25 June 2008

Long and short of it

I was on the phone with Zeeba earlier - one of the great joys of the long-distance relationship being an intimate relationship with your telephone - and she was lamenting that yet again she spent a good portion of her day in airports and airplanes and gained very little ground for all that effort. After something like 8 hours of travel, she finally arrived at her destination a scant 1000 miles away.

Unfortunately, this time she was traveling for work rather than to see me, so there wasn't even much of a payoff at the end of the trip; just a lonely hotel room for her and an empty apartment for me.

I once swore that I would never fall for a girl that wasn't geographically accessible. There's a scene in the old 1949 George Cukor film, Adam's Rib (starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) in which their neighbor, Kip, says to Hepburn's character (Amanda Bonner), "Mrs. Bonner, I love you. I love lots of girls and ladies and women, and so on, but you're the only one I know why I love. And do you know why?...Because you live right across the hall from me. You're mighty attractive in every single way, Mrs. Bonner, but I'd probably love anybody who lived right across the hall from me. It's so convenient. Is there anything worse than that awful taking a girl home and that long trek back alone?"

That pretty much says it all.

Of course, by swearing on this I drew the fire of the Universe, who enjoys fucking with people - or, with me, anyway - and so that's that. But the distance isn't even the worst of it. The worst of it is that the airlines, never really known for their reliability, seem to have gotten in on the Universe's little joke once they realized how utterly dependent on them I would become. Not only can I count on every flight being delayed or canceled, but they charge an arm and a leg (and a kidney and a spleen) for the privilege. The bastards.

So, when Zeeba was sent back to the gate for a hull breach (or something equally Star Trekky-sounding) and left to languish for several hours in a crowded cattle-car cabin - followed by having to circle one airport for an hour before being shunted off to land at another one further away - she expressed some concern about a repeat performance (or possibly just a sequel, and sequels are sometimes always worse than the original) on Friday, when she will be coming to see me. It's one thing to waste 8 hours on the company's dime, but to lose 8 hours that we could be together? That's the Universe making another lame joke. Listen closely, and you'll hear the rim shot.

I have a brilliant contingency plan, though, in the event of airline failures.

If her flight is delayed or cancelled or otherwise effed with, she can just head to the supermarket, pick up a cow's heart, pack it on ice in a cooler with a little sign on the side that says, "Human Organ for Transplant," and tell the airlines that she must urgently get this organ to Chicago. When they send a MedEvac helicopter for her, she can text me to meet her on the roof of whichever hospital, where I will show up wearing my lab coat (after having torn off the patches with mine and my company's names, of course) and carrying a photo of a very grateful 5 year old boy who would have died had it not been for them so generously rushing my heart to me.

Although the Universe would probably just counter by ripping out my own still beating heart, so perhaps that's not the best idea, after all.

Cue that rim shot.

The Last Five:
I heard it on the radio - 27 July 2008
Happiness is... - 26 July 2008
Do bears shit in the woods? - 21 July 2008
Politics schmoliticks - 14 July 2008
words and pictures - 14 July 2008

Long and short of it

Navigate

Contact Me...

6° of Saru-San:

Old Navy

A Photo Gallery

Credits

Notify List

Geek Stuff