Where Is Hawkins?

They’re up at the usual spot on Fotki.

When looking at people describing their flight experience, and dedicating pages upon pages to what it’s like, the food, the inflight entertainment and everything else – it astonishes me. I hate flying. I hate every god damned minute of it.

Let’s think about it. A conservative estimate is that I’ve flown 750,000 miles since 2003. At 500 mph, that’s 1500 hours of my ass in an airplane seat. In that, I’ve slept poorly, eaten unremarkable food, cried, written, watched bad movies, gotten nauseous a few times and generally never a pleasant experience. Sure, there have been funny ones but none that have ever made me feel happy to be on a metal tube.

So on my way to Rome I took a slightly longer route if only to whore more miles so at the end of the year, I’m not making trips out to California for beer and pizza with friends. The trip from home to hotel featured nearly 6000 miles of flying: Chicago-Dallas-London and finally, Rome. From Rome it was a nearly 4 hour train ride to Rimini, and from there, it was an attempt to find the hotel I booked at the last moment, which is always a good sign things will go well.

The Chicago to Dallas flight was a bit late, so I ended up having to run from flight to the DFW SkyTrain to another terminal to my flight. Not a big deal. I made it with time to spare, and sat down and got a glass of preflight champagne, which, honestly, tasted average. Thanks to my writer friends, I’ve been experiencing good champagne, and AA’s preflight champagne was ok. I nodded off, and got the chicken tikka masala for the business class dinner which was super awesome. I had been craving Indian food, and it was really good for airline food. This made things better because I didn’t have to resort to eating Skittles and drinking Coke like I normally do on overseas flights.

Transit in London is horrible. They say that to get from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5 that you should allow yourself a minimum of 2 hours. In all honestly, avoid transiting in London or give yourself a day or two to transit. It took me 40 minutes to get to Terminal 5, and I thought I could save time by using British Airways super premium line to transit (reserved for First class, Gold and Silver EC club members, etc) and asked if they would be so kind as to let me through with my Exec Plat card. No, of course not. Typical British snobbery.

Another 45 minutes later, I found myself past security into Terminal 5, the new terminal at Heathrow dedicated to British Airways. It’s been open for a while, but my Heathrow transit ban has been going on for a while so I didn’t get to experience it fully. Regardless, I made a beeline straight for the lounge because I didn’t have any UK Pounds on me and didn’t feel like 10am Wagamama’s when I was fighting a first class wine hangover from my transatlantic flight. (Mental Note: Mixing wines is a bad idea.)

British Airways’ First class lounge was nice – totally tricked out, had a champagne bar and was a nice place to spend time in between flights. I charged my iPod and phone and managed to have some orange juice and cereal and a glass of champagne, not only in an effort to cure “hair of the dog” but to tell Tasha and Andrew that hey, the champagne was *fabulous* and they missed out. Suckers.

Hopped on the flight to Rome and got an hour of sleep – or an hour turned to the side in a non-reclining seat when you’re a big guy and are a side sleeper with your eyes shut.

Landed at Rome and it came back to me. Even though it was 5 years ago since I was last at FCO, I let myself go and let my gut instinct take over in terms of how to get from A to B (in this case, from customs to the train to Termini station.) Another travel tip: After transatlantic flights, don’t EVER EVER follow your gut about “hey, that looks familiar” because you’ll get lost.

The immigration officer just looked at my passport and stamped it, which felt disappointing. He didn’t even scan the passport, so it made me feel like I could have totally been the spy and wanted by Interpol and due to his laziness, my reign of terror continues. Or whatever. The stamp itself was over a few other stamps and lightly stamped, so it sucked. But regardless, it was pretty nice to have an Italian stamp in the passport.

Hopped on the Leonardo Express to Termini station, and spaced out as I watched the scenery. It looked familiar and I was trying to absorb the memories as they came back to me. It was nice to look out a window and see something other than clouds and views from 35,000 feet (isn’t that what Google Earth is for?). After getting off the train, I went to the Trenitalia booth, picked up my ticket to Rimini, and had some snacks while I waited for the train. It was a 3 hour “connection” from the time I got off the plane until my train was going to depart, but I got to Rome early (rare for BA), and got on the first available train (again, never happens) so I found myself with time to wander around and reacquaint myself with trains.

Eventually, I got on the train to Rimini, and settled in for a quick nap, which upon retrospect, wasn’t the brightest idea since I am a nice target for muggers with my camera and electronics gear, but my backpack was wrapped around my legs so there was no way that anyone could have messed with me without waking me up. Not a big deal. Again, for the entire trip, my face was planted against the window like a dog, looking at the scenery as it went by.

Getting off in Rimini was not a big deal – nice little station with the bus stop across the street. The hotel (Hotel Morfeo) gave me really good directions – hop on a bus and look for the number markers on each stop. Get off at the one the instructions told you and blammo, you’re there.

First it should be noticed that a) I’m not at a Sheraton and b) gosh, I’ve let myself go to where I sleep. I don’t care about it anymore. As long as I have a nice room and don’t wake anyone with my snoring and my stuff doesn’t get stolen and there’s free wifi, I’m there. The Hotel Morfeo promised all of this, and sold itself as a “Young People’s Hotel” for ages 16-35. 35. Yes, 35. So the age thing caught me offguard. I’m still young at heart, or so I think, and in a few years, I couldn’t stay there anymore. Sad Nick.

I make it to the hotel, and alas, the hotel is closed. For some reason, I was able to make a booking during the season that they’re closed (although they returned emails quickly.) So it was either due to a) me screwing up the hotel reservation or b) their site allowing me to book it when it’s closed. Naturally, I blamed them and swore profusely. You know it’s bad when you bust your Blackberry, pull out the GPS and go “I’m right here… WTF?”

Luckily, the hotel up the road – the Blue Moon Hotel had rooms open, and I was able to get a room for 42 Euros a night, which wasn’t that bad. At that point, I didn’t care because I wanted some horizontal time along with a shower.

*It should also be known that the hotel got shit reviews online, but I found it fine. I mean, sure, it was off-season and the staff didn’t speak much English, but they were very nice to me and the breakfast was average. I mean, coffee and a croissant is leaps and bounds beyond what I normally have in the morning. I’d stay there again because they were nice and the room was fine. Let’s face it, when you’re paying that little for a room, you don’t have much to complain about.*

Since it was Sunday night, I figured that Monday I’d hit the town of Rimini itself, and then on Tuesday, be adventurous and go to San Marino. After that bit of planning was decided, I kicked back and fell asleep on the bed. 30 hours door to door, and I was beat.

So after spending another day at the Vatican, I did learn some awesome things. I was lucky enough to do a Scavi tour of the excavations underneath St. Peter’s Basilica, and learned a whole slew of stuff. Here are some awesome things I learned:

1) It took 20 years to announce that they actually found the remains of St. Peter from the time that they found the tomb underneath. They had to make sure that it was actually St. Peter’s remains.
2) The excavations underneath the Basilica was done in secret during WWII, mainly because if word got out at they found items of religious significance, Hitler might come (a la Raiders of the Lost Ark) looking for them.
3) They found St. Peter’s remains along with the remains of a mouse, which was reburied with him.
4) The Vatican workers are referred to as “Little St. Peters” – no word on if they’re Oompa Loompas, but seriously – that’d be badass if the Vatican had Oompa Loompas.
5) If you look at crime statistics, the Vatican is the number #1 crime ridden country in the world by population. The Vatican has a population of less than 1,000, but the pickpockets in the Square make up a bulk of the crime.
6) Pope John Paul I, the “Smiling Pope”, was most likely murdered after looking into the Vatican finances after he took office. Since the Italian Mafia launders money through the Vatican bank, and it (during the 70s and 80s) was funding anti-Communist activities in the old Soviet Bloc states. Word is that Pope John Paul I wanted to put a stop to this, and instantly died. Then Pope John Paul II, a Polish Pope, was elected. Hmmm.
7) Pope Benedict XVI is allegedly super gay. For real. It does make you wonder what the deal is with Christianity and homosexuality if this is the case.

“Where are your photos?”

I hate hearing this within 48 hours of getting back home. Ok guys, when I get back from a trip, it takes a while to go through the photos I’ve taken and put them online.

I’m not a snapshot person. Through trial and error and years of traveling, I’ve finally got a system down pat for how to handle my vacation photos. Let me walk you through what I do with this trip:

1) I took 1500 photos in 5+ days, all in Canon RAW format. With 21 megapixel photos, you’re looking at some serious size (50gb or so.) Half of the photos I took will be deleted, either because they suck, or are just photos of labels of things that I took. Here’s a handy hint: When in a museum or somewhere in public, take a photo of the awesome statue or painting, then take a photo of the label so you won’t forget.
2) Geotagging. Yes, I’m a nerd who geotags their photos with a GPS. So not only do you have the photos, but most of them have location information within the files, so you can go back to that original spot and take that exact same photo. Syncing that data is easy, and also helps me figure out what exactly that photo I took is.
3) Labeling. This is where the suck comes in handy. I’m starting to become a keywording whore in Adobe Lightroom, and tagging photos with the (for example) museum that a painting is in, along with the name of the painting and the artist.
4) Panoramas. I like taking panoramic photos. It’s one of the lame things I do on a trip, and stitching panoramas takes time. Seriously – snap 20 photos at 21 megapixels and it’ll bring a high powered desktop to its knees. Then I’ve got to crop them, assign geotagging info and eventually, export them to JPG. If they’re over 200 megapixels, then I’ll make a Zoomify’d version of the photo.
5) Editing. I admittedly don’t do much other than color/exposure corrections with the photos, but even then, that takes time. And if there are ones that I’m truly proud of, I’ll spend more time prettying it up.
6) Uploading. 50gb of RAW files might lead to 15-20gb of JPG files. That takes time to upload not only to Fotki, but to Facebook as well.

So, it takes a while to do. And for the first 72 hours from returning home from a trip, I have work stuff to attend to, jetlag to overcome and quality time to spend wearing cotton clothes and sleeping on my own bed. The real world gets in the way of things, and I’ve actually, you know, work to pay bills and stuff.

There’s no doubt that I love my Blackberry and am a Blackberry ninja. It’s welded to my hip. I take photos, I can blog, I can ignore phone calls and most importantly, send inebriated texts and emails.

But when it comes to travel, the Blackberry is what keeps me in touch with the world while I’m abroad and I don’t miss a beat. When I did my Trans-Siberian trip, I was emailing photos and chatting up a storm while gone, even in Mongolia.

I currently own a Blackberry 9700, and it’s by far the greatest travel tool I have. Here’s why:

• UMA. I can piggyback off a WiFi hotspot anywhere in the world and have my local number work on my Blackberry. What’s cool is that I can call home via WiFi and say hello from wherever. And send offensive texts. Sorry.
• GPS. I don’t need mapoverlays, just a map and a bearing.
• Camera phone: Tweeting from the road.

T-Mobile offers unlimited international email for Blackberry users for $20/mo, which can be turned on/turned off whenever and it’s pro-rated, so for Italy – 10 days = $7. Not too shabby.

The only real downside is that GSM will get you when you have your phone on while abroad. Send a call to voice mail? That’s a minute’s roaming charge. While in Russia, $5/min means I’m not answering the phone. The novelty when I first started traveling was fun – “Hi Mom, I’m in Australia – what’s up?” When friends would call, our conversations would go like this.

“Hey Nick! How are you? Do you want to go do *whatever* tonight?”
“Dude I’m in Germany. I can’t.”
“How is it?
“A buck a minute for roaming charges.”
“What’s the weather like?”
“A BUCK A MINUTE FOR ROAMING CHARGES.”
“How hot are the girls?”
“You motherfucker.”

It should be also noted that if you have unlimited texting on your account, you can receive texts for free. Win.

Since Google acquired Grandcentral, it’s been integrated into how I use it when I travel. In order to be a cheapass and yet still be available in case of family emergencies, I forward all calls to my Google Voice number – avoiding GSM roaming charges. Google Voice takes the voicemail, spits out SMS notification and transcribes the voice mail. It does a horrible job of it, but hey, whatever. If Mom calls and GV transcribes the word “dead”, then I’m going to be like “holy shit” and call home immediately. But if it’s just “hey what’s up”, then I’ll wait until I’m under WiFi coverage and then call back whenever.

Google Voice SMS wins too. While abroad and meeting people, SMS is way easier to coordinate where people are and when to get together. But when it costs 35 cents to send a message and my propensity to be verbose and text like a teenager, I’d get a $50 bill just from texting while abroad. Crap. So – the plan is to use my GV number for texting, and use the SMS to Email function with Google Voice. Since I’ve got unlimited international email, why not just reply with to the SMS via email?

It should also be noted that international roaming of data is expensive, and there are horror stories about people who have phone bills in the 4 to 5 figure range when they come back from abroad. Triple check that before you go. And anecdotally, the internet has said that if you use programs on your blackberry that pull data (like Google Maps), you don’t get charged if you have T-Mobile’s unlimited international email turned on. However, don’t try and test that out and datawhore and come back home to find out that your phone cost you serious cash.

I’ve had a rough week. I haven’t been able to sleep well, focus, concentrate or anything that resembles being productive. The allergies are in full force and the serotonin levels keep roller coastering. Love it.

A few things:
One, I should probably tell my mom that I’m going to Italy. Even though I’m in my 30’s and have been to 40 something countries solo, she’s still worried I’ll get mugged and/or raped. And if I don’t tell her, she grounds me. And if I meet a nice girl, she’ll be like “Hey, it’s 10pm, wtf?” “Sorry, I’m grounded.”

Two, I blog occasionally about the Chicago Red Stars, the Women’s Pro Soccer team in Chicago over at Chicago Now. It’s awesome, and I have to refrain from being a sexist pig, which is sometimes difficult.

Three, I still feel sort of bummed about the loss of Marsha, our family’s chihuahua. She passed on at the age of 16 but was closer to me than most of my family. Dogs, in most cases, are more loyal than people. Plus on cold winter nights she would look at you with this sense of blame like it was my fault that it was cold out. Made me laugh.

This summer there’s TBEX: The Travel Blog Exchange. I’m on the fence about attending, because I’m pretty sure that a) I will get stabbed by someone whose e-feelings I hurt, b) it’ll be a weekend of some awesome Fire road trip. And c) I don’t play well with others. I write a travel blog because it’s fun, and have never tried to make any money off this. Most travel bloggers are trying to position themselves as digital nomads – which generally have them end up as nomadic hucksters, selling e-books on how to pick up women or how to travel or SEO: search engine optimization. Fuck that.

A week to go before I leave for Italy. My upgrades haven’t cleared, and I sort of got crap seats on the flights over. It looks like I’ll be ODing on Ambien to make it through.

Since I really started writing postcards in 2004, I figure I’ve sent close to 2000 of them back to the US. Yes, 2000 of them. That’s a lot of postcards, and I’ve discovered some excellent techniques to make this a less tedious process. And in the spirit of a kinder, gentler Nick in 2010, I’d figure I’d share my wealth of knowledge.

The list started out as a postcard to Mom and Gran, then just spun out of control. I sent out 72 postcards while in Singapore/Malaysia – 72 postcards! I sent around 100 when I did my Trans-Siberian trip – basically, the aim is 10 postcards a day for when I’m in a particular place. For my upcoming Rome trip, I’m going to be lazy and try to limit it to about 60 or so just because I’m a cheapass. Hey, you drop $500 on postcards and stamps in a year only to be told two months later “Hey, thanks from your postcard from Oogaboogaland, the kids threw it away after reading it.” Love it.

The problem is that with so many postcards and so few days, it’s hard to retell the day’s events in such a way 10+ times that it all sounds fresh and entertaining – like you wrote a card just for that person. It’s really hard. The best way is to write a postcard once or twice, and then copy it on subsequent cards. However, your ingenuity is foiled if two people that know each other get the same card! So, it’s time to develop a postcard strategy!

Step One: Organize your postcard list into groups.
I’ve got about a half a dozen groups: Family, People from my hometown, Friends, People who pretend to be my friends, Internet fan club, Soccer people, “The Writer Posse,” Internet creeps and stalkers, Women I’d like to sleep with, etc. For this example, they’re broken up into groups labeled A, B, C, D…

Step Two: Break ‘em up into groups of 10.
This is where it gets difficult. Take one from A, B, C, D in a random way in such that A1, B1, C1, D1, etc do not know each other. So my mom can get the postcard that my friend Tim gets, who can get the same postcard as random soccer friend #1 gets, etc. Repeat this process until you have nice groups of 10 or so for each day’s worth of activities. Limit yourself to 10 because writing postcards sucks.

Step Three: Address the postcards
This sucks, but address the postcards with the same color ink pen that you plan to write with (basic black = awesome.) After you’re done, reward yourself with a beer. You’ve earned it.

Step Four: Put stamps and air mail labels on the postcard before you start writing them.
Putting them on before you mail out the postcard is important because you know exactly how much space you have to write something witty and awesome. I have been foiled on various adventures by writing something so amazing that it would give you priapism – only to have important words covered up by additional postage!

Step Five: Divide the postcard list in half.
Why in half? What’s with all this math?

Because you’re going to write two different postcards with the same day’s events. For example, I like to write a boring one (“I did this, saw that…”) and an exciting one (“I did this, and made an ass out of myself by doing whatever…”). Make sure you send the postcards to the correct people. For example, Gran should never get the postcard you send to your best drunken friends at home, because, let’s face it – donkey shows and grandparents don’t mix. After you write the boring card, copy the text of the boring card to the other four in the “boring group.” By this time, your hand should cramp up because you’re not used to writing anymore – just typing. Reward yourself for 5 well-written postcards by having another beer. By this time, you should be loosened up enough to write the “awesome” postcard – and just like always, repeat the process for the other 4 cards and reward yourself with a beer.

FYI: It is not ok to lie in postcards, although it’s perfectly acceptable to exaggerate completely.

After this step is done, you should have 10 written postcards! Woo hoo! You did it! Reward yourself with another beer.

Step Six: Repeat this process for each day you feel like writing postcards.
Why hurry yourself? You’ve got stuff to do!

Step Seven: Always send yourself a postcard.
Why send yourself a postcard – I mean, you’re the one that went there! Exactly. What I’ve learned is that no one tells you that they received your postcard. If you get 5% of people saying thank you, then you’re a lucky person. They will only tell you when they didn’t get one. For example, I sent a boatload of postcards from Brazil and Tanzania – only to have them not arrive in the States. So, I look like an asshole as a result. Thanks guys!

When you send a postcard to yourself, not only do you get a sweet souvenir you can hang at the office, but can tell people with great confidence that they should chill – their postcard is coming in the mail.

Optional Step Eight: If you really care enough, you can pull the few postcards aside that you’ll actually put original thought into writing, and write them separately.
Want to write a sappy romantic postcard to the person you’re dating? Want to write a drunken, sappy romantic postcard to someone you’re not dating as a way of saying “Hi, how’s your boring marriage going?” Drink after each postcard. Honest, your writing improves.

There you have it – amazing tips to becoming not only a travel rockstar, but a postcard rockstar.

Well, I leave for Italy in two weeks. In fact, 2 weeks from RIGHT NOW I hope to be on the Adriatic Sea with a cocktail in one hand and my Blackberry in the other.

Some random notes:
1) Trenitalia won’t accept US credit cards, so there’s no sense in trying to buy Italian Rail tickets before getting there. Jerks.
2) I’ll not only get to spend time in lovely Rome, but I’m going to be spending a bit of time in Rimini. It’s not a normal tourist place for Americans to visit, but hey, it sounds cool enough.
3) Two countries out of the Tiny Ten: The Vatican and San Marino. Start with the easy ones.
4) For the passport stamp collectors, The Vatican does not have border controls, and thus, no passport stamps. So how do you mark going to The Vatican? Buy a postage stamp and put it in your passport. Why not? San Marino does do passport stamps, and I’ll have more details on that later.
5) I’m going for a famous writer’s birthday – I crashed his birthday two years ago in Istanbul and despite that, I got invited back. The best part of travel is meeting the odd and interesting.

I haven’t been on a plane on almost 4 weeks, and I can’t say I don’t miss it. With the pantybomber, the Newark airport shutdown and other holiday screwups, the last place I want to be is at O’Hare.

On airplane terrorism: It’s at the point where our intelligence agencies couldn’t find a couch in the living room. So, what are they to do? Kneejerk reactions, like full body scanners that raise more “civil liberties” discussions but yet fail to correct the problem of failure to identify those who are concealing explosives.

On travel bloggers: I’ve been reading a lot of travel bloggers, and for the most part, they’re horrible. Some of the “leading” travel bloggers write so poorly that my eyes bleed from the poor grammar and misspellings. What’s worse is that most of it is PR fluff repackaged as a travelblog. Here’s a hint: I’ll believe it’s not fluff if you don’t use the hotel/resort/plane’s PR photos.

There also seems to be two types of bloggers who I secretly chuckle at. The first is the obnoxious, self-important, travel industry worker who couldn’t be less funny than a tour guide at Auschwitz. That’s right, laugh at your customers and mock them. Regale them of your tales of passengers that do “newbie” things in the air. Way to endear yourself to readers who set foot on a plane a few times a year, if that. If anything, you’re reinforcing negative stereotypes of your profession and what sort of people it attracts.

The second are the ones I laugh at: the younger travel bloggers, who, after an internship in cubicleland, decide “it’s not for them” because they’ve “had enough of the corporate world” and decide to venture out on their own. But in order to afford their travel, they essentially play corporate startup. It’s like with Michael Moore, decrying capitalism but at the same time, being a capitalist movie producer.

There’s very few talented bloggers who are out there, and even fewer who have a day job and yet travel. That’s my little niche – not being a consultant, still mile-whoring and yet watching our 401k for the day we can possibly retire. Not that I ever plan on seeing it, though. I figure I’ve got 40 years left in the workforce, and by that time a MI will probably kill me at my desk, thereby terrifying my place of employment and leading to a cursed desk – possibly the greatest legacy I can leave.

Let’s take a deep breath and pull our heads out of our asses and realize that we’re all in this together. Help a fellow traveler out if you can.

On lifetime miles: I hit the 2 million lifetime mile mark on American Airlines. I guess that’s something to be excited about. That’s about 800,000 airline miles flown since 2003 and 45ish countries. Despite what Clooney showed in his movie, the airline doesn’t give a crap about you. Honestly. You’re just a number. What did I get? 4 International upgrades I can’t really use, a new airline card that impresses no one, and some luggage tags, which impress no one. It’s not as if I’ll get better service from airline staff, because I’m this goofy-looking guy with a big camera bag and thus, am told to get back to economy class or the longer checkin line, albeit in a polite manner.

It’s a weird evolution. I started out not knowing anything about flying, to getting to pick “my” seat in economy, eventually staking my claim on the emergency exit row. Then the unlimited domestic upgrades came, putting me in First class. I went from “Holy shit, I’m in First Class!” to “How come no one talks up here?” to “How come people act like dicks up here?” to “I hope I can get some orange juice and read.” Travel bloggers LOVE to discuss how much better it is, with the complimentary alcohol and food. Honestly, outside of the occasional binge drinking fest (like when I almost drank the cabin clean on a trip to Philadelphia when I was getting dumped by the infamous Philly Girl), I could care less. It feels so empty in those leather seats.

Generally odd things happen in my life, and all 3 of my blog readers sometimes near to hear about it as a reminder as to “it could always be worse.”

For those who don’t know, I live in a highrise along the “Magnificent Mile” in Chicago. It’s a safe building, and despite being here for only like 9 years, I know half the people on the floor. And I don’t know them that well – you give them nicknames, like Jerry the cyclist and “the hot Asian chick who lives at the other end of the hall.” So for what I pay to live here, I get stability and normalcy.

On Sunday the 20th, I went to MoHub’s to go watch the Chicago Bears lose. I had 3 pints of beer in 4 hours (and a shot of Jameson because some guy bought) so I wasn’t lit or tipsy. I get home, and unlock the door. The door doesn’t move. I try again. Door still doesn’t move. I glance up and make sure I’m at the right unit number (because that sometimes happens.) I give up and go down to the front desk and say “Hi, I’m a moron, and I can’t get in.” I got laughed at since we have a good relationship and one of them came up and couldn’t get in either. “Time to call a locksmith.” Fuck.

So I pull out the Blackberry, call for a locksmith and chill in the lobby until he shows up. I’m thinking – Sunday night, I could use a good night’s sleep before work in the morning and here I am dealing with this crap. So the locksmith shows up, and he’s like “WTF?” too. The thought is that the lock’s internal mechanism broke, so you could unlock the door but it still remains locked, thus I can’t get in. One destroyed lock later, and we still can’t get in.

At this point, my neighbor Al, who’s in his 70’s comes out on, looks at me and the locksmith and goes “you look like you need a beer” and disappears and comes back with a can of Budweiser. Love it.

At this point after an hour or so, the locksmith thinks the only way we can get in is to drill a hole under the lock. He drills an inch diameter hole, sticks his flashlight in and goes “WTF?” It turns out that the closet door in the entry hallway came off the tracks, and fell down and wedged itself between the frame of the closet and the door, effectively closing the door. I dropped the word “fuck” with pretty good repetition, and without a clue as to what to do, we both decided that we’d enlarge the hole so I could stick my hand and forearm through the door in order to lift up the closet door and dislodge it. Hell, there’s already a hole in it, so what’s a bigger one?

After another hour, we get the hole big enough for my longshoreman-sized forearm (go ahead with the masturbation jokes) to go through and I pryed the closet door up off the door, bloodying my forearm (again, go ahead with the masturbation jokes) but I could finally get into my fucking place! Woo hoo!

So after I get in, move the fallen closet door to somewhere safer where I won’t end up locking myself out again, he’s like “So, it’ll be $302.” Fucksocks. So while he runs to drop his tools off at his truck, I go to the ATM, pull out the cash, and pay him off.

I get back to the bachelor pad, which now has a softball-sized hole in it (16″ Chicago style, not 12″ normal) with no lock but isntead, just a deadbolt to secure the door. I clean up the rather sizeable mess, and begin to take photos for my landlady and insurance people – and, who am I kidding, all 3 of my blog readers so you can mock me. And feeling rather ghetto, I decided to tape up the hole in the door with a folded cardboard box from Amazon and duct tape because I’m all classy like that.

I popped a xanax because I deserved one, and then sat down at my computer and started to write the email to my landlady with the “you’ll never guess what happened to me.” I felt like a first rate dipshit because two weeks prior, my landlady emails me out of the blue and goes “you know, you’ve been a great tenant, so I’m refunding you your security deposit.” Score. So now only do I have my security deposit, I’m writing her a note that basically says due to a colossal clusterfuck, your MagMile highrise rental unit has no lock, a bigass hole in it, and you’re going to be getting some bills that you didn’t anticipate – Merry Christmas!