What Are We Gonna Do With All This Trash?: Petey Tours America, Phase I

July 23, 2010

Petey Tours America, Phase I - Kansas City, MO

As part of the loosely connected menial chores I do for American currency (read: job), I have been tasked with creating and tallying evaluation forms for attendees of government-run training sessions aimed at increasing the usage of various e-health tools in communities across the US of A (read: bullshit).

Over the next several weeks, I will be spending 2 days and 2 nights in 4 different cities and upon my return, I will give my stream-of-consciousness impression and synopsis of each city.

Destination 1: Kansas City, MO

Hmm. Not much to say (or see, for that matter) here. I can't even think of any good jokes to demean this place. Nondescript architecture (although, there was a pretty big railroad running through the heart of the city right next to the highway), nondescript people, nondescript culture. I was expecting a lot more out of the city of my favorite childhood football team and favorite Nigerian fullback (anybody remember former Kansas City Chief Christian Okoye?) I'm very much used to the cultural diversity in the D.C. Metro area--I don't think there's a Chinatown in Kansas City.

K.C. supposedly has awesome barbecue, but I didn't get to taste it--my supervisor and my associates invited me out for dinner to a renowned barbecue spot (Jack Stack's, if I'm not mistaken), but the invitation seemed kinda empty since they knew I had about 4 fucking hours of snack-food-stained evaluation forms to go through at the end of the day. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

There were lots of slow-building, rollicking thunderstorms which, aside from barbecue, are the only other distinguishing things about Kansas City--three inches of rain in just under an hour meant that the hotel garage and gym flooded. Yay?

So it was a pretty uneventful first business trip for me, next time I'll remember to bring my camera so I can post some pictures to go along with my words (and I'm also gonna pack some liquor). So tune in next week for the next installment of Petey Tours America, Phase II: Providence, RI.

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A History Of Trash

Trash, at first, was a pretty cool guy. You know, he’d come over with some beers, and you’d hang out and have a couple of laughs. Maybe Trash brought some weed with him, and you guys tried to sync up Dark Side Of The Moon with The Wizard Of Oz until you remembered you lost your VHS copy of that movie sometime in college and that you fucking hate Pink Floyd. Good times were had, nonetheless.

But then, you don’t know what changed, but Trash started to overstay his welcome. He’d just linger for hours, never taking the hint you wanted him to leave, no matter how many times you yawned obnoxiously or mentioned how early you had to get up tomorrow. Trash just didn’t get it. You were getting older. You didn’t have the time anymore to stay up until 3 a.m. to talk about the Port season of “The Wire” or how much you miss Jawbox. Eventually, you just stopped taking Trash’s phone calls and no longer replied to his group e-mails about sneaking into abandoned mental hospitals.

Last time you saw Trash, he was smoking alone outside a local dive bar, looking down at his decaying and mismatched shoes. You hoped he had been doing well. You hoped he had not been hurt by the disintegration of your friendship. And if he had, you wanted to comfort him. You wanted to tell him that even though people move on with their lives, it doesn’t mean they stop caring. You wanted him to see in your eyes a sincere appreciation for the time you shared, because all the relationships in our lives help make us who we are, and even if you weren’t the best of friends anymore, you wanted him to know that there would always be a piece of Trash in your heart.

But instead, you looked away and crossed the street. You were with your new girlfriend, and you really didn’t want to have to explain Trash to her. She’d never understand.