WTF - The Nomad Edition

In my Pre-K (pre-kids) years I did quite a bit of moving.  Hubby and I both worked for the airlines, meaning that every two years with a promotion came a move.  I thought I would share some of the WTF things I found in different cities of the USA.

Rosyln, VA - our first jobs were in Georgetown and of course we could not afford the rental in that town, so we chose over the bridge in Virginia.  No one told us that our studio apartment was right in the path of Reagan National Airport until the first time a plane flew by and changed the channel on the TV.  1 year later, we'd almost given up on watching TV.

Orlando, FL - No one explained the indigenous Florida Cockroach, the Palmetto Bug - which I called the Palomino Bug, because, serially you could almost ride the things.  My first night sitting on the floor watching TV, I saw my first one run across the kitchen floor.  Of course I remained calm saying, "What the F is that?"  Not only did I not realize how tall they are, but that on occasion they can fly (usually right at you) and that whenever I saw one it was perfectly acceptable to get mad at my husband.

Cleveland, OH - no one prepared me for the winters of Cleveland.  One particular morning after a multiple inch snowfall, I woke thinking, "wow, guess we're not working today."  I was casually informed by my boss that I could be "late" but I was expected in after the two in snow fall.  People hibernate during the winters there, literally.  I saw my neighbor one June morning after the fall and asked her, "Who's baby?"  She looked at me and said, "Mine."  Oops, remember some things can be hidden with the layers of colder weather.  What prompted me to move?  When one day the radio station announced, "Well today we've had 14 minutes of sunshine."

Boston, MA - My first day of work I thought I'd drive in, making sure I was early.  No one told me about the huge game of chicken motorists play going through any tunnel into the city, and how quickly you move from 6 lanes of traffic to two silently screaming in your car.  Turn signals were giving information away to the enemy, and it is acceptable to stop and spend 5 minutes yelling at the person in the car next to you, in fact this was an acceptable form of communication to the local population.

Baltimore, MD - Living in downtown Fells Point, we didn't really worry too much about wharf rats but the mice.  Everyone explained that they were basically a fact of life, of course I had to ask, "But do you see the family walking through the living dragging a bag of Reese Cups?  Also, where we lived there was the indigenous drunks of Friday and Saturday nights.  They would "car surf" down out street, and one neighbor reported a particularly feral drunk actually peed through the mail slot in his front door.  Owning a boxer at the time that enjoyed her daily "fight" with the mailman (meaning, grab all the mail as it came through the mail slit and rip it to shreds on the floor) I hoped that feral drunk would choose our home one of those nights.

Atlanta GA -  Little Five Points had more than their share of door to door people - sales people, cub scouts, girl scouts, hare krishnas, 7th Day Adventists.  Luckily for us, we received a Giant Mastiff Puppy so whenever some one would knock on our glass front door, the 15 year old blind/deaf boxer would come running into the door snarling.  While she was doing this, the 100 lb puppy would come over, flip the old girl on her back and start humping her in front of the glass door.  Needless to say, she was not happy about this.  This show for whomever was waiting at the door lasted the 2 minutes it took me to get to the front door.  Of course, if they were still there----I would always buy what they were selling.

Alexandria, VA - This town sits just over the bridge from Washington DC.  And believe me if you ever drive in Washington DC, you'll realize whomever planned the roads was making sure the enemy will never find their way to the White House.  We went to a Capitals game after moving there and trying to get my father back to Silver Spring got hopelessly lost in the Capital of the United States.  So lost that on three separate occasions we ended up going over the bridge into Virginia.  I still remember my father, in the back seat, saying, "Oh look, there's the damn Welcome to Virginia sign again."  So if you want to find your way to Alexandria VA, just point your car to Washington DC, you'll get lost and end up where you intended.

Winston Salem NC - it took a little bit to understand the language but now that I've been here for 13+ years, I'm fixin on staying.  And no one told me the reason we speak slow is because during the summertime it is too hot to do ANYTHING fast.  My only pet peeve is how everyone comes to a complete stop before a right hand turn.  I know it says that is the driver's handbook, but seriously people, we got places to be.

Beech Mountain, NC - this is my home away from home.  Shhh, no one told me that the people living here full time are either
a.  Crazy
b.  Hiding from something/someone
c.  Both of the above.
Don't get caught dead out in a bar on the mountain past, say, 11 at night.  Especially in the summertime, the Floridian residents come out of their perspective hiding places and feed on the only healthy brain cells left in the bar - YOURS!

Have you learned something new along your travels, anything that stands out?

Sometimes Life is Crap!

Do you deal with a lot of shit in your life?  Do you have stories like these?

I am born with the Irish gene, named Crapish.  This means that whenever I walk into any type of shopping situation, I get excited and have to go to the bathroom.  Really, I'm pushing the wenches out of the way in Target to get to the stall in time.  Oh and the bookstore?  I can't go in there until 3 cups of coffee later, I've done my duty.

I also holding the lucky name of Deer in the Headlights, that's because I've been caught more times than Bambi hiding behind a tree on a morning run.  One poor lady didn't believe my, "I'm putting human scent here to scare the deer away from the hunters," the third morning in a row.


I also have Shitraction, that means that any bathroom I visit when traveling has to be the worst bathroom in the country.  I've seen plastic lawn chairs with a hole cut in the middle of them over a 5 gallon bucket in Mexico,  a hole in the floor with two "put your feet here" stones so you can squat and aim (I finally understood why every woman in Japan always has tissue on them).  One of my favorites was a statue of a nekkid man in the bathroom at a bar, with a fig leaf over his Hahoo.  Of course, when I lifted the leaf to have a peek, I did not know that a light was going off in the bar telling everyone.  The applause I received when coming out of the bathroom was knowledge enough that I'd been busted.

I've broken up with port a Johns during my running races.  The worst bathroom I've ever seen is a port a john during a marathon in Virginia Beach.  I swear someone must have opened the door to the toilet, stuck their butt in and went.  Shut the door and kept on running.  One of those, '"how did it get there," type moments. Scarred for life on that one, scarred for life.  I'd rather dive into the woods than risk seeing that again.

I have the nickname of Crapola when it comes to luck.  When I am trying to have a "private" moment to myself, that's usually when the Mom walks in with the small child who promptly wails, "Mom, it STINKS in here.  OH GOD, what is that smell."  Better yet, the only bathroom that had a working lock at an airport was the handicap stall, the problem, I found out a few minutes later was the lock worked but the toilet didn't.  Looking down and watching the wheels roll up to the stall just made a shitty situation turn worse.

My handyman calls me the Craplord rather than a Landlord, I had a tenant call and say that there was a "slight" smell in their home.  I went over to find that the main sewer pipe broke and there was 3 feet of crap in the crawl space under their home.  I asked them if they didn't "SMELL" anything?  They said a slight sulfer smell, a slight sulfer smell?  Slight?  After 400 to Forsyth Rooter to pump out the crap, then another 3K to hazmat out my handyman, crawl under there, lay down lime, plastic, lime, plastic and fix the pipe - for some reason he's not answering my calls right now.

So there you see, I've become a strong woman because I can take a lot of crap - literally and figuratively.  So don't give me any of your shit, because you don't know what I will do with it.