It's All About The Journey

Life is supposed to be all about the journey.

That's some serious bullshit, right there.

I had a rare day off recently and I made plans with a friend to grab some grub at a great little local place that's owned by the friend of another friend from back East and if you ever come out to Bellingham, no visit would be complete without a stop at Homeskillet. Best fucking brunch in Bellingham. Be sure to bring an appetite, because the portions are huge and make sure that you tell them I sent you, because they won't have a clue as to who the fuck you're talking about and will make you look stupid. More importantly, chow down, have fun and tip well, you cheap fucking bastards.

Anyway, the day started out normally enough; it was fucking raining, as usual. Washington state is a great place to live; it's beautiful, has great, friendly folks and a vibrant economy, but it never, and I mean never, fucking stops raining. Seriously. My balls are bluer than the sky around here. It's so bad that I've been looking at DIY Ark plans on Wikipedia, but I'm not hanging around and waiting for the fucking penguins to get here. I'm stocking that fucker with whores and booze. If you want a ride, you'd better be a bottle or have tits.

Tumbleweeds were blowing through the folds of my wallet and I needed to grab some cash out of the bank, so I drove over to my local branch and waited in my car while the lady in front of me was using the ATM. I was waiting in the car because I didn't want to get wet; I had no desire to die the way that my sister had, all melted and shit, because of that little bitch, Dorothy and her little fucking dog, too.

The lady in front of me finishes up and I hop out of the car and over to the ATM, insert my card and out pops a receipt from the previous transaction. I took the receipt, placed it to my left and started to enter my PIN, when I was stopped by the sound of a woman's voice behind me.

"Excuse me, but did you happen to see an iPhone 6s sitting there?" the voice said.

I looked to my left, before I turned around saw that the voice belonged to the lady that had used the ATM before me.

"No, ma'am," I said, polite as you please. I'm such a nice guy; a right little ray of fucking sunshine, I am.

I'm always polite. Super fucking polite, as a matter of fact. I might be a dick, but I'm a very polite dick, usually. Sometimes. Okay, almost never.

"That's funny," iPhone 6s lady said. "It was sitting right there, just a minute ago, when I left it there."

Holy Jumping Fucking Jesus, this fucking bitch just accused me of stealing her, as she put it, "iPhone 6s", because she's so self-important and label conscious that even in the act of accusing me of stealing her iPhone 6s, she just had to mention the brand and fucking model as the latest and greatest. For those of you who know me, you know that I hate Apple products, think that they are ginormous pieces of shit and would never be caught dead using one. I'd rather ride a fucking moped, in public, in front of my friends. The bitch couldn't have said the word phone, either. Oh no, she had to announce her importance to me and the status granted to her by her ownership of an overpriced iPhone 6s. And why the fuck would I want to steal a phone that could be immediately shut down and traced right back to me? If I'm going to steal something, it's going to be worth the jail time I'd be risking and it sure as shit wouldn't be some piece of crap iPhone.

"Ma'am," I said as I pulled out my phone, " I haven't seen your phone and all that I have is my piece of crap Samsung Galaxy s6."

I can name drop too, motherfucker.

She started to say something else when she looked down at her hand. My gaze followed hers and what do you think we saw? If you guessed an iPhone 6s, you win the fucking prize. Here's a fucking sticker. Enjoy.

I watched as she realized what a complete fucking dumbass she was and as her face reddened, she stammered out, "I owe you an apology, I'm a complete idiot."

I looked at her and gave her my best arrogant and snotty smirk.

"Yes, you do and yes, you are," I replied; abruptly dismissing her and turning back to my business at the ATM. I really do hate people, unless you're my friend and then I only hate you part of the time.

My buddy Mark and I had agreed to meet at a local shopping center, since he was driving down from as close to the Canadian border as you can get and it made more sense for us to meet here in town, since we would be heading South. As he was getting his shit together, I noticed that a leather clad "biker" had pulled up next to us on his yuppie Harley. I laughed as I realized that he was wearing chaps and pointed this out to Mark, who told me that this was pretty normal for the West Coast and not to be so judgemental. I very slowly and very patiently explained to him, because I didn't have any crayons with me, that back on the east coast, the only people who wear chaps are the kinds of fellas that hang out in gay leather bars. Not that I'm judging, mind you; if that's your thing, let your freak flag fly, baby.

I turned my head back to the left again and this guy is now bent over his bike and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, he's not wearing any pants and his bare ass is waving in the wind. Get. The. Fuck. Out.

"Is that normal fucking behavior?" I asked, elbowing Mark in the ribs as hard as I could.

"Holy shit!" Mark exclaimed. "I need to get a pic of this."

"Get the fuck out of here," I said. "The guy is wiggling his ass in the air; he's fucking ass dancing. If you want to use the back door, you go right ahead, but I'm getting the fuck out of here."

And with that, I put the car in gear and peeled out of the parking lot. From now on, I'm avoiding K-Mart. Not really my kind of blue light special.

It was starting to get a bit late in the day, around two o'clock and I mentioned that it would start getting dark in a couple of hours and maybe we were better off heading to the movies to see the new James Bond flick.

"Nah, dude," Mark said, "We'll be fine, let's go for it. We'll have a few drinks and meet some chicas."

It's almost like I've heard that story before. I really, really need to stop listening to other people.

Against my better judgement, we headed south for Anacortes and the San Juan Islands ferry. We got there with plenty of time to spare, so much fucking time to spare that we sat there and waited for an hour and a half. The only fun part of that was sneaking off to hit the flask that I had smuggled along. There's nothing like a fine whiskey to warm your ass on a cold day.

We finally get on the ferry and we find a place to sit for the hour or so that it will take us to get to Friday Harbor, plus whatever time it takes us to find the first bar that we plan on drinking in and I planned on doing some serious drinking and perhaps checking out some of the local wildlife, which we all know would never happen, because not that many women are dumb enough to have sex with me. Still, one can hope and perchance, to dream.

We get settled in and pretty much ignored each other while we fucked with our phones, but then I noticed a slight commotion as an old hippie couple came clattering along, carrying their backpacks, a paper bag and a green, five gallon bucket. They settled in across from us and they were such an odd pair, that they held my attention for longer than a heartbeat. They were captivating; mesmerizing. He was tall and gaunt, with dreadlocks and a long, crazy ass beard. She was thin to the point of emaciation, with long ragged and unkempt hair that swirled about her face. They were going on about all kinds of shit, tree hugging hippie crap and other crazy stuff. My attention began to wane, but they were just getting started. I heard the crunch of their paper bag and I turned my head to see what was going on and I saw hippie chick pull a long carrot out of her paper bag; it still had the green leafy shit attached and you could see that it was covered in dirt. She took a big, loud, crunchy bite, chewing her cud as loudly as she could; chewing with her mouth open and smacking her lips. It was pretty fucking gross. Old hippie dude asked her for a bite and she shot him a look of death, but she grudgingly shared her carrot with him. She started going on about how wholesome and great organic food was and how that carrot had just come out of the ground. This pronouncement didn't surprise me at all, because I was convinced that I could smell the shit that was used to fertilize that fucking thing. For the hippies, it might have been harvest day, but for the carrots, it was armageddon.

It was about this time that there was a shipwide announcement, telling the passengers what to do in case of an emergency and blah, blah, blah, the next thing that I paid attention to was when the recorded announcement mentioned that packages, backpacks and other belongings were not to be left unattended and if you did that, your ass would be in a sling. Got it. Don't leave your shit alone.

That was when old hippie dude told old hippie chick that they should go for a walk around the ferry, but she told him that they couldn't leave their hippy shit unatteneded. Old hippy dude did not like this answer and he started ranting about the man and all that shit. Next thing you know, he's going on about how people need to be put to death for being anti-environment and consumerist. They start talking about bombs and planes and trains and where the fuck are those life rafts again? Great, I'm stuck on a boat with two old, tree hugging eco-terrorists that are hell bent on my destruction. Just fucking great.

A few minutes later, a hapless ferry employee came wandering through and the duo of dirt stopped her and started pestering her with questions about why they couldn't leave their shit and take a walk around the boat. The hapless employee got out her crayons and explained to them why they couldn't leave their things unattended, but maybe they could get someone to watch their things for them. Mark and I were the only other people on the upper deck. The hippies turned their heads in our direction. Fuck. They picked up their things and headed over to us. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Old hippie dude sidles up to me and asks me if I'd keep an eye on their stuff. I was too scared to say no, the fucker might stab me in the eye with a fucking carrot. I'm afraid of sharp weapons and veggies scare me. They only proper use for a vegetable is to feed the shit that I'm going to eat for dinner, but I couldn't tell old hippie dude that; motherfucker was probably a vegan and a stone cold killer, you could see it in his eyes. He probably sang "Kumbaya" while on his killing sprees.

The hippies walked off and I realized Mark had fallen asleep and had missed all of this. How the fuck could someone have slept through that? I kicked Mark in the shin, hard. Surprisingly, he woke right up. I acted all innocent and shit while he rubbed his shin and glared at me. Fuck him, didn't he realize that these two old, tree hugging eco-terrorist hippies were hell bent on our destruction and they had just left their backpack bombs at our feet? Wasn't he the least bit concerned? We were all going to fucking die! Wake up, man! There's danger afoot!

Mark looked at me as if I'd lost my fucking mind.

"Have you lost your fucking mind?" Mark asked me.

Jedi mind tricks. I had no tinfoil hat to save myself, I was doomed.

"Don't you understand? They're going to kill us. Didn't your mother ever teach you about stranger danger, or did she just teach you everything she knows about turning tricks at the truck stop?"

"I'm going for a walk," Mark said. "You stay here and guard the backpack bombs."

"That's fine, you bastard, but you'll be sorry when the bombs explode, the ferry sinks and the killer whales eat your ass. You'll be some sure, sorry as shit then. You'll see."

Mark headed for the exit at a fairly brisk pace, leaving me alone with the certified organic backpack bombs of death. Fucker.

Well, we made it safely to the first stop and the hippies grabbed their shit and took off. I let out a sigh of relief, knowing that these demented disciples of Ted Kaczynski wouldn't be killing me today.

The ferry took off and made a course for Friday Harbor as the sky began to darken and then turned as black as pitch. I hoped the captain could see well enough and that we wouldn't accidentally run aground or have to worry about a sneak attack from the Canadian navy. Those Canadians are some tricky bastards.

We arrived at Friday Harbor and disembarked, searching the darkened streets for food and alcoholic sustenance. Now, I'm sure that Friday Harbor is a wicked cool place, but on a rainy and windswept Sunday night, after dark, in the middle of November, well, there isn't shit to see or do. We walked hither and yon, scanning the few places that were open and found nothing that was to our liking. Starving, we settled for a place called Kung Fu Pizza. Don't ever settle for a place called Kung Fu Pizza, it's going to be a very bad life choice.

The prices on the menu were beyond ridiculous, but we were famished and we had an hour and a half to kill before we could take the ferry back. I ordered wonton soup and pan fried dumplings and I don't know what the fuck they brought me, but it sure as shit wasn't wonton soup. I don't even know what kind of fucking broth it was in, but there were two things that slightly resembled wontons, but weren't and there were all sorts of unrecognizable things in there, as well as a couple of carrots. Carrots... This was part of that eco-terror plot; fuckers were trying to kill me with carrots. The pan fried dumplings were more like deep fried dumplings. That seems to be a thing on the west coast, these deep fried dumpling things and it's just wrong. Stop it. Just stop it, right now and cook that shit the right way; you fuckers have ruined everything.

Two spoons out of the wonton soup and I pushed it aside; it was that nasty. I told the waiter that I didn't really care for it and asked him to please take it away. He asked me if I wanted a box for it and I asked him which part of I don't care for it that he didn't understand. Why the fuck would I want to take something home with me if I didn't want to eat the fucking thing in the first place? The asshole left the bowl on the table and walked away. Dick. He brought the check, charged me for the soup and I deducted it from his tip. No worries and fuck you too, buddy.

We headed back to the ferry and the mainland. I felt tired, pissy and pretty much disgusted. It had been a shit of a day and all I wanted to do was go home and go to sleep, racing for the car once the ferry docked.

I was trying to make it back home in record time, so of course I missed every turn and exit. Fuck my life. I finally made it back to Bellingham, dropped Mark off at his car and headed for home, crawled into bed and hid under the covers.

I never got my fucking drink, either.

So much for a relaxing day off...

If you enjoyed this story, please give this one a chance:

All Along the Watchtower

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