flight delay

i am sitting at the airport waiting to be allowed on my plane. been here since 6 pm. of course i can never go home without sitting at the airport for an excessive amount of time due to a flight delay. ground delays in boston tonight because of a little mist. anyhow, since i am bored out of my mind i decided to give in and spend $5.00 to 'surf the world wide web' for a little while before the plane takes off. unfortunately, i have spent most of this time doing work since when i connected to the internet the first thing that happened was my outlook was bombarded with emails. now i have decided to take a little break and check out the people around me.

the airport is a great place to do some serious people watching. there really are just so many interesting people to observe in the gate area. starting with the man next to me who smells like someone just took a baseball bat to the back of a bar and spilled every single bottle of liquor behind it. he is also somehow managing to smoke cigarettes somewhere in the smoke free airport. he gets up every five minutes walks away and comes back smelling like he just took a shower with a few cartons of marlboro lights. then there is the girl sitting a few seats away from me. she is wearing a skimpy little white dress and the most hideous platform sandals that i have ever seen. she is dressed very appropriately for a flight. she is also on her cell phone talking as if she is the only person in the airport. there's the lady who sat RIGHT next to me even though there are about 100 other empty seats in the area just so that she could be right next to her cell phone while she charged it (as if there werent any other outlets in the airport she could plug it into). Then, there is the man WITHOUT a cell phone. i did not think that those people existed anymore unless they were 10 years old or younger, but there was in fact a 50 year old man using the airport pay phone this evening. I actually wondered why they even had those anymore, but I just realized why. for that guy. there is a man a few rows over from me wearing sunglasses and a safari outfit. i think he may be in the wrong terminal because this flight is definitely going to boston not the australian outback.

currently, i feel as though i may be getting drunk just off of the fumes from the man sitting next to me. he just got back from his third mysterious cigarette. he is now talking to his coworker who he clearly went and got a little sloshed with. his buddy's face is bright red, i guess he couldn't hang with mr. liquor cabinet himself.

there's also a boy at the ticketing counter who seems to be trying to get on standby for the next flight. i am not exactly sure what makes him think he is goign to get on an earlier flight since the last three flights to boston have been delayed. i am pretty sure about 100 people before you had this idea already. seeing as though our flight will be boarding in less than a half hour, i would say this boy is shit out of luck. but good luck to him anyhow.

the girl sitting right across from me was in the bathroom with me earlier. she spent at least 10 minutes applying makeup (she was doing this when I walked into the bathroom and well after I washed my hands and left). She has also relocated her seat about five times in the last hour and a half for no apparent reason. she must be looking for her future husband in the airport tonight.

next time your flight is delayed, make sure to take note of these people. i am sure there will be similar ones boarding your plane as well. unless of course you are on a flight full of people who look like they were on Lost. i wish sometime in life I would be on a flight like that. with all hot young people. i can almost guarantee i will be sitting next to drunkard over here or a really fat guy who can barely fit in his seat. aren't you glad i splured and spent $5 to share this with you?

thank you mr. gomez

So, one of my friends is thinking about buying a new car. her current car has almost hit the legal drinking age its been around so long and obama is actually going to give her $3500 for it if she turns it in for a more fuel efficient vehicle. I am not sure what car is more fuel efficient than an early 90's toyota corolla. it seems like she is just going to have to buckle under the pressure and get one of those weird looking hybrids. do they have to make the prius look so weird?

anyway, in talking with her about purchasing a new vehicle, it brought me to about a year and half ago. it was early march, i was out early one morning picking up a few last minute items for my best friends bridal shower when BAM! i was sideswiped in the Rite Aid parking lot by a Mr. Eduardo Gomez. Needless to say my car was totaled and the next few weeks that rolled by I experienced some some really fantastic car selling techniques.

the first car that I bought was in highschool and my mom and I literally stumbled across it when we were walking out of the bank. a black honda accord with a for sale sign. the man followed us home, my dad checked out the car, tried to 'haggle' him (my dad thinks he is great at this, but the price did not go down at all, so I believe otherwsie), and then decided we would take it. it was as easy as that. when I was in my second year of college I wanted a car with less miles so that it would be safer for me to travel back and forth to school. so, i went through the classifieds with my Dad and stopped by a few places - my dad did all the 'haggling' once again. So, this time would be my first car buying experience on my own and not from the newspaper.

my first stop was Brown's Arlington Nissan. This dealership was unlike any of the others that I visited, because I literally felt like they did not want to sell any cars. And, I think I may have been right about that, because Browns Arlington Nissan has since closed down and become just the Brown's Super Center. Next stop was the sketchy Nissan dealership in Tysons Corner. The man that strolled out of the building as soon as my foot hit the pavement of his parking lot looked like he had about a half a gallon of gel in his hair. he was also donning a lovely polyester sport coat and a white mock turtle neck. he treated me like I was a complete idiot (little did he know my dad taught me a lot about 'haggling') and tried to sell me a 2000 Mazda 3 for $12,000. So, I decided to stop by next door at the Honda dealership. This was a much different experience. The man at the Honda dealership I'm pretty sure was in his first week of work. He let me test drive every single car I wanted to and didnt even ask what I was interested in buying. He also did not know how to generate carfax reports. I did NOT buy my car from this man.

So, I left the dealership depressed that day. another week would go by where I would need to carpool to work in the Monte Carlo Sport. I spent every day and night looking online at dealerships, emailing dealers, talking prices and features. I felt like I could not get anyone to take me seriously. So, finally my Dad set up an appointment for me at the Ford dealership in Alexandria. He had me meeting with the top salesWOMAN of the month, Barb Overbo. So, after I got over laughing about her name for a little bit, Marissa and I took a drive over to the Ford dealership to meet with Barb after work. I looked at the car, gave it a test drive, and decided this was the one. So, Barb sent me off to meet with the lady in financing who promptly asked if Marissa and I were lesbian lovers. Kind of a forward question, but she was still a nice lady. After I almost cried over the payments, I signed the papers with my 'lover' standing by. Then I was introduced to crazy nail lady. These nails dont do justice to the ones she had one when I met with her. Not only were they this long, but they also had little gems glued on and some little diamond things dangling off with some sparkling silver nail polish stripes across the blue. She was a true gem. She tried to sell me some paint protector for my used car. I laughed her and told her no. Maybe she was the one who keyed my car two weeks after I got it.

After all was said and done, I really do like my new car (not new anymore) a lot. And, I actually think it drives a lot nicer than my other car and has way less miles, so I guess I'd like to give a big Thank you to Mr. Gomez for helping me find Cammy (my car). But, no thank you for the increased car insurance due to shared fault in our parking lot accident. have a nice day.

marcella lowery

sometimes when i am at work and i am talking to people on the phone i try to imagine who the person on the other line really is. like yesterday for example, a woman called me, she was pretty loud (i had to turn the volume down on my phone at least 3 levels) and i could tell she was assertive by the way she was talking to me and asking me questions. i imagined that she was calling me during her 15 minute 'smoke break' and that she probably worked in some sort of customer service job (maybe for comcast - she's the lady that 'notes' things in the system and won't let you speak to her manager). maybe she even wore a headset so that she could answer as many calls as possible, after all, the phone is probably ringing off the hook at comcast with customer complaints. i thought she probably wears blazers to work even though she doesn't ever come in contact directly with a customer - and that day, i think she was wearing a lavender one. i think she probably left the shoulder pads in her blazer too. and, she was probably wearing a lot of blush and fuchsia lipstick. actually, now that i think of it, i think she was that operator from What about Bob, her name was Betty I think. She was the operator that Bob called when Dr. Leo Marvin went on vacation. anyway, i know that other people out there do the same exact thing. you can't help it but think about what that person on the other end of the line is like. and for me, that woman is Betty.

shows of christmas past

sometimes, when i am scrolling through the 500 channels of pure garbage on my television guide, i think about some of the truly legendary and entertaining shows that have since been replaced. i think about shows like unsolved mysteries. who doesn't enjoy a good murder mystery or abduction replay by some chillingly realistic actors? i know that sometimes i lay awake at night, hearing robert stack's voice whispering things to me right before i fall asleep - just hoping that i can help solve one of his many unsolved mysteries. Or, what about perfect strangers? doesnt anyone miss cousin balki? or would we rather watch new york go to work as a bounty hunter or a junk removal worker (um lets be serious, thats called a garbage lady)? what happened to good, fun family shows like double dare? Trivia and Physical Challenges, the best of both worlds. Now, we are left with shows like I survived a Japanese Game Show. Not even close to the same entertainment value and also just plain ridiculous. Chuck Woolery's, The Dating Game, has since been replaced with shows like More to Love (premiering july 28th, 2009) and MTV's Next. hopefully, shows like these will someday grace the prime time slots again and delight millions once again. i will patiently wait for that day. and until then, i will only watch Lost.