The Flight, Mrs. Mackey & The Goat

I went to a bachelorette party in Chicago this weekend. It was attended mainly by unemployed graduates of my law school. While I can't say that made me feel better, it was certainly more comforting than if they had all been employed but me. It wasn't super wild because we're all poor and depressed (except the bride, who seemed to have a great time, which is the whole point) but it was ok. I promissed to set this one girl up with this Harvard guy I briefly dated who's working at some BigFirm out there now. Because.... I apparently thought I was still in touch with him... I guess. Who knows. I thought they would be perfect together at the time though. She's unemployed and he's rich, and she's independent and he would obviously never be home. Perfecto.

The plane ride out there was the most miserable one day or less experience of my life. I'd had a touch of the sniffles for a couple of days, so I pumped myself full of nasal spray before I got on the plane just in case, although I'd never had a problem before. But now I have. Oh my yes. It started with a stabbing pain in my front left sinus, then both my ears simultaneously stuffed themselves shut with something most foul. I couldn't pop them at ALL. So for two hours I frantically opened my mouth as wide as can be and desperately tried to clear them out, with limited success. Then we started our hour-long descent into Atlanta (thanks AirTran, for sending me three hours out of my way!!!) That's when it occured to me that I was going to be deaf forever and I started crying. Eventually we landed and my right ear mostly opened up, but not my left.

I bought decongestants. I used more nasal spray. I relunctantly got on another plane bound for Chicago. When we started to descend this time, the pain was UNBEARABLE. I felt like I was being stabbed in both ears, up under the base of my skull, and down both arms. I started crying and called the stewardess, who said their was nothing she could, but that we would probably be on the ground within 45 minutes, and that it would probably "get worse." Awesome! So I spent those 45 minutes sobbing hysterically and yanking on my ears, while my fellow passengers looked on nervously and whispered about me. Although I was 100% completely deaf at that point, so I'm not sure whether they thought I was a terrorist or an escaped mental patient. I was honestly completely deaf, to the point where I couldn't even hear those xxxtra loud announcements they always make about your tray tables and whatnot when you're about to land. Mis-er-a-ble. And they're not even completely better yet. They hurt when I lie down and I still can't hear everything.

I could, however, hear the instructor we had today in training, who kept saying Mmmkay - I swear to God, and she even sounded just exactly like Mr. Mackey. If she hadn't bored me to absolute desperation, I would have peed myself laughing. She went soooooooo sloooooow over everything, and then went back over everything, and we had her for four hours, right after lunch. I was like thisclose to chewing my own arm off to escape. I'm not sure how that would have helped, but my deepest most primordial animal brain had taken over at that point, and it was insisting that chewing off my arm was the way to go.

I haven't heard a thing from Homeland "What Did We Spend It On? Certainly Not Your" Security, and I sent two emails last week asking what was going on, so I finally called today when I knew that post-dumb bitch would be out and asked to speak to her supervisor to find out what was going on. Apparently they faxed something or other to the Boston office to see if they would be willing to start me at a Grade 6, but at something higher than Step One. I don't even know why I'm pursuing this, but it just shaves my goat to think that they might offer the job to someone else before I have a chance to reject it, which I what I suspected was going on. And shaved goats are the angriest kind.