IT'S THE PRESENT (, STUPID)
The plane made it to Bangalore and so did my luggage. But when I finished changing money and going through customs and locating said suitcases, Prashanth was nowhere to be found. A quick phone call from the STD booth revealed that he'd waited for me til 4AM the previous night. Apparently he never got the message that I didn't make the connecting flight. When he did get it he thought (as did I) that I was flying in on Friday. Whatever; it was Friday when I made it to Mysore (let's not forget that I left Chicago on TUESDAY), after overpaying for a prepaid government cab (Rs 2100 instead of Rs 1800). You really haven't lived until you've had a painfully full bladder at 2:30 AM on the bumpy, all-but-deserted except for men, men, and more men, Mysore-Bangalore road.... or until you've tried to find the obscurely-located Kaveri Lodge by memory while jetlagged at 4:30 AM....or until you've dismissed the taxi only to learn your room had been given away but if you'd just wait on this plastic chair for a couple of hours there will be one for you. Apparently the look on my face said 'I don't think so' because suddenly I was given the owner's room for a few hours. When you hear 'owner's room' you can't help but think 'posh' == but that's absolutely not the case. 'Dive' and 'not cleaned in ages' would be more accurate.
Since getting a room (w/ Indian toilet, which they keep apologizing about) I've had a bath, watched some Deadwood, had a nap and went with Prashanth for lunch. He also helped me to find a phone charge cord, to change money (Prashanth kicked back the kickback from his friend to me), to pay Guruji (nearly $700 for one month, ouch), who wanted to know who I was, and to pick up some necessities (clothespins, soymilk, muesli, nail polish remover, hair pomade) at Nilgiri's supermarket, which I always want to call El Corte Ingles. We also took a walk along the path around the lake at Mysore University, and later I enjoyed saffron lassi at Three Sisters, where they all actually remembered my name.
And now I'm here at ye olde internet cafe where, if I'm not mistaken, we're still using Windows '97 -- and where, if you type an "M" into the search engine, this blog address pops up. Scary.
Wow, windows 97! Billy Gates will be pissed, but alas the '97 is prolly a bootleg, as will be any upgrade into the 00's.
ReplyDeleteBut I digress.
After reading your horrid travel tale, I am happy I don't have any 'miles' saved of any sort and pay whatever the cost is at the time, and I never, ever get hung out to dry like you have on this adventure, and it has only just begun.
Indian toilet means hole in floor, right?
The days go on and on... they don't end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go.
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you why. I think you're a lonely person. I drive by this place a lot and I see you here. I see a lot of people around you. And I see all these phones and all this stuff on your desk. It means nothing. Then when I came inside and I met you, I saw in your eyes and I saw the way you carried yourself that you're not a happy person. And I think you need something. And if you want to call it a friend, you can call it a friend.
Be careful of those taxi drivers, day & nite.
Travis
What exactly is an STD booth, and will a shot of penicillin relieve the problem?
ReplyDeleteYou pay Guruji $700 a month? You can get a live-in prostitute / maid / gunsmith / taxidermist for that kind of money in McHenry, IL. India, my ass.
Dr. Dreyfuss has told me, via analysis, that a good looking pros, even in the boonies, is around $2400 a month on a live in basis, and he also has to foot the bill to heat her (food, drink, etc)
ReplyDeleteHe also said a plus is she is a swimsuit model from a former Soviet republic and speaks no English, so it is well worth the outlay. She is also very clean, and a good cleaner.
He thinks she wants a ring.
She can clean a gun, but is no gunsmith, if you get my meaning.
I have met her, she is a twin to Maria Sharapova.
Dreyfuss is a lucky man.
Speaking of STD's:
ReplyDeleteSTDs Running Rampant In Retirement Community
Doctor Blames Viagra, Lack Of Sex Education.
Doctors said sexually transmitted diseases among senior citizens are running rampant at a popular Central Florida retirement community, according to a Local 6 News report.
A gynecologist at The Villages community near Orlando, Fla., said she treats more cases of herpes and the human papilloma virus in the retirement community than she did in the city of Miami.
"Yeah, they are very shocked (to hear the diagnosis)," gynecologist Dr. Colleen McQuade said. "I had a patient in her 80s."
"More and more senior citizens are ending up in the gynecologist office, and their diagnosis is a sexually transmitted disease," Local 6 reporter Vanessa Medina said.
Local 6 featured Louis Franklin, who used to date in the community at least three times a week.
"I have had a better dating life since I have been here than I have ever had," Franklin said. "I know there are things going around."
A doctor blamed Viagra, a lack of sex education and no risk for pregnancy for the spike in sexually transmitted diseases at The Villages.
"All I can repeat are the things I have heard which are things like, 'Should I bring the little blue pills over tonight?'" community singles group president Richard Matwyshen