A Fish Out of Chicago

My mother is overseas right now, so she asked me to look after her two dogs, a sheltie and a Bolognese. (I'd post pictures of them, except I don't have a digital camera and my parents don't have a scanner.) My father is at work most of the day, and they don't want to put the dogs in a kennel. They live in a different state, so I am staying at their house for a couple of weeks to dog-sit. In order to protect the dogs' privacy, the sheltie shall hereafter be referred to as Jane Dog and the Bolognese shall be called Neurotic Jr.

I took my flight from Midway, and can I just say that airports seem to bring out the rudeness in people? Every time I go to the airport, people always cut in front of me. One time a lady accused me of cutting in front of her, when she was the one who cut in front of me! Hmmph! I wanted to yell at her, "Oh, it's ON now, lady!" But I didn't.

Before I took my flight, at least four people cut in front of me; two of them cut in front of me when we were going through the security checkpoint. Since I had already taken my shoes off, I wanted to whap both of those people over the heads with them. But there were a bunch of security guards there, and I figured that starting a fight in an airport might not be the best idea. I'd probably get Tasered or something.

Also, do you notice how all the food and drinks in airports are totally overpriced? I bought a little bottle of milk that was almost two dollars. For two dollars, I expect the cashier to serenade me while ringing up my purchase, preferably something from one of Lady Gaga's albums. And of course, the milk was warm, because apparently the people in the airport believe that it's a security risk to serve cold milk. I managed not to cough up the milk on anyone, though. I almost spit it at some ladies who were looking at me disapprovingly, because I dared to eat M&Ms at eight in the morning. What? It's not like it's alcohol. And if I want to eat M&Ms, I'm going to! Sheesh.

Then I got on the plane, and this lady stole my seat! I said to her, "Um, excuse me, that's my seat." Her family was sitting beside her, so she wanted to keep my seat. I let her, but I was mad because I had reserved that seat months ago; I also paid extra money so that I could get an aisle seat. Ok, so it was only about six dollars extra, but when you're as broke as I am, six dollars is a lot of money! And I ended up in a window seat instead, and I had to sit in front of someone who apparently took a political stance against showering.

Also, the window seat is unpleasant because I have a slight fear of flying. I don't like looking out the window because that lets me know how far up we are. And really, I don't need the pilot to tell us how many thousands of feet in the air we are, because that's how many thousands of feet we could FALL; just tell us when we're on solid ground again, okay? I couldn't find any of those barf bags to breathe into, but somehow that doesn't make me calm down anyway. It just makes me nervous. And then it makes the people sitting next to me nervous.

And so now I'm in a medium-sized town far from Illinois, and in the entire time I've been here I've only heard a police siren twice. In Chicago I hear sirens every hour. And there aren't any people yelling in the street! What's up with that? And people actually drive the speed limit, or even - gasp! - below it! I'm seriously in a parallel universe right now.

When I take Neurotic Jr. and Jane Dog for walks, people actually say hello and good morning to me! Don't they know that we're not supposed to talk to each other? In Chicago the only time a random stranger talks to me is if he/she is trying to sell me something, hit on me, or convert me. There have been several people in Chicago who have unsuccessfully tried to convert me to their religion. I've been told I'm going to hell at least three times. Apparently I have the kind of face that makes some people think I'm damned.

In Chicago people do a lot of walking, but everyone drives here. I only drive the two or three times a year I visit my parents. Whenever I drive, I say "EEEEEPPSSS!!" a lot, like when I turn a corner or try to fit the car into a parking spot. That's why when I'm driving I often have this expression on my face that's similar to the one that people have when they're riding down a roller coaster (I avoid roller coasters, too, because I have this fear that I'm going to fall out of one). As a result, I've gotten a few weird looks from fellow drivers. I can't imagine why.

To occupy myself while I'm here, I've been doing a lot of reading. I read Allison Winn's Scotch's The One That I Want; I won a free copy from Rebecca's (aka the Virgin Novelist) contest a couple weeks ago, and it's great! And I won the Versatile Blogger award again, this time from Catherine (check out her blog, the Writer's Notebook; it's awesome).

Also, I started writing my second novel. I'm still revising the first one, but my experiences with online dating have given me some good ideas for another story. I just couldn't resist starting the second book. I'm not even sure what'll happen in the story, but I'm looking forward to finding out.