Friday, May 16, 2008

Slip Ray & Ajibberish

My favorite people to talk to when I fly out to DC are the people who work with Avis. I always rent cars from them and have gotten to know a few of the people there beyond just getting my receipt for my car.

One of my favorite people is Slip Ray. The other people at Avis call him Slip Ray because he’s always slipping and tripping getting onto or getting off the bus. I have personally seen him slip and almost fall three times getting onto the bus. Two of those times he was holding a big suitcase so it was really funny.

Then there is Ajibberish. Ajibberish is from Korea and no one can understand what he is saying so that’s why he’s Ajibberish. Usually he will lean his head out the window and yell at Slinky as we are pulling out of the Avis parking lot. Slinky is Slinky because he has orange dreds that are styled in this kind of weird spiral design. Ajibberish will yell “Hey Slinky! You no use you eyes where you put that cars!” And then Slinky will yell back “Why you always talking ajibberish?” Then the other two guys who work in the parking lot will start yelling “Ajibberish! Ajibberish!” Then Ajibberish gets a smile on his face like he’s Elvis and drives us about 40 miles an hour over the metal teeth and out the parking lot.

One time he missed the turn out of the parking lot and drove us up on this grass hill. The bus was momentarily stuck but Ajibberish finally figured out to put it in reverse and got us off the hill. The guys who work the guard shack came running over and Ajibberish yelled “I drive use the force!” Those of us that weren’t smiling were probably scared.

As I pulled into Avis today it was raining, and Slip Ray ran over to my SUV with an umbrella. I got stuck with a Dodge Nitro this week. They tried to give me an H3 but I flat out refused to take it. This was the same day the bandage was taken off my cornea and my eye was hurting horribly besides watering non-stop. The little Indian guy called Soup came running over and switched out my car. I think he thought I was crying about my car but I wasn’t.

Slip Ray grabbed my suitcase and escorted me to the bus. He’s been carrying my luggage for me since I broke my hand back in February. I tell him he doesn’t have to but I think he might have a crush on me. He was also excited to tell me about the woman bus driver Colleen. Colleen is a large, large woman who doesn’t always seem to be aware she is driving. I have made fun of Colleen to Slip Ray and Ajibberish, who don’t like her because she’s a bitch.

It turns out Colleen that very day backed her bus into a brand new Lincoln Navigator. Then she tried to say that the Lincoln Navigator hit her even though no one was in it. She was fired. The manager asked how how she could have missed seeing the Lincoln in the back up camera. Colleen apparently screamed at him “I wasn’t looking at the camera! I was trying to look at the steering wheel.” His repeat of this line in a female falsetto sent Ajibberish into hysterics. Then, as we arrived at the airport (Slip Ray rode the bus with me, ostensibly to help me with my bags, but mostly because he likes to tell me what has happened since the last time I was at Avis) he said “You know why she wrecked the bus? Cause she’s a woooooo-maaaaaaaaan!” I smiled and got off the bus, and as he was pulling away Ajibberish opened the bus door again and yelled “Woooooo-maaaaaan!” at me.

I think they deserve their own TV show.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Dr. D's Dirty Undies

My wonderful opthamologist (if you are in the Denver area and need a good eye doctor send me an email and I'll give you his name) told me the following story when I was in his office Monday getting the old eye ball checked out...

He often goes to Mexico and brings back Cuban cigars which he sneaks in either in his coat or, if it's warm, under his shirt. He's jewish and as our MOT has suffered throughout history we figure it's okay to to say fuck it to some arbitrary embargo.

The past month, coming back from Mexico, TSA found out he was a doctor, and, as he went through customs, they pulled him aside and started going through all of his bags. He said they began ripping his bags open and throwing the contents all over the floor of the airport. As he says it "Dirty underwear was flying everywhere!"

The reasoning given by TSA is that they had gotten some intell that a doctor was smuggling body parts into the US. Never mind that Dr. D is an opthamologist, so what did they think he was going to smuggle in, eyeballs, and that, in general, packing, say, a heart or lung in with your dirty underwear is not a great way to ensure the viability of the organ for a transplant.

Lovely that our airports are being run by people who can't even get a job at McDonald's. If you say they are protecting me put the word in quotes.