Wait...beads?

8/29/13, Day Nine, Salt Lake City, UT

Do you ever have moments where you think to yourself, 'Well, this is my life. This is what I'm doing with my life. Right now. This is happening. I am actually talking to this person. I am actually driving down this highway. I am actually taking an explosive shit in a McDonald's bathroom while the fries and coke I just bought is sitting on the diaper changing station.'

Because lately, that's been happening to me a lot.

Let's see, I'll do a quick rundown of past events....

Montana can ess a dee. The state and I have never gotten along (a road trip long ago hit some unpleasant strife in MT) and it hasn't warmed up to me since. Of course, I used to say that sort of thing about Oregon, and now I live in the damn state. On 8/25 I went to Red Magpie Beads, in Helena, and overall it wasn't a bad sale. Regular customers kept popping in and seeing stuff they wanted. All the ladies were very nice, but I just have to be a dick and mention how being in the middle states has been a stern reminder to wear lots of sunscreen, eat mostly salad, and exercise. I know we're not going to be beautiful forever, age catches up with everyone, but....damn. When it's an effort to get out of a chair and walk three feet, it's time to have some real talk with yourself.

8/26 was my first taste of "go fuck yourself", at least in the salesman sense. I got to Left Brooks Beads right on time, was my nice, normal self, introduced myself to, I forget her name so I'll say, Cuntbo Baggins, and asked what she'd like to see. I wheeled the large stack of bead boxes to her office, didn't raise a fuss when she asked me to carry the crates over her dog gate, and yet every single box I set in front of her, she dismissed as too expensive. Which is odd, since she's been a client for years, and knows damn well how much everything is. In six minutes, it was pretty clear she wasn't going to buy even my cheapest beads, and I bid her a good day. Maybe it's the probiotics I've been taking, but it didn't really vex me all that much. Better she wastes six minutes of my day, than an hour. But it was pretty out of the blue. Maybe somebody pissed in her corn flakes that morning. Who knows? Though, if I opt to keep this job and have an appt with her again, I'm going to really look forward to calling to cancel it.

8/27. After Helena, I drove to my new least favorite place in Montana, Great Falls. It's hard to explain why this city, the Electric City, as it's called for some reason, is so shitty. But hell, what else do I have to do? Watch the shitty cable in my motel room? Feh. First off, GF's civic planners did the number one thing I hate about city design: designate all the streets as numbers, but the north-south are "streets" and the east-west are "avenues". Like, where is the Oriental Massage parlor that offers "body shampoos" (really)? Oh, it's on 4th st and 12th avenue. REALLY? There are over 300,000 words in the english language. Pick one. For instance, Where is the shitty sandwich place called "Staggering Ox" who's claim to fame is that instead of two pieces on bread, they bake bread tubes, hollow them out, and then put the fillings inside so it's like a sandwich cup that's basically just a ton of bread and not very much inside for six bucks and why did I eat there in Helena AND Great Falls???

Oh that shithole? It's on 2nd and CENTRAL. SEEEEEEE?

Also, if you're familiar with the phone app called "Foursquare", well, don't ever use it in GF. All I wanted was a plate of pasta, and Foursquare sent me on an Italian food goose chase around the city to residential areas that there's no way a restaurant was EVER there, TWICE, until I just opted for what was hailed as "the second best Chinese food place in Great Falls". It was a buffet. And it also was the only time I've ever wished my chinese food had MORE MSG.

My appts were no better. Eclipse beads was the first, and the owner, Dawnella, was nice enough. We talked about how public schools are tools of communist and socialist societies, and similar topics. Then, as she was writing out her check for 366 whole dollars, she asked me if I had any other appts in the area. No, I lied. Good, she said, because if she found out we were selling to her competition, she'd stop buying from us. Ok, that's fair, but $366 isn't a very big dick to swing, so I drove to my next appt...two blocks away.

But I might as well have just left, because the living mummies at HobbyLand, a place that had more model train merchandise than beads took an hour to buy $149 worth. Which is actually a dollar less then Nirvana's required minimum for sales, but hell if I was going to drag it out to tag another 14 cents onto my already pathetic commission. There was a box in the display that held the decorations for model train dioramas that was simply labeled "DEAD TREES". I somehow identified with that box.

Done with both appts, I hopped in my van to gas up for the drive to Missoula (three and half hours) but NO! The credit card was declined. YAY! After a hour of Nir finding out what was going on, and me making the mistake of falling for the ol' sandwich in a tube gag again, Visa turned the card back on, and I was off.

That night, in the casino/bar of the Broadway Inn in Missoula, I discovered something: when you're used to drinking at 150 feet (Portland's elevation), drinking at 4040 feet feels a whole lot different. I don't remember if I had three beers, and two whiskeys, or four beers and three whiskeys but needless to say, I got duhrunk fast.

Let's see, blah blah blah....is this interesting at all?

Anyway, for various reasons (deaths in the family, etc), my schedule has gotten all fucked up, and the last few days have been A LOT of driving for crap sales. Donald is flailing, booking stupids appts because that's all he can get, and I'm spending whatever money I make on motels and food. I'm trying to keep calm about everything, but it's draining to drive six hours for a $416 sale, and then drive another 5 hours to go to client that hasn't bought much, ever.

Plus, I really need to do laundry.

Ok, this blog is boring even me. Cable sounds nice at this point. Though I will add that Nir keeps calling to let me know that he knows this part of the trip has sucked, and he's going to compensate me for it. Plus, I'm almost to Colorado, and will get a few days off to hang out with friends (and see how fast I get drunk at 6000 feet!)

Oh, and if you're ever in Salt Lake City, and I don't know why you would be, you should go to Red Iguana on N Temple. Pretty good Mexican food for...you know, SLC.

Here's a bunch of pictures that looked a whole lot cooler when I was looking at them with my eyes, but hell, since I risked my stupid life to take them at 70 mph, I may as well post em!

This bunny was at the KOA in Great Falls, which really, was the best thing about Great Falls.

I wish I'd gotten a better picture of this guy. He has an eyepatch.

After a while, I realized I was pretty much taking the same picture over and over, but when I'm in the car for hours at a time, pretty things are all I have to keep me entertained.