Microwaved Memories

Sitting here eating this stale ass Ranch Chicken Taco Salad from my local Calle Ocho Taco Bell (yeah, you can admit it… jealous I know) – I was just thinking about the past month.

This was the “thankful” month. A month we are supposed to remember all the things and people we are thankful for. Why just a month? Shouldn’t we be doing this everyday of our lives?

I still think one of the funniest, and best things that ever came out of my mothers mouth was when she said “when ya think you have nothin’ to be thankful for… take your pulse”.

My last adventure started out with a flight (on a small plane) to Podunk Ohio. A place the locals call Canal Winchester. This… town (and I only call it a town because there is a Super Walmart), is outside of Columbus. By outside, I mean WAY outside. Like where you send lepers, homeless people and crackheads – or any combination of the previous.

We were to sit there for 103 hours to start. Yes ONE HUNDRED and THREE hours. Do you know how long that is to sit in a Best Western? A Best Western where the floors were so thin, when you walked everything in the room shook. A Best Western where when I walked into the room, the phone was ringing non-stop. By non-stop I don’t mean it would riiiiiing, pause, riiiiing – I mean it would riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing until I unplugged the bastard. A Best Western where the gym (and I use that word VERY lightly) was about 5 foot by 5 foot- all the equipment broken, and it smelled of gas. Not the gas that you’re probably thinking of -from a heater, or stove kind of gas. So, either they did not want you to work out, or the owners were the founder of the first “Holocaust Reenactment Group” and this was their way of getting people to “play along”.

Part of this 103 hours…. ONE HUNDRED AND THREE FREAKING HOURS… fell during Thanksgiving. Bitter? Slightly!!

Initially I was supposed to spend Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania. I was going to be in the middle of nowhere there as well; however some friends invited me to drive to where they live in PA and have dinner with them. That was my plan. That was what I was going to do. That is something I should have known would never happen… why? Because that’s not how my company works.

Side Note:

I sometimes feel that when we first graduate training, and they shake our hands; they are really placing a small microscopic device in our hand that is absorbed into our blood stream- a small device that I like to call the “phuk-up-ameter”. This device listens to all your plans, coordinates with a centrally located database (by centrally I mean in the head of scheduling’s office). It compares the time, date and plans to your schedule (even if it is the day OF)… then :::alarm alarm alarm::: it instantly sends out a change in the itinerary. Scheduling calls you and tell you… guess what, you are no longer going to enjoy where you are, we are sending you somewhere where the only thing you can do is count the roaches on your ceiling.

Back to the regularly unscheduled babbling:

The bottom line is, dinner was not going to be spent with the family friends.

This being the “thankful month” I decided to look at it in a different light. A dim far away light. A match-lit candle flickering in the distant field of a windstorm kind of light… but a different light none-the-less.

The people I was sent on this adventure with were amazing. I really can not complain there.

In fact, one of the girls I was with happens to have become a very dear friend to me. She has been very helpful in me deciding to go back to school full time. She herself is in school studying Psychology, and I know that one day she is going to be one helluva shrink. Actually, the more I think about it… I don’t really think she looks at me as a friend…but more like a case study… I’m going to have to revisit the good things I say about her at a later time… I might be reading into it more than I should! I digress.

The rest of the people are very nice. I really have nothing bad to say about any of them.

So here I am being bitter and depressed, and I get a call. This time it actually stopped ringing when I picked it up. Surprisingly, some of the ladies found out that the Kroger was going to be open for a few hours on Thanksgiving, and the company was going to order a premade turkey dinner. The lady from the front desk (with a mock-mullet) was going to bring in some plates for us to use. (Add her to the list to be thankful for)

Suddenly I am feeling a little bit happier.

This was awesome considering NOTHING was going to be open on Thanksgiving; no I take that back, the donut shop was going to be open… but my idea is a turkey stuffed with dressing, not a fried piece of dough stuffed with calories and some random cream made of god knows what..

So after a couple days of doing nothing but watching foreign films on Netflix, another call is received. “We are meeting at 1430 (2:30pm for you non-military time speakers) to go get the stuff”.

I love these random phone calls telling me we are “picking up the stuff”. I don’t know whether to feel like a spy, or a crack dealer.

So we meet downstairs.

Oh yeah, something else I forgot to add… there is NO elevator at this Best Western either. You know that is fun carrying all our crap up those stairs!

So we meet downstairs, and venture off into the freezing rain. And yes I mean literally frozen rain. It was about 30 degrees (roughly -1C for my metric friends). We start our walk over to the Kroger. It’s only about a 10 minute walk, and it doesn’t matter to me anyways because I love to walk.

We get there, and surprise. Our meal is at another Kroger. Which makes ZERO sense to me because it was ordered at THAT Kroger, and they called us (well not me, but the one lady) and told her that our meal was ready.

The lady behind the counter at the deli just gave us someone else’s meal and said they would just prepare another one for them. So if the Becker Family (I think that was the name) ever reads this. Thank you very much! Another thing to be thankful for!

So we get some more odds and ins around the store. You know the essentials, can opener, wine, pumpkin pie, another bottle of wine, some veggies, another bottle of wine, a knife to cut the turkey (and of course to be sure the TSA is doing their job properly when we try to get back to the plane).Last but not least of course a bottle of Baileys as a “pre-dinner drink”.

We get outside and I hear “oops”. This is never a good word to hear. We all look, and apparently, they (I was not in line with them, so for ONCE, I am not to blame) forgot to put the knife on the belt. We now have a stolen, or as I like to refer to it “permanently borrowed” item in the bags! SCANDALOUS!!

We get back to the hotel. We open the box with the “precooked” turkey in it and…-yet another wrench in the spokes of the bike of life. The turkey is almost frozen.

Here we have a turkey, and no way to cook it…. Or is there? Between all of us, and the “breakfast room” we had 8 microwaves. We cut up the turkey into several pieces, and tap it, slap it, zap it- you got a turkey! Add to that the sweet potatoes, and everything else freshly made in the microwave, add a candle taken off the front desk, and 7 smiling faces, you have a thanksgiving meal.

I could look at this in so many different ways. I like to think of it as though we were celebrating Thanksgiving much like the pilgrims-minus the buckled shoes and funny hat- and Indians – minus the feathers and moccasins (we’re not talking about the bindhi and tikka kind). We had to ‘hunt’ for the food. We had to sit down to a meal with people, some of which, we had never eaten. Foreigners to some- in fact, we had Belgium, Argentina, Holland, Trinidad & Tobago (I had to tell her, please don’t jump and wave during the blessing, this isn’t a fete). And most of all, we were thankful to have a meal- and wine of course!

Though I don’t think there is enough paper and ink to put all the things I am happy for in life, I would like to make a short list for the things I am thankful for from this last adventure (in my own cynical way).

-The person who always calls out of work- this allowed me to work with a very dear friend of mine.

-The last minute screw up in scheduling- though is made my dear friend have a long miserable day; it made me thankful that I didn’t have any craziness getting to where I was going, and got the chance to be a friend and listen to her cuss, bitch, and scream.

-The 24hr Super Walmart in Canal Winchester- Thank you for the beautiful displays of mullets, and hiring the mentally challenged. Without you, I would not have entertainment for the several days I was stuck here, and the mentally challenged, slow, and genetically challenged people would have no jobs.

-Mock-Mullet Front Desk Lady- Though your hairdo is way out of style, your heart is WAY big. Thank you for the dishes (which also were way out of style, which is probably why you didn’t mind lending them to us while your family ate off of dishes without a painting of vegetables painted by Dali’s retarded child) You know that if the front desk thing doesn’t work out- Walmart is always rolling back prices, and combing back mullets!

- The inventor of the microwave- b/c without 8 of these little mini-nuclear wars contained in a metal box, we would not have had a meal

- The “Honk” Housekeeper- It was hard as hell to understand you with your lisp, heavy accent, and stuttering, you were really sweet, and I am thankful that you allowed me to steal (permanently borrow) cups and coffee off your cart. I hope you had a blessed family dinner!

- TSA (I know this one is a shocker) – for not finding the big ass knife in my carry on so that I could have a knife in my ‘crashpad’ in Miami. You REALLY know how to do your job. I feel MUCH safer knowing that you are protecting our airports and the citizens of this country by telling me that the WATER bottle I was carrying was not allowed through the checkpoint! Thank you for being so thorough!

So as I finish up this Ranch Chicken Taco Salad. A salad with a stale taco shell bowl, and 2 small pieces of chicken, and NO ranch dressing (apparently the “ranch’ part of the chicken just means the chicken came from a ranch). I smile. Life is not that bad… and when it is, at least it’s funny.

I was really depressed that I was not going to get to spend the “normal” holiday with family. In return, I gained an experience, a story, a memory that no one can take from me… well except that German named Al… Al Zheimer!

“Good days are to be gathered like grapes, to be trodden and bottled into wine and kept for age to sip at ease beside the fire. If the traveler has vintaged well, he need trouble to wander no longer; the ruby moments glow in his glass at will” ~ Freya Stark (1893-1993)