2007-05-05-0240Z


What a shitty, shitty, shitty day. Even after making it less shitty by declaring my nice leather duster obsolete, after I accidentally (drunkenly?) left it at a bus stop on Airport Rd. It's no longer part of my life. I hope someone who can use it finds it. I'm now sitting at the bar in Applebee's near the El Paso airport, drinking a Sam Adams, and reminiscing about the goddamned fucking day I just experienced.

Oh, it started off well enough; woke up next to a beautiful woman, made coffee, played pitch, packed, sent off my property tax protest to the Luna County Assessor ("due to Ordinance 37, the value of a 1/2 acre lot is near ZERO, please adjust accordingly"), and walked towards the border; about 30 cars passed me by along the 4.5 mile walk, and none of them stopped until my lovely neighbor came by. So we ate at the Pink Store, I paid the guy in front a dollar to hold the next bus for me, and it came a few minutes after we were finished eating and sipping coffee. I waited about a half hour at Entronque (AKA Crucero Palomas) before the next bus to Ciudad Juarez came along. This time, as soon as I saw the Permisionarios buses, I asked to get off, saving me about 15 or 20 minutes side trip to the shitty Central Camionera. Got waved through the border crossing and made my way to the park where all the buses stop. That's where things started going bad.

Well, that's a lie right there. I had decided to try out the Kentucky Club, which I had bypassed every other jaunt through Juarez for one reason or another, and sat down at the bar which has seen far better days. I asked for a Pacifico. "No hay", only the Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma brands: Dos Equis, Carta Blanca, Bohemia, all that shit. So I got a Margarita. It tasted good, but only 4 sips for $2.50 compared to the Pink Store's 4 gulps for the same price. Fuck that place.

Anyway, back to the central bus stop: a guy told me I needed the #57 to get to the airport, but the driver of the bus which would supposedly meet up with the 57 told me no, take the #50 or #35 to 5 Points, then catch the 33 to the airport. So I followed that advice, went to 5 Points, saw no sign indicating where to catch the 33, nobody on duty there except a fat-assed useless-looking cop, and started walking up Montana instead. Came across two unfriendly bars, the George Washington Lounge and the Twin Z Lounge, both of which sold shitty beer at high prices, then found myself sitting on a bus stop bench on Airport Road, where I left behind the aforementioned leather coat. After giving up on waiting for the bus, I started walking, then of course a bus came by, and strangely enough, he stopped when I flagged him down. But after a few minutes, I asked him if he were going to the airport, and he said no, catch the bus across the street. I did. 20 minutes later, the #7 bus came by. I asked him if he went to the airport, and he said no, catch the #57. Then he realized that the #57 had already quit for the day, and told me get in, he'd drop me off near it. And he did. A bright spot in a very dark day. So American Airlines was already closed, but after some coaxing, their automated system gave up my boarding passes. I just have to kill time till 4AM, when the gates open. Then we'll see if my blogging rates high enough on the dictator's radar to get me incarcerated for life. I doubt it -- there are far stronger than mine -- but who knows? These paranoid fuckheads are unpredictable. I found that out with the fucking Postmaster General.

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