So I have decided to do a sub story on the trip to the airport from Exoticon rather than elaborate on all the fuzzy feel good Thanxgiving crap. I am sure you won't mind - it involves the Reverend and he is always a scream.

Usually going to the airport is a mundane thing from a con. You want to sleep from all the hectic activity of the weekend and I personally am using the time to think about what I want to write about. Unfortunately this doesn't occur with the Reverend as he has his own weird habits - and he wants you to be aware of all of them.

The first thing we do when we get into the van that's jam packed full of obscure comics and porn videos that he sells at these things is we turn up the volume on the CD of the moment - it always happens to be sixties music that even my dad would cringe at (he is a big fan of the sixties era too) and he is always singing at the top of his lungs in-between telling me the trivial facts about the particular group playing (they are either dead or they fucked some other obscure movie stars - in any event it holds no interest for me). I asked (pleaded with) the Reverend if he would select something else other than music that he can do his patented 60's dance to - "The Crunk" (which resembles an epileptic trying to hold on to a subway railing while in a seizure).

To my surprise he actually complies, but then I am apprehensive at the way he has given up his music of choice so quickly. He dumps a CD in and explains that we are about to hear the musical stylings of Cool Keith as Dr. Octagone. "What is that? Is this gonna suck too?" I ask. "Of course not, Dr. Octagone is a gynecologist from outer space who does really bad operations and raps about it." Sure. I can grasp that. I am sure it's a delightful CD. But I hate rap.

"No no no... you will like this - it has a story." The whole way there I listened to the reverend sing along with Dr. Octagone and his evil ways of performing unnecessary surgeries and pretending to be a girl nurse so he can molest an unobservant female patient. He even would back up the CD to hear the more lewd lyrics. I laughed the whole way there with what little voice I had left over the weekend.

Then I am enlightened on how the Reverend deals with airport signs - not very well - especially when he is driving. "TOO MUCH INFORMATION FOR ME TO PROCESS!!" he screams as his eyes widen in fear. Somehow we make it to the parking deck where my terminal is and he graciously lugs my two bags of luggage (lead) to the elevator. At this point, the reverend sees more signs and is stricken with the stress of asking me where we are going. I have no idea as Jen and Rob took care of this for me when we came in. So I lie and wing it.

At the elevator, the Reverend goes into more conniptions as there is an attendant who is trying to force a bag through the door that doesn't fit into the slot. The Reverend grabs me and we go to another elevator all the while he is fuming about the inept attendant to the other people in the elevator. Thank god I don't' live here.

At the first "you are here" map we come to, The Reverend stops and consults it. "What are you doing? All we need to do is follow the airport signs - haven't' you ever been in an airport before?" I ask. It is here where the Reverend bares his soul and informs me that he has never been in an airport before as he will never ride a plane (it goes along with his needing to be in control of the vehicle he is in at all times - a character flaw of his I have heard before).

Now it all made sense. And here I thought he was just being reverend-like in the way things always seem to be stressful for him. As we are arriving at the counter, I take one of the bags and then the Reverend takes the beat up suitcase. He is holding it as if there were a bomb in it and is cackling gleefully. It hits me that he doesn't know that those kind of jokes don't fly (pardon the pun) here. Oh god, I think, I hope we don't get accosted by security.

We get to the counter and as I am walking away with my ticket the counter girl announces in a really loud voice that my luggage is in very sad shape (it's older than me), and that I need to sign a form. If that weren't bad enough, she offers me the use of her duct tape to make sure it stays together. Thanx man. I really appreciate it.

Now on the next obstacle - the metal detector. I go through it ok, however the reverend is having problems and has to go through it three times. Luckily no personal search was necessary or he would have lost it right there at the conveyor belts.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. We had some time left over, so we stopped for some dinner. The reverend decided that the jumbalaya made a better smiley face (using pieces of cornbread for eyes and the sausage for a mouth) and as he started to make it talk, I decided it was time for our goodbyes. What a trip. I so love hanging out with him.