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Anybody who’s spent time around me and my family know we are a bit crazy. We don’t do anything normally. We try and stay contained within our own walls if at all possible, not because we are afraid of pissing off and annoying other, more civilized people, but because trying to get all of us to a certain destination is like troop movements. If we’re supposed to be someplace at noon and we show up at 2, I’m actually proud of us.

That being said, when we were trying to fly down to South Carolina for Thanksgiving, my mom was working and Jeff was going to Oklahoma and my dad was, well, in South Carolina, which meant that I was Supreme Commander of Allied Goob Siblings for the day. And trust me, after being stranded in one of the busiest airport in the world on the busiest traveling day of the year for a few hours, it wasn’t a fun job.

I finally found a few open seats and promptly parked the traveling circus in the fixed location while I went to see if I could find an area of the airport that had more than one bar of cellular reception. Eventually I found such a spot, but it was right in front of a ground gate, which meant that every few minutes the door would burst open with a loud whoosing sound as a ground agent walked in. Also, right above me, there was a giant speaker for all the gate announcements. And finally, there was a small group of people behind me whose only common bond was that they were angry at “The Man” for not allowing them to smoke in an airport.

I mention all this because of who I was calling. United’s 800 employ listing number. It’s completely automated and one of the glitchiest pieces of software still in existence. With this software, you don’t punch keys on the phone, oh no. You fucking talk to the computer and it listens. This might be cool in theory or on Star Trek, but it’s horrible over a cell phone using 2005 technology. My mom used to go into the broom closet and make us all sit quietly on the couch while she used it and even then we’d get grounded if we talked or fought or sneezed. Yet here I was, standing underneath a speaker, next to a door, and behind a bunch of people who will one day die of cancer.

“What is your destination city?”

“Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina”

“click-click-click…did you say Seoul, Korea?”

“No.”

“What is your destination city?”

“Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina”

“click-click-click….did you say Seoul, Korea?”

“NO!”

“What is your destination city?”

“Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina”

“click-click-click…did you say Philadelphia, Pennsylvania?”

“NO! JESUS, THAT DOESN’T EVEN SOUND LIKE SPARTANBURG! NO, NO, NO!”

“What is your destination city?”

“GREENVILLE FUCKING SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA!”

It was about this time that the chick behind me turned and smirked that I shouldn’t yell at a ticket agent like that, even if it was over a phone. Now, under any other circumstance, I probably would have let it go. I mean, she was stressed about not being able to smoke and she was pretty hot, so normally I would have just smiled and walked to another location. But by this point I was tired from not having slept any the night before and frustrated from being stranded and annoyed from listening to her airhead comments behind me for the past 20 minutes.

“It’s an automated phone system, hun. I could call it’s mother a string of four letter words and it’d still want to book me on a fucking flight to Korea. Now fuck off, leave me alone, and go find a place to smoke your cancer stick.”

Ladies, they tell me my charm is irresistible.

After finally realizing we weren’t going to anywhere other than Asia via this route, I returned to Fort Goob to formulate a new strategy. Of course, by this point Juls and Clay had passed out to Dreamland and Colton was dancing around doing his “I really gotta pee but I don’t want to tell anybody” dance. I woke Juls to take sentry duty over our luggage and marched hand-in-hand with Colton to the bathroom and as we exited, an elderly lady looked at me with a level of scorn I’ve never seen before in my life. But I’ll admit, she had a giant pair of brass, because she leaned over to her husband and quite loudly proclaimed how America’s youth today were all going to hell since we all apparently are having kids at age 15. Thankfully, my tongue had already been loosened for the day and I proceeded to go off on her. As we walked back to Fort Goob, Colton asked me what a “bitchy, bitter hag” was.

I blame the Pilgrims.

Or Starbucks. It’s always fun to blame Starbucks for things.

I don’t really have a damn thing to post right now, but I’m leaving town for three days tomorrow, so I figured I better make a post now. But seeing as how my brain is completely empty, I’m just gonna sit here and write. Let’s see what we come up with.

My mom is an stewardess or airline attendant or air goddess as she prefers to be called. That’s no big surprise to anyone who reads this blog. Because of this, I get to fly basically for 90% off a retail plane ticket price. That is awesome. However, I have to fly standby and can sometimes be stranded in Denver, San Fran, or Kalamazoo (which have all happened before). That is not awesome. Every few months, my mom is given tickets which allow her or any of her family members to fly for not just 90% off, but 100% off. That is kick ass. However, these tickets expire within a few months of her obtaining them. That is non kick ass.

Since domestic ticket prices have fallen, we’ve tried not to use these passes on anything other than International tickets since they can still run a few grand. That’s how I’ve been to all the places I’ve been and how I was basically able to just up and go to Australia this past October for a month. The kicker about this whole gig is that that I completely lose the ability to fly under my mom’s passes the day I turn 25. I guess this has something to do with United being in the shitter financially and not wanting to pay to schlep me around the world. I find that to be a bit selfish on their part. So in essence, I have 26 months left to fly for peanuts and wouldn’t you know, but my mom has one of those free passes expiring later this month. Since I’m a firm believer in never passing up something free and I absolutely love to travel, I convinced my mom to trade out of her scheduled trip and pick up a trip to Zurich just so I could tag along.

I wanted to go to Zurich for a few reasons. A) I’ve never been. B) I love going places I’ve never been. C) I’ve yet to go there. Now before you get all jealous and wish you could live the high life that is Goob, there are a few drawbacks to tagging along with my mom on a flight. First off, I said I was gonna be gone three days, right? Well the first day is spent getting there and the third day is spent getting home Throw in the time zone changes and the few hours it takes for customs / showing up early before our flight home so she can prep for it and basically you’re looking at about 22 hours, some of which people like my mom enjoy using to sleep. But for me, 22 hours is enough. I can usually cram in a few historical points of interest, grab two meals at some authentic restaurants, enjoy some local adult beverages, and be home in time to catch the next new episode of Lost – that is, if it wasn’t on Christmas hiatus. Fucking networks and them making me wait another month to see what happens….

Anyways, back to my point. This is how I’ve traveled for the most part. Go to a place, hit up everything you can in the short time span you have, move on. It’s actually pretty fun, because I find that if I travel to a place for, let’s say a week, then I just lie around the hotel saying I’m vacationing and I never get out and do anything. If I travel with my mom (or by myself a few times in the past), then I know I only have a day or two or three tops before I gotta come home. So, all this means that I am the least lazy when I am on vacation. While at home, I always say I’ve got time or I’ll do it tomorrow. But when I go somewhere, shit gets done. Go figure.

Okay, let’s switch gears here. I was about to type up a little poll, but I think I’ll save that for a post next week. There’s also the beer vs. mixed drinks post coming when I get back. Oh, and I just started typing about my brother Colton, but I think he’ll get his own post too. Hmmm….oh, how about this. Remember the Goob Experience (of course you do, so I’m not linking to it.) Well, what you may not remember is that in it, the winner was to have a guest authorship here on Shyzer for a month. Now, Fellner apparently is too fucking lazy to make use of that, so I’m going to start something new here. If anybody out there thinks they would make a good guest author, then let me know. We’re gonna have our first one on here real soon hopefully (at least, he agreed to be one…I hope he was serious or else I’m looking like an idiot right about now) Shoot me an e-mail if you’re interested. We’re not talking about you posting every day, more like once or twice a year. Even once a month if you wanted to make that commitment. I figure getting 10 or so people to make some not-so-regular posts peppered throughout the year would help pump some life back into this hallow shell of a site.

just as l0ng as u dont typ3 l1k3 dis then ul B fine!!!111oneoneone

Now, before I go, I want to mention something. This post actually turned out to be a bit long in Microsoft Word (over 3 freaking pages), so I cut off the final story and programmed it to post while I’m in Zurich. If you remember, this function didn’t work with MoveableType, but I’m assured it actually works with WordPress. Yeah…we’ll fucking see. Until then!