Parables from an Almond Bellwether

I figured it was about damn time to write another blog post when I realized it had been a specific period of time since I last let the wordrrhea flow from my dripping fingers.

First of all, I feel like I need to explain my previous post: that shit is inexplicable. I had been thinking about "Jabberwocky" for a while and needed to get it out of my system. Just skip over it if you need to.

Now, on to the real stuff. So grab a Kleenex or two--never hurts to be prepared--and read on.

I spent Independence Day in Chicago, the birthplace of our great nation . . . uh . . . that, or the birthplace of countless dumpster and/or crack babies. I forget which. I must say, Chicago is just like any Utah town but with two minor differences: it's big and it's fun. Exhibit A: Here in Cache Valley, our tallest building is something like 9 stories. Chicago's tallest is something over 100. See? Teensy bit bigger, but not so much that you'd really notice if they were placed ass to ass.

I'm not going to go in chronological order as I recount details of my trip. I'm going to relate stories in the order that my mind regurgitates story chunks onto my hands. This first little gem--it's not really a story, more like a sickening manifestation of the sheer splendor that is humanity--is actually one of the very last things I witnessed in the very flat state of Illinois. --Sidenote alert-- Anyone remember when the kids in elementary school would pronounce the 's' in Illinois? Didn't you just want to walk up to them wearing a headdress and whack them with a baguette and say, "It's a French transliteration of a possibly Algonquian word, you cunt! Why the fuck would you pronounce that 's'?!". Don't tell me I'm the only one who did that! I may have given the kid autism, but he sure as Hell didn't mispronounce that one again. In fact, he didn't talk a whole lot after that. . . back to the matter at hand.

Here is a brief description of the bit of fine pageantry I witnessed. My parents and I were sitting at the end of a ridiculously tiny terminal in Chicago's Midway Airport. I had just used the restroom (fascinating, right?), and had my first encounter with the Dyson AirBlade or whatever the fuck it is. You stick your hands in it and it dries them with super-concentrated nitrogen mixed with gamma rays or something. Shit, I've seen those things in Utah since I got back. Usually we Utahns are a little slow on the tech uptake, but apparently we take hand drying seriously.

Anyway, I got back to my waiting-a-ridiculously-long-amount-of-time-for-the-plane-to-arrive seat at gate C3. I got out my book. I had bought a book series specifically for this vacation. I tend to go book crazy every time we go on a family trip, and this one was no different. In Boston, I read Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. I sped my way through a couple of those massive tomes, thousands of pages, and still had time to see shit and complain to my sister about how long she took to get ready. Last year, on our cruise to Canada and New England, I was reading Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files. I read about 8 of those on that trip. I made my parents find a bookstore in just about every port. In fact, we went to see that bitch who wrote Anne of Green Gables' house on Prince Edward Island, but I still wasn't inspired to read stories about some Canadian ginger who did stuff. I wanted my neo-noir urban fantasy. . . yeah. Do you detect a theme here? Basically, every year I read a total shit fantasy series while on vacation. I like to read formulaic crap about magical people while I leave my native Utah to soak up as little sun as possible somewhere else. The books I chose this year, however, were total shit. And not in the good way. Oh yeah, I have chosen not to divulge what this particular series is called. It's in the Bill of Rights. I refuse to incriminate myself any further.

So here I was, pretending to read my book, looking over its top and watching people be peoplishly odd. The dear, dear folks right in front of me (why in God's name do airport waity seats face each other?) caught my eye. They were eating. Now, I enjoy eating so I figured I might get some enjoyment out of watching these peasants eat their vittles.

This is the tableau that proceeded to rape my semi-virginal eyes. An Asian couple had brought an entire goddamn chicken to the gate with them. I don't know how it happened. I thought security confiscated food like that. Chicken bombs, Osama? Thought of that? Allah just inspired me, I think. This couple had their chicken, bones and all, in a Ziploc bag which was housed in a grocery store plastic bag. I'm all for eating chicken. That is one of the few activities I used to condone without reservation. These people, however, changed my views. First, they were using their hands to eat the chicken. Yes, chicken is usually a finger food but not if your chicken is coming from the same plate or, in this case, bag as someone else's. Second, they were sucking the meat and skin off the bones, then placing the bones back in the same bag from which they were eating. No explanation about taboo status required. Third, they would dig through their own discarded bones and gristle to find their next little morsel. With their bare fucking hands. Fourth, when they had finally finished eating all the chicken that could be eaten (or so I believed), they started to pick up previously sucked bones, place said bones in their mouths and proceed to insure that each little atom of protein had been removed. They did not have a bone-marking system; by this, I mean they had absolutely no way of telling who the original patron of their current meat source was. Basically, they were sucking on each other's garbage.

At this point, I started wretching and just had to tell my parents what they were missing. I whispered to my mom, who promptly put down her book and started to stare. My dad placed his Sudoku puzzle book on his thigh and watched in horror as these people devoured their chicken like sex-crazed pirhanas. As the three of us watched, the woman left; I assume she was headed to the bathroom to purge all that chicken and life-partner saliva she had just ingested. The man (oh yeah, he had a fake leg that always stuck out at the weirdest angle) proceeded to pull one of those little flossers out of his breast pocket and use it . . . in public, the public in which I currently found myself. Fake Leg plucked at his teeth for a few minutes, making sure to use the sharp end to get out those really pesky orts. At this point, let me just say that Fake Leg was sitting directly next to a garbage can--right next to it. Once he finished flossing in an airport terminal, he put the flosser back in his pocket. Did I mention that he was sitting by a trash receptacle? Did I mention that he put a one-time-use flossything, replete with toothchickenbits, back in his pocket?

Oddly enough, the next experience Allah has prompted me to share also involves Asians. Who knew? Lightning rods, they are. My parents, my aunt, and I (yes, my aunt; she's also from Utah but, coincidentally, was also in Chicago at the time) were in Chinatown looking for cheap shit and air that smelled like fried things; we found both. Amazingly enough, we still managed to get hungry. We went to a newly remodeled restaurant to get dim sum. We ordered a shit ton of food, and it was fackin' tasty. It was the conversation that was most intriguing, though. Our table was surrounded by people speaking Chinese. Unremarkable, I thought, considering the fact that we were in Chinatown. One of my travel companions (name not divulged to prevent nunchaku attack), however, considered it odd that we didn't hear more English. So, my table compatriot starts to talk about how Chinese people think their culture is superior to the Anglo-American culture, so it's ingrained in the Chinese for generations. I suppose xenophobic opinions are all well and good--no one is free of at least a tiny bit of prejudice--but perhaps you should leave your feelings unvoiced until you get out of the area in which the people you are insulting reside in much greater numbers than average (prepositions, anyone?). For example, I chose not to wear my pillowcase on my head when I went to Obama's inauguration party. See? It's just common sense mixed with a little bit of self-preservation. Needless to say, we got out of Chinatown without getting melamine-laced Diet Coke, but things were scary for a while.

My parents aren't the most spry of people these days, so instead of going out at night and tearing it up, after dinner we would usually sit in our hotel room and play cards. We brought along a card game, Quiddler, that is somewhat like Phase 10, except for the main goal is to create words. My parents are extremely formiddable word people. They seriously read the dictionary for fun. They're always doing really advanced crossoword puzzles and using really long words in normal conversation. But sometimes Quiddler just screws you over. You never have more than a few cards, and it is quite possible to get either all consonants or all vowels or a really shitty mixture of both. If you don't make words, however, your cards count against you. My father and I had just put our words down onto the table. My mom sat, looking forlornly between our words and her as yet unplayed hand. Suddenly, Allah inspired her and she put down a word: 'wank'. Repeat: 'wank'. I looked at her word and tried not to laugh. She knew more words than I did, so I figured she knew a non-dirty definition; she didn't. My dad stared at the 'wank' for a minute. I asked him if there was a nice definition for it. He proceeded to tell me that it meant 'to masturbate.' I looked up like a deer caught wanking in the headlights. Apparently, he didn't hear the 'nice' requirement of the definition I sought. Of course I knew the dirty definition of the word, since I am a fan of both British slang and . . . nevermind.

My mother, however, was shocked that she had used such a dirty word. I rather enjoyed it, but she did not think it was funny at all. She decided to take fewer points and use the word 'wan' instead. How very boring.

So there are three little stories about my recent trip to Chicago. I guess it goes without saying that we ate deep-dish pizza and looked at tall buildings and went to the theatre. We definitely did all that stuff, and it was quite grand. I just felt like these experiences just had to be shared. And there are morals to be gleaned from each. I'm like a modern Aesop. Fuck yeah.