staying on the road...to nowhere

Ech. Why do I listen to those idiot sales people?

A sales guy was supposed to join me today in St. Louis for this week's engagement. He said he would rent the car to save money. Of course he bailed at the last minute but said not to worry about getting a car because public transport was convenient and I could walk to the customer site.

So here I am, on the edge of St. Louis, stuck in a neighborhood where, as I was leaving to walk to a market at 330 today to get cokes, I was warned by the guy behind the front desk to not be out after dark. I said "I did live in downtown Baltimore for 3 years" thinking the staff thought I was some white bread suburban dweller. He said "Then you know what I'm talking about". Hm.

To get here I took the subway from the airport. That was straightforward and easy. I had mapquested walking directions to my hotel. It was only a 2 mile walk and even though I was carrying everything I thought it would be good exercise.

The subway let me off at a station called "Union Station", which I pictured to be like NYC. Instead it's a station on the outskirts of the city. I was following my directions, which took me into a train yard (yes, a train yard, my nephew Michael would have been psyched). I had to walk through the train yard because the street was actually a freeway with no safe shoulder.

After the train yard I walked through 2 low income housing projects, down an 8 lane street (no traffic), and through a park surrounded by a scary black wrought iron fence (deserted, I expected to be murdered any minute as the sky darkened with clouds and the dead leaves blew across the grass in a menacing mold tide - I am totally allergic to dead leaves).

Finally, when it seemed I could not walk any further without running out of city I arrived at my hotel. It's surrounded by a big security fence. I hit the intercom and the guy at the front desk, who had me on camera, was like "where's your car????" I said "I walked here from the subway" and he was like "girl, you best get on in here and we'll take care of you".

The market I went to to get cokes, btw, was just a glassed in building with an outer room. You point to what you want through the  bullet proof glass (at least that's what the sign advertised) and they get it and after you pay (through a sliding metal tray) they put your purchases in a sliding metal box and slide them out to you. There was a line but I was like "I'm paying cash!" (everyone else was paying with these welfare cards that limit what you can purchase - the woman next to me was trying to cut a deal with the cashier, offering to give her cash off her welfare card on top of the purchase price so she could buy cigarettes - the woman behind the bullet proof glass was like "you know you can't get no cash offa them cards - shit, go buy your stuff somewhere else" - I gave the woman cash for the cigarettes, Marlboro Menthols - fuck it, I'm on corporate welfare) so I got to skip to the front of the line.

When I see that sales guy next I'm going to kick him in the balls. I had to order pizza for delivery for dinner because when I asked the guy at the front desk a few minutes ago if it would be safe to walk 2 1/2 miles to a deli (which, from the write up, is pretty famous for their food) he was like "Naw, you can't walk there in the dark unless you got a car. You best stay inside here with us" (then handed me the pizza menu).

I had to include what he said in this blog because I'm still laughing about it.

Reminds me of the time when I stayed in a shit hole hotel near Miami airport. I started to walk across the street to a cuban restaurant and gunfire broke out a block down the street. I ran back to the hotel security gate and was like "let me back in!" The guard yanked me in the gate and was like "I wondered what you were doing going out there" and I said "I was just going to walk across the street to get food".

He was like "If you want to walk use the hotel treadmill". Of course, I had a car on that engagement...