractive is fate?" I respond. I sat there admiring her unique ability to clutch two drinks and adjust her bra with such unprecedented amounts of grace and finesse. "Well he's right out there, parking that car. And he'd like to meet you." As I peered through the crowd and out the window, I saw a BMW X5 backing into a parking space. Fate was looking pretty attractive from this angle. Of course, 5 minutes later fate strolls in and, under normal bar lighting, is about as attractive and desirable as a yeast infection. Honestly, I truly believe I was more attracted to the boyish lesbian named "Shaun" that asked me for a stick of gum not 5 minutes before. Welcome to the great Rockies.
Things took an odd turn when the blond girl who, in a fantastic drunken stooper, decided to divulge all of her personal life information to me, a complete stranger. "You see, I suffer from a rare disease called 'Lupus'. My parents resent me for it, so I don't ever go back to Wyoming to see them. It also makes my hair fall out in clumps. See? Just grab a handful and pull and see what happens." My first reaction was to feel sorry for her, followed immediately by the realization that not only was this the first person I had ever met from the state of Wyoming, but she was also at that exact moment grabbing my hand and forming it into a fist around a clump of her hair. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I gently tugged on her hair. Seconds later, I held a fist full of blond hair as she stared at me. "See? It just comes right out, like a shaggy rag doll." I sat there laughing in my head, thinking I'm glad I traveled 1,500 miles for this. I didn't quite know how to respond, so I said "This is really cool. If I were you, I would at least sell locks of my hair to white women with female pattern balding." She stared back. "Well, feel free to keep that piece if you'd like. A souvenir for when you head back to NYC!" I reminded her I was from DC, just as "fate" interrupted by asking, "How far is Central Park from the White House?" It's difficult to get angry at such an unattractive person, but it's not difficult to play along with stupidity. "Well, it's about 2 blocks from the White House, right near 5th avenue and the Washington monument. If you're lucky, sometimes you can catch Obama warding off a homeless person with a special can of Central Park mace on his early morning jogs." Maybe if I held similar levels of ignorance, my life would be more interesting and certainly filled with less therapy sessions. After all, ignorance is bliss right?
Eventually I made it back to my grimy hotel, where the halls wreaked of marijuana, cigarettes, and middle-American shame. It was a strangely welcome surprise, but certainly not as advertised on their website, which described the place as a "Luxurious 3 star hotel with a great view of the Denver skyline, conveniently located right off I-25!" To be fair, the lobby was O.K. and the rooftop bar on the 14th floor did have a good view, but as I recall, the only thing I had a good view of was a cinder block building and an 18 wheeler truck stop. It wasn't that they lied, they just bent the truth a little bit. Therefore, I decided I was satisfied with the place. I liked how different it all felt, as though I had instantly jumped between social classes and held a comfortable spot amongst the Harley Davidson crowd and chain smoking soccer moms. I smiled at the thought of my mother at this hotel: "I'm not going one foot closer to that bed until you get on all fours and check underneath for roaches and used condoms. This place is filthy. And don't touch that comforter, God knows the last time they washed those things. Does it smell like burnt hair in here to you?" Sylvia just isn't cut out for middle America. Ironic, though, as she's from a third world country that believes in consuming Guinea Pigs as appetizers and the sanctity of child labor and teen pregnancies.
As the plane descended upon DC the following day, I had a great view of Central Park and the Washington monument, with the Statute of Liberty just barely out of sight. The flight attendant announced, "Welcome to our Nation's Capitol" and for some odd reason I broke out in what I thought was quiet laughter. The girl in the seat next to me stared back with a confused look. She was in a suit wearing a serious expression on her face, and I knew she was flying to DC for business as I had spent the majority of the flight reading her emails on her MacBook as she wrote about business initiatives and long-term fiscal goals. How boring, I thought. She just wouldn't understand that, the reason I was laughing, was because just 12 hours before, I had been holding a clump of dry and damaged blond hair in my hand and explaining the significance of Madison Square Garden and it's proximity to the Capitol. In one weekend, I held a clump of a stranger's dead hair, witnessed what fate would look like had he been raised in cowboy boots on an inbred Mormon ranch in Texas, and binge drank beers on the 14th floor of a seedy "3 star luxury hotel" with a scenic view of a 6-lane highway. "What did she do?", I thought, "Write emails and iron her Ann Taylor suit?" If you learn to let go, you can experience more than you might ever imagine possible.
~F.A.G.
Soda pop
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