My Life

The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Ducks

By on • ( 34 Comments )

The end of a journey, in three-part disharmony…

ONE: The flight home from Malaga, Spain was a soul-crushing experience. We had to be up and packed and in the hotel lobby to meet the taxi at 6am. There were two layovers and plane-changes: one in Madrid (where we had to go through security twice for no apparent reason) and one in Miami. (Wherein the Customs official thought he was being cute by asking me about American football to prove that I was not a terrorist. I was not impressed.)

Oh, and the longest leg of the multiple-part flight (9 hours) had my ass plunked in the middle seat of the row. I’m tall. Middle seats for tall people = slow death. Naturally, I was wedged between two diminutive Spanish ladies who could stretch out comfortably and snooze the day away while I struggled to breathe without causing the painful armrests on both sides of me to snap off. I hated both of them a little bit, even though they were very lovely and shared the leftovers from their meals. (They weighed twenty pounds each. They were full after two bites.)

TWO: Our landing gate was in Terminal A at DFW Airport. Our car was ensconced near Terminal D, as that’s where we originally departed. DFW Airport is massive, because the state of Texas is bigger than most countries and they have all this land just baking away in the sun, sparsely populated by cows and ultra-conservatives who love guns and racism. For comparative purposes, imagine departing from Venus and returning to Mars. You can’t just walk from one terminal to another. You will die of exhaustion and they won’t find your dehydrated body until 2037, long after the statutes of limitation have run out on cruel and unusual punishment and you can no longer seek vengeful litigation.

So, we had to wait for an inter-terminal bus to show up and magically whisk us away to Venus. This did not immediately happen, much to our dismay. Sure, plenty of buses came by, but they were all for every other terminal in the alphabet except “D”. To be fair, there was an actual D bus that pulled up to the curb early in this ordeal, but the driver hopped out and announced that he was low on gas and had to return to the service depot. (Then why the hell did you stop, taunting us with your unavailability? I could have stabbed him with one of my 27 now-useless boarding passes.)

Decades later, with my sphincter now so clenched that I could shoot diamonds out of my ass, another D bus arrived, apparently brimming with gas and ready to lead the suffering and unkempt out of the desert and into the promised land. I was so thrilled at that point to finally be on the move that I could have easily had sex with the driver to show my full appreciation. (Hey, desperate times call for desperate indiscretions. You do what you need to do.) Luckily, I didn’t have to do the driver, which is probably a good thing since I smelled like forty miles of bent guardrail at that point.)

THREE: We eventually found our car (after wandering all over the parking lot at Terminal D, repeatedly clicking on my key fob and listening for distant beeps) and fled the scene of the crime. Well, two crime scenes, actually, with the second being the life-changing parking tab I paid as we exited the airport. There was a time in my career when I didn’t make that much money in a month, regardless of who I slept with to make ends meet, if you’ll pardon the pun. Apparently, the executives at the DFW Airport are very proud of the fact that they offer parking, and they charge accordingly. Hate them a little bit.

We finally pulled into the driveway at Bonnywood Manor, staggered out of the car, kissed the ground with redemptive fervency, and breached the domicile. In doing so, we encountered the ginormous duck in the opening photo, perched as it was on the coffee table in the den. It seems that a certain miscreant known as La Tiffania had violated our Fortress of Solitude whilst we were gone, aided and abetted by a co-miscreant known as La Elisabeta. There were orange-lipped totems everywhere. (Note the array of such in the background and right-ground.) Many, many ducks were found, hither and yon, most of them accompanied by humorous and scribbled missives from the miscreants, a series of gotchas that culminated in chilled and frozen ducklings in the fridge and freezer.

It’s good to be home. It’s even better to have friends who can get you.

Cheers.

 

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34 replies »

  1. That is a disturbingly full-lipped duck. I think it needs deflating rapidly (I was going to say pricking or plucking – but that just sounded to eeew).
    Welcome home to duck land. Long may the roost – preferably somewhere else.

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  2. I just have to read all your spanish missives!!! Have been flat to the floor since getting home and although I’ve opened the site have been dragged off by other stuff before actual reading began- think I’ll have a binge tonight. Love the slightly weird looking duck and totally relate to the flight- I always get the full pat down at security- think it’s all that wirework in the upper chest area that attempts to keep the girls in check but also sets off the terrorist alert. Cannot bear to think we’ll be doing the long haul to Rome in only another 9 weeks!!!!!
    Thanks for the chuckle even though it was still a bit too early for me.

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    • Wait, you’re going to Rome? I’ll just have to assume that my invite got lost in the mail. (These things happen.) But please do a Competa binge-read, as there are several posts that I think you’ll find slightly fetching. And I’m looking forward to the lovely artwork you will surely conjure up under the Italian sun…

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  3. There is something a little bit scary about the lined up ducklings hovering to the back and side of the giant duck god centre stage! Are they the minions waiting to wreak revenge on anyone who does not surrender to its will?…………………….or has my medication just kicked in……….

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    • Yes, the military precision of the smaller ducks did leave me a bit unsettled, especially since there are so many of them lined up from one end of the house to the other. Their beady little eyes follow me everywhere… 😉

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  6. Glad you’re home safe, sound, and slightly insane from the brutality of transcontinental flight/s. Really, REALLY enjoyed the Spanish transubstantiation. Keep the poetry coming. And so glad you didn’t sink to doing the driver….

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  9. This missive reminded me of my recent trip to Thailand, with four airports involved. And then my confusion when I picked my daughter up in San Francisco and managed to park in the wrong international terminal parking. Of course. Have I mentioned that I have decided I hate airports?

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  10. Hahaha. Great homecoming. 🙂 But that inflated duck looks a little disturbing. Disturbed? I bet it woke you up when you walked in. 🙂

    And middle seats? Yuck. Coming home from a great holiday is always a little depressing, but tall guy, middle seat? Double yuck.

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    • Oh, the Big Duck definitely had an impact on my psyche. We were already discombobulated from the long flights and the time changes, so my mind slipped a bit sideways when I noticed the creative centerpiece on the coffee table. Then again, my mind has never been accused of being stable… 😉

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  11. Hate airports, attendant (or non) buses. co-travelers on aircraft, security staff and boarding passes not a little but a mighty lottle but I mostly love la Tiffania and la Elisabeta for their dandy duck placements and for making you smile, if wearily, on your return. Bienvenue chez vous and may your creative light burn as a ducks ass when waving it at rapist drakes in Springtime. They do that, you know … rape. This is why all my ducks will be called Harvey 😉

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    • Your last two sentences are such a goldmine of inspirational creativity that I feel fairly certain I can get at least 15 blog posts out of your triggers. Then again, that would require me to focus, and I’m currently distracted by the amazing number of places wherein one can shove a duck for future discovery, pun fully intended…

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      • Hurrah for being an inspirational little duckling and whenever you get undistracted is whenever we love to see you. Mildly boggled at the power of that final pun 😉 🦆

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    • Actually, that video is what inspired the whole duck situation with my crazed little friends. It’s been a running joke for several months now, and we have officially used up half the yellow plastic on the planet… 😉

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