Sleeping it off, I didn't even wake up until just before noon. It was humid in the town, even already. And I had the air conditioner cranked. In the bathroom, I forced down a couple of glasses of water and checked my email for a little while. Jerry Springer was on, so I watched and packed up my stuff.
Even though I hadn't done a damned thing, it seemed like my stuff was scattered all over the room. I figured it would be a good chance to try to pack up a little better and make sure that I didn't need to bring in every bag every night.
When I hopped into the shower, I got a little woozy. And my foot slipped, and I barked my shin against the edge of the tile behind the tub. I scraped it good: it ended up scabbing up badly and made me look like a war hero.
My plan was the same as last year: I was going to hit the Windsor Locks laundry and go to the Friendly's restraunt. I longed for some greasy food to soothe my hangover and get my ass back on the road. But the darn place was still closed. Now, it looked a lot more permanent. The equipment was all torn up and there was crap stacked up everywhere. I didn't know of any other joints, and didn't have a phone book, so, I went down to the East Hartford laundromat on Silver Lane and threw in my load of wash.
I was hung over, and not thinking. So, I tossed all my junk into a huge super-size load machine and had to pay $5.75 to run the damned load. The machine wouldn't start, and I didn't even see the sign so I had to wait to talk to the clerk and get help.
Cripe. I finally got the machine running and went down the street to Burger King to get something to eat. There was this short little bitch of an employee there who just complained and complained and complained. Her friend was on lunch break, and she might has well have been, too. She just stood where her friend was sitting. Ironically, she went on and on and on about a manager who told her she had a bad attitude.
Water leaked from the ceiling into a bucket on the floor.
It just kept going: I started to fear for the managers safety. "That whore had better not come back at me with that shit, 'cause I'm just gonna go off on her. Just 'cause she's a god damned manager don't mean she got no right to tell me what to do."
I ate and got out of there. My head was buzzing, and I had a cold sweat. But I was beating my hangover. Yes, I was.
When I got back to the laundry, I was in the spin cycle. Undoubtedly, it took even longer to get the load done in the super-size washer and that was delaying me. I waited around and the spin cycle was finally done, so I put everything into a dryer. I was a little more careful at selecting a machine this time.
I only had 25 minutes to wait, and my small load probably wouldn't take very long, anyway, to be actually dry.
There wasn't much of a reason to drive around, then. The traffic was going to be an issue, soon. I didn't really need to do any shopping or anything in particular, anyway.
I sat in my car and read a little bit. I fired it up to play with the navigation system, but found that it had reset again. After entering the code, everything was normal—but all my trip totals were reset. Bummer! It was then that I noticed my radar detector was on. If I had left it on all night, maybe it had drained the battery just enough to drop the memory line for the navagation system to cause it to reset.
Back inside the laundromat, my dryer was still spinning. Even when I popped open the door, the thing kept going. That seemed like some sort of product liability hazard. My clothes were dry enough, so I tried grabbing at them to get them out and fold them.
With everything back in my duffel bag, I went back to the car to load up. This older woman was out front, staring at my car from the sidewalk. She just stood and stared. And stared. I loaded up and fired the car up and took off: she was still staring. She might still be there, who knows.
I went back down Silver Lane to Roberts Street. I noticed the armpit of an apartment building I lived in back at the end of the eighties had been renamed. I hated that place. Driving down the street, I hoped they were out of business and being sued.
I looped up onto I-84 eastbound and headded for Boston. There was a little traffic; quite surprising, since Silver Lane was almost completely vacant. Everyone was on the highway, I guess.
Thankfully, traffic wasn't bad on the pike and so, within a couple of hours, I was nearing Boston. The navigation system guided me across the Charles towards the Hotel using a route that I never would have even thought of myself. It was just great!
When I checked in, there were four or five messages reminding me to register at the conference. Around 430pm, I went downstairs to chat with the conference folks and foudn that my talk was actually today, on Monday. Wow! So, I ran away to write some slides.
Last modified on 13 July, 1999.