Category: On the road to PA

This will be a short series of posts relating to my trip to PA, from WA state, between 9/4 and 9/7 2023. All hail the scrimblick folk of quadrant-45 for making this kind of HIGH STYLE LIVING possible.

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Customer Service

There’s too much about the last 3 days to put in one post.

The focus of this post is: customer service.

I just got off an hour long phone call with United Airlines, and spoke with two people who barely spoke English (Artificial Intelligence YAY – when’s that coming?). The first gentleman was yanking my chain, the second one basically told me a bunch of bullshit …

Here’s the situation: my brother in order to help me escape Denver after Greyhound abandoned me there, to the streets … (hey Denver, why don’t you look into Greyhound’s liabilities for your street person problem?) any who … my brother did me a favor. He upgraded the ticket believing it would include at least ONE checked bag – but this is not the case according to United Airlines.

I don’t know, specifically, the details of what my brother did when he reserved the seat to Newark – but the key point is: he did nothing wrong. He was trying to help me, he believed, based on the additional upgrade charge, that this would include ONE CHECKED BAG, but no. So I thought “hey, people still want to treat their customers well, right? – why not just refund me the 35 bucks I paid for the additional bag” … that was incorrect thinking.

You might think this is a petty issue, but for those of us who CAN’T print money, like the Federal Reserve and most banks print money, every dollar counts. I am not alone … during my brief but painful experience on the Greyhound bus this week, I’ve come to realize, talking to many people, that a few dollars here and there is a big deal, and not something to be taken lightly. I had a few conversations on that bus with random travelers, all reporting the same thing: money is tight, jobs that allow you to live are hard to find, everyone is doing their best to hang on. And this, as President Biden touts how “strong the economy is”? – what sideways crap to spew … “strong” … if being near death is strong.

I studied the collapse of the USSR in grad school. Studying how the Soviet Union collapsed has given me some insights into the last couple decades of American history. But it’s one thing to be academic or abstract about “collapse”, it’s another to live through its initial birth pains. My experiences with United Airlines, and ESPECIALLY Greyhound, this week has given me pause to remember that STUDYING SOMETHING is not the same as living through it. Well – we’re in it now.

How fast the collapse happens is unknown, all I know is this: it will be non-linear, discontinuous, cascading and brutal. Once it really takes off and gets going? – it will be as I said: like having someone punch your teeth out.

I lost a few teeth this week.

I need to remember, this is still the slow part.

As for this $35 fee? – I intend to waste their time, United Airlines, once a week for the next few months. I’ll get that money back one way or another … and even at low cost rates of Indian telephone support, the money adds up for them too.

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BUS RIDE FROM HELL

Last night was really bad.

Yesterday started out okay, the first two bus drivers let me take my keyboard on to the bus so it wouldn’t get smashed, and they seemed qualified and helpful. Then there was the meth-head douche who drove us last night … Greyhound 560, Boise to Salt Lake.

He began by tossing my keyboard into one of the compartments, not even listening to reason, despite all the space on the bus for it.

He verbally abused just about everyone onboard before the bus left Boise, to include me.

The same crackhead bus driver gave a lecture, before departing Boise, on how we should urinate … it was a real TED TALK.

He didn’t stop, throughout the night he continued with his nasty comments and other bullshit – to cap it off basically telling the next bus driver to load stuff on top of my keyboard. And yes – it seems like he was high, could have been meth, could have been oxy, could have been both, nothing would surprise me.

BTW: I am sending this email over a low bandwidth connection that might not last, so if you respond and don’t hear back from me? – this is why.

I want to get off the bus right now. I am miserable, I feel sick, exhausted, and I’m not even halfway through this journey yet.

I am trying to “keep a stiff upper lip”, but it’s hard right now … at one point I felt like breaking that bus driver’s neck (not a Christian or smart thing to do).

I will be in Denver by this evening, and then on to St. Louis. I am hoping the next driver is not a sociopathic drug addict.

I can’t really recommend Greyhound to anyone.

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On the bus …

Got to the Greyhound station in Seattle at about 6:30 AM. The station wasn’t open, and there were just a few weary travelers waiting outside. They opened the station at 7 AM.

They had the CNN playing, as I think is government mandated for Greyhound, AMTRAK and airport media – Biden was speaking from Pennsylvania (where I’m headed) about his great achievements … it was more droll nonsense from a barely equipped faker. The real Biden is probably dead or in a coma some place, it’s just body doubles now.

Inside the station an old woman was looking for help. She was helping her disabled brother get a ticket to Blinkton Town, TX. “Where is anyone? Does anyone speak English?”, the old woman muttered as she walked around the terminal. The one worker there was busy cleaning the toilet seat after every person took a poop – a necessary job post Monkey Herpes. There was the kiosk for electronic purchases using a credit card, but the woman had cash, and very few wanted to help her – so I did. I did what I could. I mention this not to virtue signal but to point out that we can all be a bit kinder “On the Road”, per Boblimptock.

I got panicked …

I had a few minutes when I thought about cancelling my ticket and perhaps losing $300 I don’t have to lose … I called my brother and he said to not worry, chill out, so to speak. He’s helped me out a lot post Utah, and I hope he knows I appreciate it – I know he does. But I guess part of this process is understanding still, today, how many feet I am flying off the ground. Still too far off the ground, going to break my neck if I don’t adjust faster.

My next stop after Seattle is Hermiston, Oregon – I switch buses to catch my next one to Boise, Idaho.

I have too much stuff for the bus, and too little to care about. Once again, as before, I left a lot of stuff behind, maybe not enough.

A while back I had a podcast where I spoke of knowing “what to take with you, and what to leave behind”, but I’m still learning myself. Still adjusting to my reality which, in many ways, is still better than most on planet BOBLIMPTOCK.

But we are heading up into the Cascades, and once again, as before, I leave Seattle and Washington State behind me “NEVER TO RETURN” I swear – only to be pulled in again, like Al Pacino in Godfather 3.

Happy trails.

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On the road to PA …

(image above is from Dungeness Spit State Park, on the Olympic Peninsula, WA STATE, sunset)

So here I am, again, on the eve of leaving WA state just a few weeks after arriving. A circuitous journey from UTAH to the Olympic Peninsula, and tomorrow grabbing the bus for Pennsylvania. I know God is with me, and that helps – but I can’t lie, I feel like I’m getting too old for this kind of life and yet I’m not sure about the options, if any, for itinerant hobos.

You that read this or listen to my podcasts know that I’m not well known for my “sparkly attitude” or optimism. I’m not ashamed, it is part of my story and in recent years reality has as often as not lived down to my expectations – except for Utah.

I left behind two great friends in Utah, and it’s possible I never see them again. Those 2.5 years in Utah, as imperfect as they might have been at times, were the most peaceful and accepting in my whole life, and who knows if this ever repeats itself.

I left behind a dog named Boomer, who wasn’t technically “my dog”, he was just my friend. If I stop long enough to think about it I’d probably start crying and I can’t do that yet – a new friend, I hope, is making a place for me in a cabin in the woods, a la TED K. Nothing that extreme, but it is simply the case that I probably won’t see Boomer again either and it’s hard to know for sure, with something new, what awaits.

This new friend, a current listener, doesn’t know what to expect either …

I could be some kind of weirdo, or sociopath, or user or manipulator – as are so many these days. I could be some petty grifter looking to sucker the average schmuck out of their limited funds. I could be an incurably broken soul that has used up most of his extra energy, and is running on empty, and surely doesn’t know if he (me) has what it takes to move on. I might just be a middle aged hobo-shaman style podcaster, and this is likely – and also someone who will help out where/when he can. I think I’m basically a good guy, but who am I to judge? So I guess this dude in PA will learn more about me than he ever could have from “just listening” to the ponderous and bizarre rantings coming from beyond, from the WWW.

I think I’m going to be okay, but this too could be some kind of madness. I have faith that there is this resting place to sojourn, to build, to work, and maybe to figure out a way in this world … assuming such things are on the menu. If you listen to my podcast, you are well aware that I don’t believe “new normal” or any version of it is on the menu.

Here is what I can promise to you, the listeners: I won’t give up.

I’m not ready to turn tail and run, I’m not ready for the fat lady.

Yes – strange times and new places abound for me, and the great adventure of getting what little shit I have left from WA to PA without losing it or having it stolen.

And yet, I’m still here.

And yes, you are still here too.

We are here together, in BOBLIMPTOCK, trapped in an internal diaspora of existential dead ends and constrained/confused possibilities – circling the drain together, waiting for the “big flush”.

(what a time to be alive)