Witz Pickz: French Adventure -- The Flight Response

I literally just sat on my ass for eleven hours. I got up twice for no more than thirty seconds to stretch, but was otherwise ass to seat for almost half a day. Let me tell you that it's not as easy as parents would have you believe when they say things like, "Are you just going to sit around on your ass all day??" The answer ought to be, "No way, I don't have that kind of dedication and endurance." Sitting on your ass all day is like an Olympic* sport-- and I just won the silver medal. There was one guy who was REALLY good at it, which is why I only got silver, but I'm pretty sure that's because he had cerebral palsy-- like he didn't get up once and his parents kept feeding him and at point had to take off his glasses and dab at his eyes with a napkin (I can only assume he was shedding tears of joy at besting me).

The flight was made bearable (meaning able to be accomplished by TV personality Bear Grylls) by the older American couple who sat next to me and conversed plentifully throughout the flight. This also goes to prove my theory, lately, that strangers love talking to me. Let me explain: I was in the library on Saturday, when a random lady turns to me from a couple shelves over and says, "You want to laugh? Read this book-- it's about a vacuum salesman in Cuba in the 1960's and he gets mistaken for a CIA agent and instead of correcting them, draws diagrams of vacuums to solve problems!".....Apparently, I look like the type of guy who would enjoy a book involving mistaken identity and vacuum sales. "Lady, why the fuck would I read that book?" No, what I really said was, "Interesting, I'll check it out (yeah, that was a spontaneous library pun)," and I did.

On Sunday, I was at the track, which is a whole other post, really, and was approached by a large hispanic man while I was waiting by the restrooms. "Bathroom?" he aggressively questioned? Confused, I asked him to repeat the question and glanced at the Men's room that he was pointing to. "Bathroom?!" he demanded of me, who it needs to be pointed out was just A DUDE standing by the bathrooms. "Yes. That IS a bathroom," I responded, once again feeling like I'm really excelling at everyday life. The man nodded his head approvingly and marched off into the bathroom.

Back on the plane, we were five minutes into conversation when the man told me, "You'd do great in entertainment, it's obvious you like people," which is mostly true because there are people I like, even if I think most people are miserable human beings. I also detected an asterisk in his statement that went something like, "You know, except for bad drivers, slow pedestrians, bikers, frat guys, the deaf, the barely deaf, people who say 'guy' as part of an introduction, people who oppose gay marriage legally and not just by opinion, everyone in the film Religulous including Bill Maher, people who low five, Tucker Max, anyone associated with Stuff White People Like, anyone over 6' 2'' that can't make a simple lay-up, Chris Kattan, people using checks at the supermarket, and anyone who ever referred to Charles Schwab as 'Chuck.'"

As it turned out, I did like this couple, because he said things like, "German airplanes are always on time. We flew Lufthansa to Berlin and it was great-- except when we flew over London and they bombed it," and she said things like, "Mendecino is a very romantic town, you have to go-- and the best part is that there's NOTHING going on past 8pm, so whether she's feeling like it or not, you know what the two of you are gonna be doing at night!" Awesome.

The flight itself was made rough by two key factors: the movies and the meals. The movies were Marley & Me and Madagascar 2-- both of which basically big middle fingers to America for the entertainment we export. I didn't watch either because a) Marley & Me needs to be experienced on blu-ray to be fully appreciated and b) I didn't think I'd understand Madagascar 2 having not seen the original.

The meals, which I dub Pain Plates, were the most baffling convergence of food I have ever seen. It's like they purposefully wanted my insides to try and become my outsides. They put things together that I would NEVER eat with each other under normal circumstance. "Witz, what do you want for dinner? How about all the parts of the chicken we don't talk about plated with some mashed potatoes-- oh and some cous cous with raw salmon on top-- you end most meals with rice pudding, too, right? Hey, what do you want for breakfast? Two slices of ham with some american cheese flopped on top? Done." Only, you don't have any options, so you eat it all and let the Gastrointestinal World War II Re-enactment play out.

On the other hand, I was on the plane for a reason. Did I mention that as I write this, I am sitting at a desk in a Parisian apartment, eating fresh baguette with goat cheese and a bottle of Bordeaux? Did I mention the pain au chocolat that I consumed in roughly .051 seconds because it was the most delicious pastry I've had since I was last here? "Dear Skinny Witz, gone to Paris to purchase a fat suit-- back soon." So far, so good...

I Moved At 600mph Today, What the Hell Did You Do?,
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