wake up. you’re there. humph. shuffle. so I’ll just stand here stooped under this overhead locker while you all dither around detaching your armstraps and dropping your duty frees on the heads of unsuspecting latvians who are wrestling their super-sized carry-on bags out of the seat in front of them as a million blankets cascade from the aisles and an armful of BA headsets careen up the aisle as backpacked 7 year-olds push through to the exits past the world traveller plus and the nice ladies in club world who are picking up 17 discarded newspapers from each reclined seat as my large russian friend is pulling what looks like a sack of potatos from the space over our heads with a look on her face that says she’s not really very pleased with having spent 9 and a half hours squeezed between 2 armrests with buttons on she’s doesn’t know how to use and all this goes on for about 30 minutes because we’ve stopped taxiing about 50 metres short of the terminal building because the plane the should have already been taking off has still got a pipe sticking out of it and hasn’t made room for flight ba219 so we’re just stuck in this neverland trying not to catch each other’s eye while self-consciously fiddling with the loose change in our pockets that we can’t use in this country anyway and we didn’t put it all in one of those charity envelopes so I guess we’ll just set off some kind of security alarm instead when all we really want to do is get through security and use a proper toilet that doesn’t move around when you’re trying to use it
40 minutes later we’re on the avis bus to the rental car pickup where I let them know I’m a preferred customer and so my car will be ready for me and as usual they can’t find caynes timmr on their palmtop until I point out its with a c and not a k and also its a y not and i and an n not an m and its tim, not timmr which is just a concatenation of tim and mr (ahh! I see!) and anyway sir, we don’t seem to have a car ready for you like they never do for some reason and so I check in with the rental station after being hoofed off the bus and actually, they do have a car for me in slot N9 have a nice day. so this looks like me, the one between all the enormous suvs that have been hired out for a colorado weekend and are about 10 feet tall with full beams on in the parking lot just to let you know just how big and impressive they are, the one that says ‘suzuki’ on it and has done about 38000 miles with the pedal to the floor and never got past 50 miles an hour and its a lovely grey with a name like a ‘gerona’ or a ‘genoa’ or something but its got a walnut dash, so it must be good. righto, let’s hit the toll road and we’ll be at the renaissance in about 30 minutes, which we are, because the toll road is alway completely empty save for the poor souls who man the tolls in the middle of winter and have to deal with the english and their $20 bills and fumbling around in their laptop bags and getting receipts and all that but then you still have a nice day so everything’s alright thankyou sir no problem you drive safely etc.
after picking up 17 complimentary breakfast coupons, 500 free marriot points for standing up straight in the restaurant, free internet access because nobody else is using it right now and a letter about how there really won’t be much inconvenience when we start doing building work on the roof tomorrow morning I’m up to the 7th floor and turning the wrong way out of the lift until I get all the way to the end of the wrong wing of the hotel and consider just hitting the fire escace and getting back in the suzuki and straight back to the airport but instead turn back and hike across the wilderness of the horrible patterned carpet until we’re at 730 and the key works and I’m in and they’ve folded the corners down on everything which is nice so lets think about the rest of the day. ooh, I’d like some of that water, I’ve not really had any for a few hours and that looks nice. $4.50? dammit. where’s the vending machine, ah, down the corridor. right. 2 dollar bills? I spent those of the toll road. dammit. right. where’s the bar?