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August 03, 2002
I swear I needed a
I swear I needed a shoehorn to fit into seat 27D on this Northwest Airlines flight from Hades. I'm up thousands of feet above the ground near Lake Something or other, clouds drift lazily below me, and I'm hunched forward trying to type. I can't open my laptop fully unless I insert the front part of the keyboard somewhere near my lumbar vertebrae, slicing gently through intestines and other digestive bits. Speaking of digestion, the nice flight attendant gave me two granola bars instead of the normal compliment of one. That should keep me alive long enough to see the annoying child shrieking in front of me smothered. As far as I can tell, today is also open season for ugly smelly people at the airports. The child shrieking in front of me is definitely an auditory confirmation that yes, ugly people are allowed to reproduce. His ugly parents keep regurgitating calming noises from their ugly necks, but this kid knows that he's doomed to be ugly.
I'm simply in a black mood, ready for the flights to end and have a real meal, maybe some chicken fried steak in Lubbock. I'm tense from travel, from the expectation of what it will be like back in Lubbock, from the mental exhaustion of completing the Teaching Fellows' summer program. They rewarded us with a keychain about teaching currently on the floor near my bed, and a stipend check. The stipend check is a welcome addition to my bank account, but like all things from the Board of Education, it comes with requirements and hoops to jump through. They wanted to reward us on our last day by getting us free tickets to the Bronx Zoo. Rather than giving this as an option, it was required in order to pick up the stipend check. Now, it takes me nearly two hours to get there from my home, plus the same trip back. I have wanted to go to the Bronx Zoo, but not the day before I am trapped in a plane for five hours. It was incredibly muggy, all the animals with sense stayed in their caves, and idiots like myself had to buy water for three dollars a bottle. Also, they included a sheet in with the stipend that said I had passed the horrifyingly complex Math CST test. When I told Caroline, one of the staff, how happy I was, she told me that it might be incorrect, she couldn't be certain. They had screwed up and canceled my test, and I had to take it a week later than everyone else. This means they probably included me in the group in error, but they don't know, as they might have received my scores. Or the might not have. She said she will try to check next week. I would want to scream if I didn't know how hard they work for all of us.
Posted by G at August 3, 2002 03:44 PM