A Reminiscence of Travel Past

Look what I just found! It's a recap of my crazy travel day back in February, when I was visiting CSU as a prospective student. I had missed my departure shuttle that was scheduled for 3am, and this is what ensued....

2/27/09
Yesterday, I was scheduled to fly out of Denver at 731am, and the only shuttle that could get me there on time was at 310am. I was out sort of late with graduate students the night before, and apparently my body wasn’t down with getting up after two hours, so I slept through my alarm. And they never called, which seems odd since I’m pretty sure I was the only person scheduled for that pickup. You would think they would want my business… or at least be bothered that no one at all showed up. I woke up in a frenzy at 510am and started frantically looking for a way to get to the airport. FORT COLLINS DOESN’T HAVE TAXI CABS. Not one. Let’s just reflect on how retarded that is for a moment. OK. So I proceeded to think about what to do for half an hour before I gave in and paid $200 to change my ticket to this afternoon, since it would’ve cost $800 to change it to later that day. WTF! Then I called Bryce. He was sleeping (obviously), but I was hoping that he wasn’t skiing this weekend and would wake up and call me back. I went to sleep and got a call at 9am – success!
Matt Wallenstein suggested that I take the extra day to see the city, so I slept until 1pm and then took a walk to Old Town. I got some coffee, the toiletries I had forgotten, and some snacks. Then I went back to the hotel to get ready for my shuttle at 510 to DIA. Here’s where it gets good.
First of all, the dude who came to pick me up was the same guy that had dropped me off two days before – not that unlikely when you think about it, but I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. I then had to transfer to a bigger shuttle, and I was the only person on it until this guy, whose voice sounded like a tablesaw, came on asking if this bus went to the airport. Where else would it go? “I just want to make sure it’s on the agenda.”
“Yes, it is,” answers the driver. Poor guy.
“Is there another one soon? I’ve been drinkin a little Jack, and I know they won’t let ya on the plane if you’re drunk so I’ll get on the next one.”
Phew. Weirdness averted. Wait, why is he coming back on the bus? Crap.
I tried to distract myself with my ipod, but when All Songs Considered ended, I heard some weirdness and couldn’t help but listen.
“So what’s this catastrophic news you have for me?... I didn’t call anyone this whole time, not anyone! I didn’t pick up my phone cuz it’s broken. I didn’t pick up anyone’s calls, not just you. You didn’t call me! …… What! You’ve never laughed so hard as when you’re with me!!!...You never laughed so hard! ..I know I’ve done bad things – I’ve been bad…… Well that’s just fine…. Well you know what’s NEXT don’t cha Joanie?! You know what’s NEXT! DEATH. I’m going to be DEATHED - DEAD!.. Yeah, well I’m delusional right now. You don’t know what’s goin on in my mind, you couldn’t understand what’s goin on in my head. I am so deranged Joanie. And so death will happen next. It could…. You don’t know what I’ve been through in the last three days, you have no idea. There are people who want me gone, they want me done. … Joanie, I’m telling ya. This is what they told me.. (Some creepy poem about the makers wanting to take the weak because he doesn’t want the power they seek). Ya know what that is Joanie? (Repeats poem twice). Listen! … They’re wolves, Joan. And I don’t want to be one of the wolves – I’m not gonna be a wolf. I’m not like that – I don’t want to be a wolf and I hate the wolves. Not the animal – I like wolves. They’re beautiful and majestic. Beautiful creatures. I’m talkin’ about wolves that are men. They’re evil and they’re gonna take me…. You know what Joanie, I’m gonna come home and you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna fix your automobile. I’m gonna do all the things that I didn’t do before I left. You don’t want me ta do that? Why not! Ahhh you’re a tough girl Joanie, you always were a tough girl! .. Joanie you know I love ya, and I care about cha. I’ve had a rough three days…..”
I couldn’t hear him during some story about a boy in a scarf that came into his hotel room the previous day. He told it twice.
Then he called some other girl. “… I was always the best to you, even during the bad times… You’re a tough one! You’re a tough girl!... Does your boy have a problem with me? Does he have beef? Listen to me right now I’ll get out of this bus and walk two miles down the road and we can work that out. Ain’t got no gun ain’t got no knife, and we can work it out and no one has to know, no one has to tell the authorities and we’ll keep it quiet – that’s how I like to do it…. Well if he’s got beef…..”
Then the bus broke down. While the driver realized that it was the transmission and that we needed to be picked up, this guy was smoking, hacking, and spitting loogies out of the open bus door. When the other shuttle came half an hour later, he told us that the last time he was stranded on the side of the road was on a horse trail. “Six miles long between Sacramento and Colorado, and it was a prison bus! We were in shackles, hands and feet, walking stranded on the side of the road.” Great.

I’ll spare you the rest of the details, since it was mostly more of the same. He ended up asking if we could stop at a McDonald’s, and when he got his bag out of the car and went inside, our driver decided to leave him there. So then it was the driver and me - all the way to Denver. I got to hear some fantastic stories about how his kid tried to stab his mother with a butter knife, and he was going to have to take off of work to go to court with him. What do you say to that?! Yikes. I got him to drop me off at a Comfort Inn so that my friend Bryce could come pick me up. Then Bryce took two hours to get me. Luckily, the lady at the front desk didn’t mind me hanging out in the lobby all sketchily trying to charge my phone and staring at my watch. FUN TIMES!!
By the time he finally showed, I was beginning to think that I had been cursed and was going to die a strange and terrible death no matter how hard I tried to avoid it. Phew. Things were refreshingly normal after that. And the next day, Bryce took me to the airport, and I flew back to the land of non-crazies. If I had had to base my entire idea of Colorado on those four hours of travel, I never would have come back. Luckily for me, I had been here before, and not had a retarded experience. Hooray!