Swearing doesn’t make me feel better

Today, I am in Houston (by way of Atlanta), and I am in A Mood.

I’m not sure when it happened, really.  A Mood seems to sort of steal up on one, when one is being lurched about the bloody country in a plane built for midgets with zero personal space.

It may have started as I left our house, in the early afternoon on a Sunday, to head to the airport for a business trip that once again bit a big, fat chunk out of our extremely precious weekend.

It may have been gestating as I went to the AirTran counter to see why I couldn’t get my frequent flyer number associated with my flight, to be told that they weren’t able to do it either, and that it was probably because my travel itinerary referred to me as “Mr.”, whereas I did not declare any specific gender-driven salutation when I signed up for the frequent flyer plan.

It may have been growing as I waited to board the plane and, checking my itinterary, realized I would not be getting into Houston until about 10 PM, which meant any form of decent supper was largely out of the question.

It may have been the guy adjacent to me on the plane, loudly snorting great fistfuls of mucus back up his nostrils as we taxied out the runway, that finally tipped the scales from being merely irritable to being in A Mood.

By the time we got airborne and the kid two rows back was yelling in a nonexistent language about one thing or another that was very top-of-mind for him at that point, I was starting to mutter under my breath.

Landing in Atlanta, I walked the length of the terminal looking for a place to eat, which didn’t help.  I finally got a sandwich and a Sam Adams, which did.  Then I went back to my gate 45 minutes before my connection and discovered there were no seats in the waiting area, which undid all the benefits of the Sam Adams and added a little more animosity besides.

I arrived in Houston and, walking out of the terminal, saw the shuttle bus to the Hertz rental lot pulling away.  No matter, I figured, they likely run every 5 minutes or so.

20 minutes later, as the Avis bus came and went for the second time while I waited for Hertz to reappear,  my language was shifting from generic English to a more colourful dialect, involving references to locales of eternal damnation and variously described forms of excrement.

When I got to the Hertz rental car lot, I saw my name on the “Hertz #1 Gold” board, which always makes me feel important, and trotted over to my waiting vehicle.  At which point I discovered that they had clearly and distinctly ignored my specific request not to have a navigation system, since my company will no longer reimburse for them and would rather I spend my night driving through a particularly sketchy part of Houston, most likely getting carjacked every third turn whilst I search for a hotel out in the middle of smack-ass nowhere.

At this point my language was devolving and I was now making frequent reference to sexual congress as it related to car rentals, airplanes, travel, Texas, people, the cheeseburger, and that bastard 10 years ago who kicked my leg on a bus in Ottawa.

15 minutes later (14 of those minutes being spent in line), I had a new car, and once again trotted out to my waiting vehicle.  It smelled like stale cigarette smoke.  Now, while I don’t like the smell of cigarette smoke, I am willing to tolerate it — but I am not fond of the idea of bringing back a rental car and being accused of smoking in a non-smoking car, thereby being required to cough up whatever cleaning fee it is that one is required to cough up.

Back to the counter for an exchange of ideas on how best to manage the situation.  It was agreed that I would simply note, on the rental agreement, that the car smelled like smoke.

While this worked for me, I had to wonder if, were I to wrap the car around a telephone pole over the course of my rental, I could just note “has large wooden pole wedged in engine block” on the rental agreement and expect things to turn out okay.

I fired up the GPS in my phone.  I plugged in the address for the hotel.  I dutifully obeyed as the phone guided me down the darkest, creepiest, most needle-strewn streets in the city in search of my hotel.  The phone also seemed to take delight in directing me to turn one direction, then immediately turn another direction after I had long since passed the intersection where said turn was supposed to occur.

I held the phone at eye level and provided, at middle volume, my assessment of its navigational capabilities.  This may or may not have included equating the phone to a woman of the night.

By the time I got to the hotel, where the parking lot was barricaded by swing gates that forced me to back down the drive and pull over to a little intercom to plead with the front desk to allow me inside the sacred grounds of Marriott, I was fully and officially in A Mood.  Screeching around the parking lot looking for a place to stow my smoky car did not help matters.

Now, having settled in — after a manner of speaking — to my room, and ironed my clothes for tomorrow, I have wandered online to peruse and reflect.  And it occurred to me that the more I express my agitation vocally, the worse I feel.  Cussing my phone out felt, in some ways, like a necessary venting of ill-will, but it wasn’t cathartic and it certainly didn’t help my mood.  I am now evaluating different options for expressing and managing a mood, which I think will involve a touch less profanity.

I’m not saying I’m going to do away with the profanity entirely, though.  After all, I still have not audibly equated my phone to one’s posterior, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time.

photo credit: timsamoff