Shit Happens in USA - Los Angeles Part 1

We finally exited LAX airport at around 1:00am on 17th December.  We were so tired and hungry we’d gone past frustrated anger and we just looked defeated as we shuffled outside of the airport with our cases to wait for a taxi large enough to take us and all of our luggage.  We were silent on the cab drive to the hotel and even the Captain looked completely stuffed.  He pepped up as we drove into the Marina del Rey area, where our hotel was located, and started talking animatedly about how much he loves the area and how it hasn’t changed since he was last here in 1988.  How the hell he could tell this from the pitch blackness of night outside of the taxi is beyond me, but he was suddenly excited.  He turned to us in the back seat and said, “We’ll just dump our cases, then find a diner and get a meal.”  Up we all popped like a row of jack-in-the-boxes along the back seat at the mere mention of food.  Suddenly we were awake and ready go.

We wandered into the deserted hotel lobby at 1.30am and checked in.  We made it to our room and as soon as we opened the door, we were immediately hit by a wall of hot air.  It was like a balmy afternoon in Darwin in there.  I felt like I was going to melt into a puddle on the carpeted floor.  We dumped our cases and resisted the temptation to strip to our underwear to cope with the sudden heat.  We asked the concierge how to turn the heat down and he straight away turned it to Celsius for us.  Well, good on you mate, but turn the fucking thing down before we all sauté in our own gut fat!  I stood at the thermostat trying to make the fucker go down to arctic blast with the kids looking over my shoulder for support, but the lowest temperature we could get the unit down to was 24◦C; very fucking balmy! It was so hot in the room that we were almost fainting so we opened the sliding door to the small balcony and decided to leave it open while we went out to eat in the hope that the room would be habitable when we returned.

We passed a 24 hour diner on the way to the hotel so the Captain pointed us in that direction.  It was called ‘Killer Café’ and I was hoping it had nothing to do with the food. Turns out Marina Del Rey were into death threats because not only did we find a Killer Café, we found Killer Hairstyles and Killer Shrimp too.  Considering California’s serial killer list, this was an accurate threat. The first thing we saw when we opened the door and wandered in at 2:00am was a giant black man standing in the middle of the diner wearing a floor length fur coat on.  What the fuck?  Captain Fantastic turned to me and grinned, “Check that out,” gesturing at the anomaly in the animal pelt.  I nodded mutely because I was so hungry I was starting to feel queasy!

Perusing the menu and almost salivating all over it because we were deliriously hungry, we finally settled on burgers and sandwiches.  When the meals arrived, it was comical...they were huge.  The Captain ordered a meatloaf burger but he received a meatball burger, which was a little disappointing for him.  I had ordered a sandwich and it arrived on a platter, not a plate.  The sandwich was served on bread that had been cut down the length of the bread loaf so it was double size.  It took up about a third of the giant platter like plate and the rest of the plate was piled high with fries like a heart attack begging for a way in.  Of course I could only consume half of the giant sandwich and a few of the fries because I’m a normal person and not from the land of giants where this meal should have been served.  As wasteful as the excess was, I was still scarred by the acid incident so I refused to shove any more of this deep fried crap into my body than I could manage.  Boy wonder devoured his entire burger and most of the fries as did The Captain because the boys had large appetites and could actually reside in the land of the giants.  Miss Marvellous only ate half a sandwich too; she’s normal just like me.

We made it back to the hotel room and collapsed into a fitful sleep made all the more uncomfortable by the heat in the room.  We discovered that if we left the sliding door open, we could actually get enough cool air in there to make sleep possible…if you only draped a sheet over one third of your left leg and hung slightly off the side of the bed to catch a little of the breeze.  

The acid incident came back to haunt me because with the late arrival into LA and the sprint to the café for sustenance, I’d forgotten to take an antacid pill so I endured another night of heartburn that felt like molten lava had been set loose in my oesophagus.  I managed to get through the night without vomiting so that was a bonus but I was more wary than ever.  

Every day we would leave the room with the door wide open to reduce the chance of actually baking in there and when we returned, after the room had been serviced, we’d find the sliding door closed and the room an inhabitable hotbox again.  There was no fridge in the room so we left our wine and beer outside on the balcony in the cool air to refrigerate it for us.

Our first day of sightseeing in Los Angeles was led by Captain Fantastic as he retraced the steps he’d taken in 1988 (Jesus, we’re old).  We walked towards Venice Beach and after admiring surfers tackling nondescript waves from the pier, we made our way up the Venice Beach boardwalk that eventually ended in Santa Monica.  I wished The Captain a Happy Anniversary...21 years.  With the screw-ups and time differences, the date had completely slipped his mind.  As we headed towards the boardwalk, we passed paddle tennis courts featuring a pretentious bunch of knobs playing like there was a trophy involved.  Knobs were a real feature on this boardwalk and it made for an interesting walk.  Within seconds of passing knob central, we were set upon by a very tall and imposing black man selling his CD.  He asked where we were from and The Captain told him Australia.  Big dude grinned and said “Hey, Guy Sebastian”, like he’s the only thing Australia has every produced of any worth.  Captain Fantastic was not expecting this dude so he actually purchased the CDs to make him go away.  He is not easily bamboozled like this so I was very surprised that he bought it.  He only made that mistake once.  We’ve never listened to whatever is on the CD, it was the equivalent of throwing a few bucks at him to be granted passage to continue on the boardwalk.  The interesting observations started.

The smell of marijuana hung heavy in the air and no fucks were given by those openly smoking rolled joints on the path.  Every second store front had a marijuana leaf on a sign stating “medicinal marijuana available here’ with staff dressed in green medical uniforms sporting the dope leaf like an emblem of health.  On the right of us as we headed towards Santa Monica, dotted amongst the dope dealers, were stores selling tees with hilarious words printed on them, underwear with rude and funny declarations about the body parts contained within, smoke stores selling God knows what and the odd diner or food vendor.  On the left, beach side, were market-esque stalls selling drawings, paintings and homemade jewellery and it felt very much like wandering through a small market with regular stalls.  The artistic talent was astounding and then, every now and then, a stall trying to sell ‘art’ that looked like something your kid brings home from Kindergarten that you’re supposed to admire but is a mess of screaming colour all bleeding together and you think it is actually a piece of shit.

The market stalls gave way to a cluster of youth playing basketball on concrete courts with the beach as the backdrop.  The men were of mixed race and college age; it was interesting to watch.  Boy Wonder and I stopped to watch the skills of the youth.  As he was watching he said, “black people are so much better at sport than white people; it’s in their genes.”   Going by the skills displayed on the courts before us, I was inclined to agree. We continued walking and every few meters, someone tried to impress upon us, our need to purchase their CD.  The Captain has been burned once and did not even enter into conversation with the pushy black men.

The market stalls continued until they ended suddenly at an enormous sea of homeless people.  All clustered together, some of them sleeping, surrounded by everything they own, was an eye opener to the homeless situation.  There were toilets at regular intervals along the beach so we were lulled into a false sense of security about restrooms, which would become a problem for us in the coming days and weeks.  We wandered past muscle beach and it was empty.  I tried to imagine the kind of tossers who would like to work out there.

We made it to Santa Monica and The Captain stated often how he would like to retire here.  He is obviously planning on a future without me because I don’t share his desire to live here.  It is noisy and full of people thrusting shit in my face like I’m on a beach in Thailand.  We got our first taste of street performers in Santa Monica and we were impressed.  The Santa Monica pier is fabulous and is the end of Route 66 so we took a gazillion photos here and marvelled at it; Boy Wonder’s fascination of Route 66 started with the movie Cars in his childhood.  Miss Marvellous bought a snow globe because she has issues.

We ate a sandwich in a café with bread that was so thick that each slice was the thickness of four toast cut slices.  It was too much and as usual, it was quantity of quality.  Boy Wonder chose a drink which stated on the can would perk him up and immediately started feeling ill because of it (it’s a great imagination he has…I suspect the placebo affect had taken place).  He didn’t like this café and I think it was because the bread was so thick and dry that he has to gulp the drink down to make the dry shit slide down his throat and that was more than likely why he was feeling ill.  Either way, he blacklisted the café. I ordered a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel which only cost about US$3 so we were pleasantly surprised until it turned up as just a bagel with cream cheese, much to our dismay.  The Captain queried this and was told that the stupid bitch who took the order didn’t hear smoke salmon (obviously a deaf stupid bitch) and advised that the smoke salmon bagel costs US$12 each.  Holy fuck.  Did they catch it and smoke it themselves?  Next I’ll have to sell a kidney for a glass of orange juice.

We walked back to the hotel the way we came and the kids discovered a candy store called It’sugar, which really gave me the shits because of the dual use of the ‘s’ but I had to get over that because my offspring were intolerant of my grammar Nazi bullshit.  Miss Marvellous discovered a row of shelves at the back of the store holding 'candy dick rings’ , 'giant cock pops’ and ‘dick lips’ sugar sweets; pointing and giggling at the sex shaped lollies because she is 18 and still a child in the mind.  Boy Wonder had discovered Duff Beer and we saw boxes of ‘Skittles’ by the kilo!  I suddenly wanted to get the hell out because my brain was screaming “Diabetic Coma!” at me at a thousand decibels.  On the way out of the store I spied a box of cereal called “colon blow”.  Curious, I took a closer look at the box and saw that it touted the cereal is incredibly high in fibre…all-righty then!  Walking past Muscle Beach at the end of the boardwalk showed us a group of wankers who like to flex their muscles whilst a crowd gathers to watch them work out.  I was not impressed by these tossers; they just confirmed their toss bag status to me.  They should rename this section of beach ‘wanker beach’ so passers by get a real understanding of what happens there.  Twats!

It got dark at around 4.30pm, which was something we needed to adjust to having come from an Australian summer where the sun sets at 8:30pm.  The sunsets at Venice Beach were astoundingly beautiful.  Miss Marvellous was clicking away like the tourist she was, which resulted in some gorgeous photos of pink skies and palm trees.  The first dinner out (if you don’t count the 3:00am diner meal) was at a place called The Terrace.  We ordered the pizza because we thought it would be a safe bet but we were so horrified by the disgusting flaccid shit-storm that we were served that we decided we should not tip these fuckers.  They obviously know their food is shit because they have cheekily already worked the tip into the bill and it was about 18%, which is what you should pay for great service and great food, not the limp flavourless mediocrity served in this shit hole.  This place was black-banned and was given the award of “Worst pizza EVER!” by our posse.

The Captain and I decided to walk to the supermarket so we could get stuff for breakfast or brunch because we don’t actually want to have three sit down meals a day.  He told the kids we would be back in 40 minutes but he had no fucking idea because it was a forty minute walk one way.  It was late and I was over it but we bought some wine so I thought I might be happy when we returned.  I tried not to think about serial killers while we walked back in the dark. The Captain’s beer purchase was amazing; a 6 pack of Leffe for US$9.95.  What the fuck?  In Australia they cost around $6 per stubby.  How wonderfully weird.  There was a definite spring in The Captain’s step on the walk back home.  The wine is okay but was a little on the sweet side…beggars can’t be choosers so I downed that shit anyway.

The shitty pizza gave me indigestion again and despite the preventive pill, the flaccid shit-storm churned in my stomach for hours and had me vomiting acid again in the middle of the night.  My resentment of ‘The Terrace’ grew to the point where my mind referred to it as ‘The Terrorist’ because it blew up my guts.  “Fuck my life” I thought miserably as I hugged the toilet bowl in the hotel bathroom while the rest of the family slept like the dead in the sweltering room beyond.

Doona

Shit Happens in the USA…Honolulu

Our family has recently returned from a month long trip to the USA.  Shit happened on the trip so often that I had to create numerous blogs to fit it all in, lest it become my next novel.  This is the first blog of the trip.

We had to wait an extra year for Miss Marvellous to complete Year 12.  During the wait, we started to organise ourselves.  We applied for our USA VISAs in February and hit our first snag during this initial stage.  Unfortunately Captain Fantastic (a.k.a. Felonious) had some trouble organising his VISA due to an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Nevada.  Don’t panic, it’s not as sinister as it sounds.  He incurred a speeding fine in 1988 and in the USA, when you get a speeding fine, you don’t get handed a piece of paper with a notification of your offence and the loss of demerit points, you have to attend court.  The Captain did not attend said court appearance due to the fact that he had returned home to Australia and stupidly, didn’t pay the fine or advise US officials…possibly because he was young and stupid and couldn’t think beyond his current circumstances.  30 years later, it came back to bite him on the arse.

So the kids and I had our VISAs, we just had to wait for the Captain to jump some hoops before he could be granted his.  Before he could attempt to gain his VISA he first had to provide an Australian Criminal Report.  He was advised by the local constabulary that this piece of paper would take 10 working days…it took 6 bloody weeks because every Aussie and his dog was planning to join us in the USA.  After this documentation finally arrived and the Captain’s honour was reinstated, the lengthy process of having the scanned document and passport verified in the USA commenced.  This is not an arduous task; it is simply a case of sheer numbers of similar requests and government workers at the other end who move at the pace of a sloth whilst giving absolutely no fucks about the people requesting the documentation. 

In April, while we patiently waited and tried not to fret, the Captain became concerned that we would all miss out on the holiday, or that the cost would bounce outside of affordability if it was left too long to book flights, so he called me at work and suggested he go ahead and book the kids and I passage in a flying machine.  Of course, this was out of the question as it’s not a family holiday without Dad.  The captain advised that this was not my call and he would like to put it to the kids.  I agreed but warned that the children would have the same reaction as me because there was no way they would want to go to the USA without their father.  Turns out I have no fucking idea because he called a family meeting that very night and put it to the kids and whilst I sat there with my arms crossed and a smirk on my face because he just doesn’t know our kids like I do, the little fuckers actually said. “Yep, that sounds good.”

Wait, what?  So now I’m back pedalling with my startled emoji face on, barking at them, “You do realise that there’s a chance he may not get his VISA in time and we will be flying over there without him?”  Miss Marvellous shrugs a shoulder and adds, “sure, we’d love you to come, Dad, but I don’t want to miss out on this trip.”  She refrained from adding “…because of your stupid fuck-up.” At this point, my bottom jaw was dangerously close to the table top when Boy Wonder joins, “Yeah, hope you can come, Dad.” Can you believe what little shits they are?  Worse than that, Captain Fantastic is sitting opposite me with a smug look on his face because he knows our loin fruit better than I. 

So he booked our flights on various agreed dates and the deed was done.  As the months ticked by, Miss Marvellous ventured, “He will be coming, right?” suddenly worried she’d jumped the gun and we’d be sending him postcards from the other side of the world.  I wanted to shout at her “well it’s a little late for that!” but I kept myself in check because frankly, I was starting to get a little worried myself.  Boy Wonder was constantly assuring us that The Captain will definitely be joining us.

 

Five months later, we finally got the green light and we heard the loud self-congratulatory trumpeting of Boy Wonder and he starts the “I told you so” spiel that I’m sure he’d been practicing for months.  By this stage, Captain Fantastic is lucky to get himself on most of our flights except two, both the flight to New York from Los Angeles and from New York back to Los Angeles.  The times differences were close enough for it to be only a half to an hour difference so not a bad outcome.

We arrived at Melbourne airport and straight away the Captain started causing trouble.  His carry-on luggage doesn’t pass security (a white powdered substance apparently…whaaaat?) so we’re all on the other side of security waiting for him.  He was standing akimbo getting patted down and I was bored with his fuckery so I darted to the loo.  Whilst I was gone, the bag failed a second test.  I returned to a grinning Miss Marvellous and Boy Wonder, but no Captain.  I looked askance and both of the kids were snickering.  Miss Marvellous blurted, “I think he’s getting a cavity search.”  I was startled, “Whaaat?”  She looked awfully hopeful, then conceded, “Well I don’t know for sure but I hope so.”   When he finally came back out of the interrogation room, he was grinning and I was thinking either he’s up for a little kinky, or a hot blonde with big boobs did the probe…or it was just a chat.  Either way, he didn’t look violated so I relaxed a little and he confirmed it was the latter…a little chat.  Miss Marvellous was disappointed and I was starting to get alarmed.

We caught our plane to Sydney, sunk a few refreshments in an airport bar and then finally, our flight departed Sydney for Honolulu at 7.30pm at night on 12^th December.  Woot, woot!  The Captain was seated a few rows behind us somewhere.  The flight was non-eventful for the first few hours as we caught up on multiple movies, enjoyed a tasty meal and a cheeky vino or two.  After midnight, I felt weary and was fighting to keep my eyes open except for the indigestion.  I wasn’t sure what had upset my stomach but I dozed fitfully until the acid woke me.  Actually, the gastric reflux was getting so painful that I had to buzz a steward for some antacid.  By this stage I felt like I had burned my entire oesophagus and when the steward arrived with chewable antacid tablets, I almost cried in relief (I am a drama queen).   No sooner did the soothing tablet make its way down, it became clear that the acid wanted none of it and the whole lot was making its way back up.  My skin grew clammy and my bottom jaw shuddered…fuck, I was going to puke. 

I almost broke all of the nails on my left hand as I hastily yanked my seat belt open, startling Boy Wonder on my left.  I dived out of my seat and tried to run down the aisle unsteadily before I spewed all over everyone dozing peacefully in their seats.  An unsuspecting dolt had chosen that moment to exit his seat and stretch his legs.  I careened into him as I tore down the aisle and bounced off his legs as I rushed past him…unceremoniously dumping him on his arse, back in his seat.  No apologies, or fucks for that matter, were given because if I opened my mouth, I would deliver a wet pizza all over him.  I no longer cared about anything except getting into that small cubicle…I’d started burping acid bubbles and vomit is imminent.  Thank fuck the toilet was unoccupied.

I looked like a crazy, psycho bitch as I yanked and pushed at the door back and forth to gain entry because in my panic, I couldn’t work out if it opened inwards or outwards and the vomit was making my stomach lurch.  Jesus, fuck I was almost crying in desperation when the door finally gave and I stumbled in, slammed the fucker shut and slid the bolt home. I then yanked the lid of the loo up and proceeded hurl violently.  I was throwing up convulsively, unable to stop my stomach from dramatically flinging me around in the small room as it purged the contents of my stomach all over the back of the toilet seat.  Finally, after ten theatrical minutes of hurling, I sagged over the toilet, totally exhausted by the experience.  My eyes were streaming, I had vomit in my nostrils (I could smell it like parmesan that had been left in the sun, in my olfactory) and my whole body was quaking from the violent incident.  I precariously stood and rinsed my mouth in the small basin.  I surveyed the mess that was the toilet and realised I had to clean it because I am a responsible adult.  I wet paper towel and cleaned the carnage with shaking hands.  I wished I was five years old and could curl up in someone’s lap whilst they stroked my back and murmured soothing words in my ear.  I felt totally spent as I gently eased the bolt on the door and made my way back to my seat.  I was lathered in sweat and looked for all intents and purposes like I’d just run a marathon…it certainly felt like I had.

As I took my seat, it felt particularly draughty around the back of my legs and after snaking a hand over my butt, it became evident that a rent had torn in my cargo pants during the calisthenics performed in that small room.  I reluctantly chewed another of the antacid pills in the hope that if there was any more acid bubbling in the petri dish that was my guts, that it would halt.  Boy Wonder looked at me and asked if I was okay…I was so exhausted that I’d lost the will to live so I nodded at him and resisted the urge to cry like a small child.  I put the ‘u’ shaped cushion behind my head and drifted restlessly to a shitful sleep.   

At some point whilst I was dozing during the 8 hour flight, it became daylight outside of the shuttered window and we’d entered US air space.  Considering we had left Australia at 7:30pm, it was rather disconcerting to my equilibrium to discover that we had arrived in Hawaii at 8:30am the same morning...like we’d climbed into a DeLorean and went back to the future.  Actually, when we returned, we would be leaving on 7^th January and arriving home on the 9^th.  We didn’t even get to see the 8^th of January…the 8^th didn’t exist for us.  This statement would be thrown at me during the rest of the trip because apparently, I told everyone who would listen those exact words because I am unoriginal and careless who I bleat it in front of...namely, my children.

So we shuffled off the plane and straight away, The Captain’s indiscretions affect us all.  We were, all four of us, ushered into a room.  It was winter there but Hawaii doesn’t suffer the cold like most places; it is a tropical paradise and was a lovely 24°C.  We waited in our plastic bucket seats with the fan whirring lazily overhead, eager to start our holiday.  We were all a little weary because none of us can really sleep on a plane.  My thigh kept sticking to the plastic seat where it was exposed through the rip in my pants.  The Captain was called into another room and Miss Marvellous took great pleasure in gesticulating a disposable latex glove being stretched over a hand.  The Captain grinned at her and the three of us giggled.  He was in there for a while and were speculating about all manner of invasive searching that was being conducted beyond the doors but as he was released from the room, he was walking normally and Miss Marvellous deflated in disappointment beside me.  He had again eluded the cavity search.  My daughter was becoming worrisome. 

We returned to the baggage area and there was nobody around.  Everybody had collected their luggage and were on their way, all except us.  Four lonely cases stood in the centre of the looping conveyor belt, alone and uncollected. 

The cab ride to Waikiki was fascinating and alarming all at once because everyone was driving on the wrong side of the road.  We arrived at the hotel complex and had to sit around the reception area, which was outside because we were in paradise, like browns cows because the room wouldn’t be ready until about 1pm.  To kill the time, we took off in groups, always leaving someone to watch over the luggage, to discover the beach, which was just meters down the road.  Finally we were allowed into the unit and we dumped our stuff and started our holiday.

Each day we wandered down to the beach in the morning, returning late in the afternoon to shower before walking down to dinner.  Most evenings we had to wait at least an hour for dinner because it was very busy in Hawaii with Australian and Japanese tourists.  The food was nice and Miss Marvellous and I had discovered Ahi, fresh tuna, and ate it like we were possessed.  We started to sort our way through the tax and tipping system.  Whatever the price on the menu, tax was added afterwards, and there is no rhyme or reason to their system so we couldn’t guess how much would be added to our bill.  Then you had to add around 15-20% for the tip.  It’s not cheap to eat there but the food was fresh and delicious.  I mistakenly assumed that most of the food in the USA would be like that, it’s not.  They are all about quantity over quality.  This became evident when we bought sandwiches for lunch one day and depending on the cold cut of meat in your sandwich, this took up 90% of the sandwich contents with only a thin layer of lettuce and a slice of orange cheese to inject a little colour.  We had to pull some of the meat filling out because really, Colon cancer called and we had to hit decline!

One particular day when we were loathe to wait for Boy Wonder to complete his ablutions, we left and advised we’d meet him at the beach.  When he finally arrived he was a little quiet.  After some probing, we managed to extract from him that he’d seen more than he wanted to see of a woman who was sitting on the ground, wearing shorts that didn’t quite contain all of her bits.  A wayward labia with a liberal scattering of course pubic hair had made its way out of the side of her shorts and was dangling like an old blood hound’s mouth.  He was so horrified by the sighting of the flange that he was rendered scarred into silence by the incident.

Miss Marvellous and I, on the other hand, were enjoying the shenanigans of group of young college hard-bodied men playing NFL in water in front of us.  We shared our admiration of the young men, although Miss Marvellous advised that some of them were a little too cut for her liking…her type is tall and skinny.  I nearly lost an eyeball in the mother of all eye rolls.  I’m as old as fuck so all of them were appealing to me for a little surreptitious perve.   Not so surreptitious it seems because we sat there with our heads together pointing out winning features of the men in the water like a couple of desperate creeps when a young guy sitting right beside us stood up from his towel and made his way to the group.  Miss Marvellous and I shared a startled glance, because we realised he had heard our creepy conversation, then we collapsed in fits of giggles.  Sprung!

ABC convenience stores hug most street corners in Waikiki.  Boy Wonder started counting them, like he’d suddenly made an appearance on the Asperger’s spectrum.  Everything was for sale in these stores.  You could purchase alcohol, trinkets, souvenirs and even clothing.   Miss Marvellous gave way to her snow globe addiction and started adding an unhealthy number to her collection right there in Waikiki.  Window shopping was a pastime in the streets while we waited for a table in the restaurants.  The Captain found a hat shop that sported exorbitant price tags on its wares and enjoyed trying them on whilst the staff got excited within.  Of course he walked away because frankly, $6,000 for a hat?  Fuck off!  I found a gorgeous black pearl necklace in a jewellery store but talked myself out of the purchase because I am an idiot.  This was a self-disciplinary action that I later regretted. 

As a result of the scarring acid vom episode on the plane trip over, I was now paranoid and taking acid prevention measures daily in the form of a pill.  This had an adverse effect on my guts and I found I had a runny bum for much of the trip.  Considering most of our accommodation throughout the month long stay in the USA was a single room with two beds and one shared bathroom, my bowel movements became public to the family and a source of great merriment to my offspring.  I’d scream at them to turn the television on and dance on the spot in the bathroom with my arse clamped shut while I waited for the fucking thing to switch on only to have the noises from my bowel eclipse whatever decibel the TV produced…followed moments later by loud, raucous laughter from Miss Marvellous and Boy Wonder.  Not the kind of music I want them listening to.

All too quickly, the chilled relaxing leg of our trip came to an end so we found ourselves again at an airport.  This was our first encounter of the “no shoes allowed through security” rule and it was a little fascinating.  Boy Wonder waltzed through with no problem.  Miss Marvellous was pulled aside and the wand was wavered over her ankles.  Something beeped as I went through and I was asked to stand akimbo whilst they waved their wand over me.  I am a moron and inexperienced in all things security so before he started waving his wand, I yanked up my top and pointed to my belly jewel, “Is this what is beeping?” He jerked back in alarm when I abruptly lifted my top because he’s very nervous, possibly because in the USA they allow any fuckwit who can stand upright the right to own a gun, which quite often ends in tragedy.  The security guard held his hands up in a “calm the fuck down, ma’am,” kind of way and started chuckling because I think he might have actually left a small skid-mark in his jocks and he was embarrassed by how scared he just was of a harmless little Aussie.  He shook his head at me because although I was showing him my pierced navel, it was not the source of the alarm.  He pointed at my arse and it turned out I had a US 1c coin in my pocket.  I have no idea how the coin ended up in my pocket but his nervous laughter was making me jittery and I wanted to get the hell out of security. 

Surprisingly, The Captain and his bag made it through with no problem at all.  Miss Marvellous sidled up to me and said, “did you see them going over my feet…like I’m hiding something in my ankles.” I reminded her she has a whole lot of shrapnel in the form of screws and rods in her feet since her double bunionectomy last year. The penny dropped and she was no longer feeling special…she’s just part cyborg now and I think I might start calling her nuts and bolts for shits and giggles because I am an arsehole. 

The flight out of Honolulu on December 16^th to Los Angeles was supposed to land at LAX at 10pm but it was delayed for 6 fucking hours in Hawaii so I took the time to commence the first edit on my completed novel.  Boy Wonder was sighing because he doesn’t do boredom well and there were a lot of hours to kill.  Miss Marvellous window shopped in the airport to kill time so she didn’t kill a family member.  Finally, we were allowed to board the flight and I was delighted to find Captain Fantastic is in the same row, just on the other side of the aisle.  On this leg we were flying American airlines and it was delayed by so many hours that we were hungry before we even boarded the flight but we’re also stupid and inexperienced because there was no food or drinks on the flight (if you don’t count the tiny bottle of water and a small packet of pretzels that contained 8 of the salty, loopy, mini morsels that didn’t go far enough and had us licking the inside of the bag) and we weren't prepared for starvation.  .  I wondered during the journey if Boy Wonder would actually starve to death on the 5 hour flight. 

When we finally landed in LAX, we were still stuck on the plane because some arsehole pilot from another airline had taken our parking bay because he’s a prick.  So now we were all sitting on this plane as it bumped along, taxiing around the airport like a scenic bus tour for another fucking hour while we waited for that selfish prick to fuck off out of our parking space.  By this stage we were tired, sick to death of waiting and we all had hanger (hunger anger) because we hadn’t eaten in so many hours that we were snippy and shitty and spitting words at each other like camels.  The baggage carousel took a light-year to start up and start producing cases and I wanted to scream “feed me!” at random people or just punch someone for no reason because I was intolerant and hangry and as the minutes ticked by, we were thrust us into December 17^th…

Doona

SHIT HAPPENS AT THE SPA - WHY AM I SO AWKWARD?

I have just come home from an Endota spa treatment and I can’t believe how fucking awkward I am.  This is the second such experience in the past year.

In August last year, I decided to have my 1 hour massage on my birthday.  This sounds like a great idea but it was only months after my father passed away and being my first birthday without him, I discovered as I sat in the waiting room filling in the sheet and ticking the “no talking’ box that I was feeling teary and sad.  We started with a foot bath and I felt like I was going to cry so I started to talk.  I didn’t stop babbling until the whole hour was up and I realised that I had completely fucked up the experience.  I basically wasted my one hour massage because I talked through the whole thing.  The poor girl working on me must have been so confused and weirded out.  I am sure it must be noted on my file somewhere and that they draw straws when my name comes up for a treatment.  After today, there’s possibly a red flag.

So today I decided to use my foot treatment well before any occasions that could ruin it. Before any such treatment, one goes a little stir crazy in the bathroom.  Considering I was getting a foot treatment with a pedicure, you’d think I’d just turn up and let them do their thing.  No, I waxed and plucked every visible hair on my legs (and those three Maria hairs on my big toes), removed my nail polish which had been there for 2 months and had resulted in a discolouration stain on my nails, cut the nails and almost took an angle grinder to them to ensure she didn’t think I had horse hooves in my shoes.  Finally, I was ready.  I had convinced myself that I can actually turn up to the spa and relax and enjoy the treatment without being weird…I was wrong.

From the get go, it was awkward because it involves me.  I turn up at the exact time of my booking, even though I was asked to turn up 5 minutes early.  Some old bag driving a roller skate for a car pulled out of a side street and almost collected the car in front of me and we all slammed on our brakes.  She managed to see him seconds before impact but this was a sweat inducing incident for me because I am currently in a loan car from the panel-beating workshop who is fixing my dinged-up car at the moment.  We then had to wait for the bloke to get out of his car and give old Blue Rinse a piece of his mind.  His point was moot (or mute?) because she was a deaf as a post and all but put a trumpet to her ear after winding her window down at the pace of a weed smoking snail.  I could hear her from my car saying “Pardon?  What’s that?”  I watched him gesticulating in front of the woman, agitatedly tapping his toe on the asphalt and clenching his butt cheeks in an effort to control his ire.  She was nodding at him, like she understood, but I’m reasonably sure none of it went into her head because she’s extremely old and shouldn’t be on the road – she should be sitting in a wing chair knitting scarves and crocheting doilies.  The guy eventually gave up because she was nodding when she should have been answering his questions, so he got in his car and did a burn out when he took off.  This took about seven minutes out of my life that I will never get back.  By the time I parked and walked to the spa, the five minute early arrival was gone.  The cheery girl behind the counter greets me with, “Oh hello Donna, thank you for coming in early.”

Instead of politely nodding at her, I feel the need to state, “I didn’t come in early, I am at the exact time of my treatment.”  This was supposed to be an apology but I fear it came out as a correction because she started stuttering and blushing and I wanted to panic yell at her “Wait a sec, I’ll just start that again” and then run outside and re-enter the premises and say absolutely NOTHING.  Jesus.  I decide to just shut the fuck up and let her do her job but it’s too late, she’s giggling to cover whatever I made her feel.  Awwww man, I want to go home already.

She leads me into the waiting area and tells me my consultant/therapist (I don’t remember what her title is because I fail to notice the small things) will be with me soon.  There are two other people in there and it is silent except for the ’babbling brook in a glade’ music getting piped in and the scratching of the pen as the woman sitting to my left fills out her form.  She is so relaxed and in the zone that she is almost laying across the couch and I feel spa etiquette envy.  I want to talk to fill the void but remember that I am in a spa and I’m supposed to just shut up so I awkwardly sit perched on the end of the long lounge, which has too many cushions so I can’t sit back and look cool, and I have to sit on the end looking like I’m ready to take off at a sprint at any moment…like I spook easily.  My consultant (that’s what I’ve decided her title is) comes into the room and introduces herself, but of course I don’t retain her name because I’m stupid.  She asks if I have chosen a colour and points at the array of nail colours on display on the wall in front of me. I want to slap my forehead because I haven’t noticed them.  I didn’t know I was supposed to choose a colour because the poor girl who was supposed to tell me got all flustered because I did the weird shit when I first entered the establishment.  I am embarrassed that I am wasting her time and alerting everyone in the waiting room that there is a fuckwit in their midst so I feel the need to tell my consultant that this is my first time…like I’m a fucking virgin and she’s about to pop my cherry.  I am only thinking this but my face lights up and I almost give myself awkward burn when I leap up and my bag falls off my lap and lands with a loud splat on the floor.  This is the exact opposite of how one should conduct one’s self in a spa waiting area.  Oh my fucking God.  Then, instead of just picking a colour, I peruse the display like I’m choosing a new car colour.  My brain screams at me to hurry the fuck up so I reach out and grab a dark maroon colour and knock two other colours off and onto the floor in the process.  They’re all looking at me and I nearly set fire to my hair with my face…because it’s so hot with embarrassment.  She apologetically advises me that we’re upstairs.  I don’t give a flying fuck where we go, just get me the hell out of this room with all of these people witnessing and listening to my weird.

We finally make it up the narrow, steep staircase and into the designated room.  A relaxing aroma fills my senses and I am finally ready to chill in this dimly lit room.  It is warm and comfortable and I am excited for my foot spa treatment.  She advises me to take my socks and shoes off and put all of my stuff in the basket on the shelf.  The first thing I do is put my handbag in the basket, which is too small for the suitcase-esque bag I use, and the whole lot falls to the floor with a thump.  I giggle because I can’t believe I just did that and because I feel like a dick.  I quickly bend over and try to cover my embarrassment with words.  I am wondering why she is lingering in the room when they usually go outside while I undress so I whip my shoes and socks off and drop the socks into the basket (hovered my shoes over the basket before I realised they should go on the floor – I really shouldn’t be allowed outside of the house).  Then I went to my special place…and started removing my jeans.  I got them all the way to my knees, with my Bridget Jones style leopard print knickered arse up in the air before she declares in a panic, “Oh, you don’t need to take your jeans off.”  Of course I don’t need to take my jeans off, she’s doing my feet.  What a fuckwit!  I giggle again like I’m five and hoick my jeans up and wriggle my arse into them.  A Play School song pops into my head – something about jelly “…wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble, jelly on a plate…”  All the while she is nervously giggling beside me whilst I jiggle my arse back into my jeans.  Fucking hell! She asks me to take a seat so I do, with both of my feet splayed either side of the giant bowl of water in front of me.  It is actually hurting my knees to have my feet at this absurd angle but I don’t want to do anything without her advice because I’m just a walking blunder at the moment.  She sits before me and looks at my splayed feet, then back up at me expectantly.  I giggle again and I can tell she thinks I’m out there…like fucking Pluto!  She reaches for my feet and submerges them.

She wets my feet and applies an exfoliate, then rinses them off.  I want to groan in pleasure because her warm hands are magic on my tense feet.  I think “Wow this is relaxing” but the words that come out of my mouth are “Wow, that’s making me feel all floppy.”  Wait, what?  Why the fuck did I just say that?  She looks up at me like she thinks I’m a nut bag and I am looking back at her…because I am a nut bag and she says “Well that’s good, I guess.”  I watch her finish rubbing and rinsing my feet then choose that time to close my eyes and relax.  A nano-second later she dries my feet and I have to get up again.

She tells me to lie down on the bed face up, and she tells me where to put my feet.  I guess she does that because I have proven how fucked in the head I am and will more than likely lay face down with my jeans around my ankles. She asks if I am cold but I reply that I’m not too quickly because I’m suddenly nervous.  She walks around the side of the bed that I am lying on and asks if I would mind removing my glasses as she wants to apply a lavender-scented towel over my eyes.  I whip them off and hand them to her, belting her in the stomach with them as she tries to pass me.  She makes an “Oooof!” sound because I just punched her in the guts, and I start babbling an apology and the girl is flat out laughing.  She is astounded at my fuckwitism  I start to giggle too because I am embarrassed by my fuckwitism and can’t believe this shit is happening.  She applies the towel to my eyes and I sigh in relief and admonish myself, choosing to shut the fuck up from this moment forward.   She starts to wedge something between my toes and I am waiting for the pain of hyper extended toes because toe separators are a form of torture.  Applying them hurts like a bitch but removing them after the nails are dry evokes painful “ooh, aah” sounds from me when the toes are allowed to return to their natural space; the dints take hours to disappear.  I don’t feel any pain and think that my nails will rub and smudge because she hasn’t taken the proper precautions. 

She gets to work on my toenails filing (and I resist the urge to pull my foot away when the pinky is filed), pfaffs with the cuticles and cleans the bastards right up.  I am sure that if I remove the lavender cloth covering my eyes and sit up, I will hear Angels sing and see a warm glowing radiance surrounding my toes.  Next comes the massage.  Oh my God it feels sooooo damn good.  I have to physically stop myself from groaning in ecstasy as she firmly runs her thumbs up the underside of my foot, making me sink into the bed like a dead horse.  As she squeezes and pulls my toes, a ‘gdkt’ sound like cracking knuckles as she squeezes the ends of my toes.  It feels almost painful until the ‘gdkt’ and its ecstasy again.  She pulls on my feet and it tugs up to my hip joints and I’m sure I will be 4 inches taller when it’s over; it feels amazing.  Then she scrubs the shit out of them as she prepares to paint them.  Apart from the croaking frogs and singing crickets in the rain-forest that is piped into the room, there is silence as she bends over my toes and paints them.  I get an insane itch on my knee but cannot touch it lest I ruin the pain job.  It is all I can do not to twitch and I feel a film of sweat break out on my forehead.  I am thinking ‘Stupid, itchy knee” then I have to stifle a giggle because it sounds like I’m counting in Japanese.  Then something rolls from somewhere (wasn’t me, I am the epitome of a statue on the bed) but it makes a loud noise in the silence and I get such a fright, that I jerk and almost kick her in the mouth.  I felt her breath on my toes when I jumped so I know how close I got giving her a fat lip.  I am trying to stifle a nervous giggle and I can feel myself shaking with the effort.  I feel her hands still and I know she is looking up at me with a “What the fuck?” look.  I bite my lip and pretend to be normal, it doesn’t come naturally to me.  After an eternity, my nails are complete, she removes the cloth covering my eyes and I am allowed to sit up, s-l-o-w-l-y.  I am allergic to this pace and almost belt her in the face with my forehead because I sit up fast.  She tells me she will meet me downstairs but asks if I could please remain in the room (downstairs??) for five minutes before coming out to reception.

She leaves and I swing my legs over and make my way over to the basket to retrieve my shit.  I have brought thongs along so I won’t fuck up my nails but when I look down, the toes are separated by a cloth of some sort and I don’t know what to do.  She didn’t mention the cloth and I’m not sure if my nails are dry enough to remove the cloth so I stand awkwardly near the door wondering what to do.  Was I supposed to wait here for five minutes or downstairs?  I don’t fucking know so I poke my head outside of the door and look left and right a few times (I possibly look like Forrest Gump when I do this).  The door next to me opens and the consultant exits and nearly bounces off my face with her boobs.  I get such a fright at her unexpected arrival on the landing that I try to pull my head in and close the door at the same time and nearly rip my own ears off.  She puts a hand to her beating heart, she got a fright too, and asks if I’m okay.  I say “she told me to meet her downs stairs but to wait five minutes before going into reception and I don’t know if I’m waiting here or downstairs.”  She frowns at me and does that downward turn of the mouth thing that conveys “how the fuck should I know?”  I make a decision, tell her I’m going to wait down stairs and she nods, like “fine, just get the fuck out of my face.”  So I walk down stairs bare foot with the fucking material shit still woven between my toes.  I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do. I get downstairs and there is a pregnant woman in the waiting room and she looks at my feet and back up at me then smiles and offers me a tea.  I assume she is wondering about my woven toes so I just play it cool and pretend it’s normal to be sitting downstairs with your bag and boots on your lap.  The polish on my toes looks like gel and I am loving the shit out of them.  I read a pamphlet to keep up my ‘cool’ persona and notice the polish is for sale.  Gonna get me some of that shit, I decide. 

I wait ten minutes and she doesn’t show so I unwind my toes and slide the thongs on and go out to greet her at reception.  I can’t see a bin so I shove the material things in my bag.  My consultant is not there.  The same poor bitch is on reception and she gets flustered before I even open my mouth.  I tell her I want to purchase the colour used on my toes and she’s asking me what colour it was.  How the fuck would I know?  I tell her it’s still upstairs in the room.  A light bulb goes off in her head and she looks at her screen and finds the colour.  She turns around to the rack behind her and is picking up every colour but the one on my toes.  I tell her it’s the one on the end but she acts like I didn’t speak.  I say again. “It’s the one on the end. The far end…the opposite end.”  Dumb fuck must need a hearing aid because she’s still up the wrong end.  My consultant comes out and plucks the colour from the far end of the rack, like I fucking told her, and hands it to her.  Her face is flaming but I haven’t said anything so I shut up until she tells me to pay.

I walk back to the parking lot and have to sit through 2 sets of lights because even though there were a dozen people waiting when I got there, nobody thought to press the button.  Dicks!  Some bloke in a wheel chairs does a Kamikaze and zooms across the street when our walk sign should have happened.  He yells at us all standing there like stupefied cows that we have to press the button.  I want to agree with him but I’m part of the pack and have to shut up and eat shit silently.

When I get to my car, I use the blipper to open it but when I try to open the door, it doesn’t open.  The fuck?  I try again then spy my car four across.  What a tool.  I note that some arsehole has parked so close on the driver’s side that I’m going to need a can opener to get into the vehicle.  I manage to wiggle, gyrate and squeeze in and almost tear my tits and arse off in the process (bum, titty, bum, titty, bum, bum, bum), then it takes an eternity to get out without grazing the cars parked tightly next to me.  I go home and straight upstairs and Miss Marvelous has to endure my giggles as I relay the events.  She shakes her head and me and says “What the shit is wrong with you?”  I don’t know but shit sure does happen to me a lot.