God Bless Texas. They Need It.

What a trip. Instead of starting right at the beginning, let's start with my leg of the trip home at the airport. Part of the work I do involves huge, heavy tools. So, in addition to my huge suitcase, I got to lug around two giant tool cases like I work for National Geographic. One weighed 52 lbs, the other 68 lbs. I get to the ticket counter to check them, put them on the scale, and the attendant looked at me with huge eyes.

"You realize the extra bag is $80 extra, and since they're both over the 50 lb limit, that's another $50 each. Do you want to put 2 lbs. into the heavier case, so you save $50?"

Me: "Nnnnnnnope." Why end a perfectly good streak of gross company expenditures. "Put it all on my company credit card."

I got to the security checkpoint, remembering the trick my new work associate showed me, that although lighters are prohibited, they don't set off metal detectors. I started loading one of the gray X-ray containers with the contents of my pocket. I spent a good 30 seconds pulling all sorts of shit out of my pockets (duct tape, pens, receipts, camera, phone, cigarettes, about $6 in change, two bottle caps, and a tin of altoids), and turned around to see the look on the face of the lady behind me; I thought she was going to ask if a rabbit was coming next. I got through the metal detector and handed my boarding pass to a 300lb woman with a pristine golden grill. I got the last standby position, and ended up sitting first class next to a New Orleans Go-Go dancer with $18,000 fake tits (yes, I asked her after 5 beers). But let's go back to the beginning.

At work on Monday, before I headed to the airport, I met the guy named Chris that I was going to work with. Our boss called us in and after bullshitting for five minutes, he said:

Boss: "Ok so seriously, what do I always tell you before these trips Chris?"

Chris: "No more DUI's?"

Boss: "That's right, safety first."

Two peas in a pod, from the beginning. Not to mention three hours later we both missed our flight and had to rebook. Once we got to the airport we headed directly to the bar and began some nice casual drinking with shots of whiskey on him. I took five minutes between beers to fill out a religious pamphlet with my boss's name and address and checked the box "Yes, I want to gain a personal relationship with my savior Jesus Christ." He's an ex-mormon too and should find the humor in it. Let's hope so anyway.

They say everything's bigger in Texas. I applied this to our rental car by getting a Hummer on the company credit card.

It's all about the Street Cred.

We got to the hotel and Chris tried to haggle down the price while I asked if they had wireless internet. I got the most priceless response, which I'm posting verbatim:

"Ima answer y'alls two question at once. The Ramada's cheaper, but they ain't got none neither. (referring to the internet)" There it was, the triple negative. The holy grail of bad grammar. The perfect game in baseball. The one punch knockout. The undeniable, irrevocable proof that this girl had never graduated highschool. I felt like I should take my shirt off and run and slide across the lobby like Pele.

By the way, if you stay at a hotel under 1.5 stars, you're lucky to get out of there without athlete's foot or another communicable disease. We checked in and set out to find a local dive bar. It wasn't hard because all the bars were dive bars. We drove around downtown Conroe and found a nice shitty little bar, with a bartender sporting crimped hair, bangs, and a full denim suit. It was fabulous. There were only two other people in there. One looked and dressed like Toby Keith (Cowboy hat and all), and the other was a surprisingly intellectual guy who knew a lot about satellites and somehow still worked the work "Nigger" into conversation within 5 minutes of opening his mouth. Welcome to Texas. Thank God the whole town was deserted or asleep because on the way back to the hotel I drove the wrong way down a one way street in a HUMMER and didn't get noticed.

We were supposed to get to the work site at 7, so Chris set his alarm for 6:45 and told me to set mine for 7. We got there at 8. Driving the hummer was pretty cool except for poor visibility and making me do the splits every time I stepped out of it. While Chris was on the phone with our boss he told him, "Hey guess what Mike did. He rented a Hummer because he said we needed Street Cred." Then he added that it was only $3 a day more than a Grand Prix.

We got to work spending a 12 hour day in the blazing Texas sun setting up the Satellite dish. I'd like to say that I actually helped install this thing, but I really didn't. I just kinda stood around and watched. And between daydreaming and playing with a stick in the dirt for about half an hour, I can't say I even watched all that much. You would think that standing around all day is easy, but my feet and legs felt like I'd been running suicides all morning.

The laborers we worked with (supervised) were a completely delightful and entertaining culture shock. They smoked cigarettes and swore more frequently than anyone I've ever met. I think I smoked so many cigarettes on that job site that one of my lymph nodes got all swollen and now feels like I have a clitoris on my freaking neck. If that doesn't mutate and kill me I'm pretty sure the consolation case of black lung will. One of these guys looked like Chase Spence and ended up going to a strip club the next night.

Chase Spence (Top two pictures) and Chase look alike (Bottom Two Pictures)

Chase look alike: "Dude, I got a blowjob from a stripper last night."

Me: ".......How much did it cost?"

Chase look alike: "Only $100. She was the hottest black girl I've ever seen."

Now he may have looked like Chase Spence but there were obvious behavioral differences. And it isn't because Chase doesn't like blowjobs.