Business Travel...

...Or, "Telling Lies, and Getting Paid."

On location, Little Rock, Arkansas, where's Gennifer Flowers? I think I have a thing for her...

The journey started earlier this perfectly autumn day at home, trying unsuccessfully to balance an egg upright on the kitchen counter because I've heard you can do that on the equinox. Equinox my ox!, either the hens that birthed these eggs have similar extracurricular substance habits as I do, or Ben Franklin or Newton or Churchill or whomever the hell came up with this balancing egg theory was just plain wrong. I couldn't do it.

With the science experiment portion of the morning concluded, it's time to get ready for a one day business travel extravaganza. Throw on some brown searsucker pants, a golf shirt, and flip flops, and I'm already feeling arrogant, which is the right frame of mind for business travel. Pack another golf shirt, real pants, real shoes, undies, socks, the laptop, and a couple bathroom necessities (Nair, eyeliner, and lipstick- just kidding- or am I?), and let's do this.

My new roommate Paul drops me off at the airport, and the fun begins. I'm two hours early, as always, even though I know it won't take that long to make sure I'm not a terrorist. I'm forced to go through the new-style imaging machine, as I was on my last flight to Vegas a few weeks ago, and my anger over reactionary federal government policy begins anew.

I guess my too-full beard and the fact that I have Lebanese cousins makes me an obvious terror threat, as I'm forced to submit to a digital scan of what lies beneath my asshole outfit, and what lies beneath my asshole. You know, just in case I have a pipe bomb in my scrotum and a machete in my butt. Tommy and Tina TSA eyeball me as I wait (with feet firmly planted on the carpet where the yellow feet outline tells me I had better plant my feet) not quite patiently. My civil disobedience to this stupid procedural ritual is limited to a death stare, and a good one at that.

OK, so this little diversion only took five minutes, and whatever, I was two hours early, but I'm still steaming. Without making light of the events of 9-11, they got us that day, and they got us hard. And they got us with planes because they rushed the cockpit with box cutters. Now the cockpits are locked. I realize that locking the cockpits doesn't the end to jihad make, but I think it means they aren't gonna get us the same way. But here we are, eight years later, and this entire invasive process, which allows us U.S. Americans (thanks Miss South Carolina) to travel on unprofitable bailed out airlines, is dictated by one tragic morning. Part of me thinks they've won, particularly if our airports are staffed with scores of power-tripping dropouts who relish the opportunity to unleash their federally granted authority arbitrarily. The entire operation screams inefficiency and obtuse government control, which is ironic considering the same people preaching the ethos of American capitalism are the same ones that ushered in this subsidized and totalitarian rite of aeronautical passage. Screw building new schools or keeping our libraries open, my America only invests in keeping us safe from outdated terror tactics. In related news, the terror level is still orange, which I think means people wearing Cleveland Browns jerseys or eating candy corn are much more likely to commit acts of sabotoge against symbols of American prosperity.

After waiting at the gate for a while and wolfing down a seven dollar bagel, I'm the second to last person to board the Southwest Airlines flight to Chicago. Practically no one is on this plane, so I get a row to myself. The ride is pleasant enough, as I review some bidding documents and devour an issue of Sports Illustrated.

At Midway in the Windy City, I re-up on reading materials, grabbing Harper's, the New Yorker, and New York. Harper's and the New Yorker are staple purchases at airports, because I'm a condescending liberal and I like to read clever shit by people sharing my point of view. New York was an impulse purchase, because Neil Patrick Harris was on the cover and Doogie is a pretty intriguing dude.

Before I could board the flight, I learned that the TSA had randomly subjected this flight to additional searches for carry-on bags. I know, dude, I'm on your list, don't judge me too harshly by my deodorant and hastily folded clothes. This perfunctory search yields nothing, as they didn't find my anthrax stash.

As it were, the flight from Chicago to Little Rock was not nearly as empty as my first flight. Actually, it was 100 percent full. Being the last one on the plane meant squeezing my 200 pound ass (with the machete still inside me) between two much larger gentlemen with wider asses (though presumably not burdened by weapons of ass destruction, thanks to our friends at the TSA).

Armrests were not able to be accessed, and I quickly ruled out a nap. If I'm sitting next to a relative or friend on a plane, they can count on me drooling on them and trying to spoon them at awkward angles. This rapport never developed with the two dudes I was sitting between, so I remained awake for the duration.

The guy to my left was conversant at the end of the flight, and while he talked about the stock market, I threw him glances and thought to myself, "I'm sitting next to Colonel Freaking Sanders, I better tell him how much I like his mashed potato bowls!"

After an enlightening sermon on the virtues of buying low and selling high by a guy I'm convinced has singlehandedly captivated my tastebuds and raised my blood pressure, we're blowing into the land of Bill Clinton, the Razorbacks, and the first Wal-Mart store. Whether getting a blowie, blowing opponents out (Nolan Richardson's 40 minutes of hell hoops squads of the previous decade), or blowing up local economies, Arkansas blows. And I mean that kindly and apologetically, as I am in no position to judge the people of this state, and that was a strech of an analogy.

The hotel in downtown Little Rock offers a wondeful view of surface parking lots. I wish Monet was around today to paint some of these wonderful landscapes (note: my lack of art knowledge may have been exposed here, I don't know who was really good at painting landscapes. But I'm pretty sure Monet is dead, and I think you don't pronounce the "t" in his name).

Settled, I'm ready to get some work done, work I should have done last Friday, but instead went golfing with my friends Zak and Ryan, justified in my own head because Ryan would be getting married the next day and I would never get another chance to golf with him the day before his wedding. His wedding ended up being a blast, even though I don't remember most of it due to my binge alcoholism (I want to do a Kettle One commercial that mirrors the pompous EAS spots starring the Browns' high school quarterback Brady Quinn, but instead of showing me lifting weights or running through cones, I'm falling on the dance floor or staring into the camera with glazed donut eyes... "thirty drinks or none, now I'm done").

Anyway, my plan to do work is rendered moot by the fact my laptop took a dump, and I'm wondering if it decided to put a machete up its ass before the flight too. The hard drive is toast. Work must wait again, and now I'm nervous about that.

Darkness falls on Little Rock, and I end up going to dinner with a guy from my company (who mysteriously had a boarding pass allowing him to get on both flights 100 people before me) and a competitor in the niche market I work in. This guy is about 115 years old, but he is as sharp as the machete in my ass- I should have taken that out at the hotel- and his war stories about moving libraries from the 1950's through the present day make the dinner enlightening and kinda fun. I soak in a lot of it, and even though I'm an overly outspoken boar, I recognize this as an opportunity to sit back and listen.

After returning to the hotel, I jot down a couple of industry secrets that were probably only unleashed because of that third vodka and tonic (my two Sam Adams do nothing to dull my lucidity). The day offers frustration, hopelessness (the down laptop), but finally a bit of an education. I'm saying it was all worth it.

Tomorrow I'll be sizing up the State Library of Arkansas, and reversing course back to the Land of Cleve.

Tonight I'm dispatching war stories from the blackberry (English teachers better give me a pass on the grammar and stuff), and now I'm gonna go to bed. I think I'll leave that machete right where it is, I'm kind of getting used to it.