Vehemently Vitriolic

I needed a holiday. Everyone says they do, and in my case, it happened to be true, so I did something about it. The name’s Johnny Rocket, and I’m a PI. At least, thats what it says on the door I rent.

I sat in my office, looking over the days racing form. Nothing to write home about. I had a T-bill to play and it was burning a hole in my suit. File Put Contents in the first to show maybe. I put my Camel down long enough to grab for the phone to let my bookie know, when my door opened, and she walked in. A short drink of water with blond hair. The kind of dame that will lead you to nothing but problems, and I couldn’t wait to follow.

“Whats the deal, sweetheart?” I said drinking her in. There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. No matter. I was having whatever she was selling.
“Um….are you ready to go to the airport?”

So that was her game. The Airport was a two-bit gin-joint about an hour out of town. I had been there before. Nothing good ever came out of it. I couldn’t figure out why a bird like this needed to go such places, but I played along. (more…)

As I was writing part 2 of my San Francisco trip, I got onto the subject of the TSA and my adventures with airports, I thought I would include some background. The problem is, I am equal parts idiot and not-knowing-when-to-shut-the-hell-up. Ingredients for hijinx and hilarity to be sure. (more…)

The annual pilgrimage down to San Francisco. Every year my wife and I head on down to see her great aunt (or “The Trust Fund” as my father in-law likes to say) at “the home”. Its always an entertaining trip, fraught with peril, surprises, tears….maybe even a life lesson or two. Yes, its like one large after school special.

Last year when we went, we drove down to Seattle and got on Southwest (which was an interesting trip seeing as we had never flown Southwest before and hence were not aware of the cattle-call like system they have apparently perfected, nor the much-coveted “A” ticket, which, from what I saw when we were given such manna from heaven, there have been minor wars over). On the way home, Southwest lost our luggage. Not a big deal…we had planned on staying the night in Seattle anyway. The lady was very apologetic, and must have figured we were Canadians when we offered to come pick oit up from the airport tomorrow morning on our way home. For this, we got a $100 gift certificate. It was due to expire this year, so we thought well, we may as well use it up.

Off we went down to the border. My wife and rarely get more than a glance when we head across the border. This is becuase my wife has figured out that the border gaurds asking the questions tend to be on the drivers-side. And I have a very bad tendency to say exceedingly stupid things when I talk to said guards, such as the following discourse that took place a number of years ago on one of our first trips across the border:

Border guard: “Do you have any guns, sir?”
Me: “No, why do I need one? I’ve heard America is kinda rough…..”
Guard: “Pull over there sir.”
Me: “Crap” (more…)