in which i lost my rag

So! is it time for my rant concerning travel, pain and fear, amid the Extreme Unfunniness of Texas?

yes i believe it is.

that journey was.. not one of my more zen travel experiences

the first leg went well, on a transatlantic flight with no one on it, i built myself a comfy palace out of cushions right behind business class where the leg room is, and was peaceful and zen for 9 hours of flight. even the chicken kiev offering was palatable enough to be worthy of munch, and apart from temporarily losing my passport and freaking out, everything was good.

but on arrival in Houston things began to Vex me.

knowing i had only 1 hour to make my connection, i steamed through to immigration, was assigned a particularly short queue, but after twenty minutes realised the officer i was waiting for, was in fact the reincarnation of Ming the Merciless, and had no intention of letting anyone through he didn't like the look of.
with only 4 queues open out of a possible 25, and the man in front of me muttering about texas being a third world country, to make matters worse, i was sat in a heap of annoyance, right beneath a speaker that loudly and relentlessly welcomed me to Houston, while in front of me, a massive screen full of terrifyingly fake/feral smiles beamed from a selection of americans who looked like they wished they were somewhere else..

so by the time i reached the immigration warlord, i was fairly sure i'd already missed my flight, but this didn't make it any easier not to want to stick his glasses somewhere painful as he asked me a range of personal and stupid questions about prison, and a variety of activites he reckoned i might be an engager in.

finally through, i collected my luggage, limped through customs, where i was promptly hauled into a back room by an ex marine in latex gloves, at which point my soul reached stretching point and i threw my bags all over the floor in resignation.
as he went through every single item i had packed, in an attempt to make conversation i asked him what the strangest thing he'd ever found in anyone's bag was.
'ah, that'd be the couple who made their own sex toys and had a whole suitacse just full of them'
made out of what?
'blown glass'

okey dokey.

so then what? ah yes, finally freed from customs and his incessant rambling about his time in the marines, i oozed on through to baggage recheck, to put myself on the next flight to albuquerque.
being told the flight was now full was made only slightly more annoying by the surprising realisation that i had one less bag now than i'd started with.

as rage filtered through me, i was handed a standby ticket and sent to a gate, manned by Bastards who told me they couldn't guarantee i'd be out of texas until the next day, and no they couldn't offer me a hotel room because their Heads were wedged firmly up their Arses.

so i found a bar, like any reasonable person would do in such a situation, and ordered a large burger, beer and tequila, which i consumed while fending off personal questions from a variety of Proper Cowboy types sat at the bar who looked like they'd been living there since they too found themselves unable to fly , and had succumbed to the gravitational power of Houston Airport..
maybe they too had once been normal, but forced to survive on beer and chilli, dressing themselves from the tourist shops, and sleeping beneath cowboy hats had rendered their souls texan, stripping them of their previous memories forever..

so then i curled up to sleep beneath some chairs, in line of sight of the aeroplane i was so determined to be on, mentally cursing Houston and the ground it Sullied, and awoke to find a small child pulling on my dreads, while a large woman waved a ticket at me and ordered me to my feet

'we've squeezed you on this one' she said, with unnessary emphasis on 'squeezed', and as i gathered me things and ran, a trail of children behind me shouting about the christmas lady, and found myself a tiny seat of joy next to a man chained to a briefcase.

even the painful reemergence of the burger couldn't wilt my joy at being only 2 hours from safety, and as we landed in albuquerque, only the lost luggage form stood between me, and the boot of my dad's car, where i passed out and woke up an hour later, surrounded by snow and mountains and things that make everything ok.

so here i am now. clean and zen at last.
to say that i don't reccomend Houston as an Internation Hub would be a gross understatement.

don't ever do it. ironically, the last time i flew through houston i was 17, and that time i got put in room full of mexican children and ignored for 24 hours while they closed the airport for Fun.