You're at work. There was just a small office party in your honor, commemorating your twenty-five years as head custodian at the manure plant. The party was, given the circumstances, a rousing success. There was a single cupcake, and it was yours, and it had a candle in it. Your coworkers sang "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow", like, three times. Your supervisor even made a surprise appearance to congratulate you, and to remind you to take the trash out before you clock out, since you didn't do it yesterday. That one came with a stern look of disapproval. But whatever, you made it. Who in this day and age keeps a job for 25 years? Sure, the benefits aren't great, and the hours aren't either, but you've been able to give yourself a life of relative comfort. Your 1994 Mazda Protege still runs, though the engine knocks a little bit, and your ex-wife long ago got remarried to the head poop technician, or whatever they're called at a fertilizer plant, so you only had to pay alimony for a few years before you were home free. Yet, you can't shake the feeling that something is missing. There's this nagging feeling that something has passed you by without you being aware of it. You go home to your efficiency apartment, sprawl out on the futon, and try to put your finger on it. It comes to you: you've never taken a real, actual vacation in your lifetime. The closest you came was that one time twelve years ago, when you took your yearly unpaid vacation, where you just said "to hell with it. I'm driving to Delaware!" Off you went. You sent your brother and his common-law wife three postcards from Dover and Wilmington to your hometown of Possum Scrote, Tennessee, and they didn't talk to you for years because they were so jealous. In the present, you take stock of your situation. You've been very smart with your money. You've saved quite a bit over the years, because you never worried about things like going out on dates or having social plans with friends. You've made your decision: this is it. It's time. It's time to see what else there is in the world. You have a passport, for some reason, and the world is full of culture and experience and fun that you've only imagined in your dreams and by watching the Discovery Channel. But where do you want to go? Can you get the time off work to do it? That shouldn't be much of an issue. The globe your grandma got you in the eighth grade, the one sitting on top of the fish tank, is your answer.
So you start thinking about what you want to do on vacation. Do you want to be warm? Yes. Do you want to be near the beach? Oh, definitely. Do you want a short flight? Hell no! You've never been on an airplane and being on one for seventeen hours seems like a story you could tell your grandkids. You close your eyes, spin the globe, and your finger randomly does the choosing for you: you're going to Tanzania. Tanzania has everything you're looking for: heat, beach, and distance from home. You're all in.
Your documents are in place, you're ashamed to admit to anyone that you didn't know Tanzania was in Africa until you'd already bought the tickets, and you're flying high over the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, you land. Even though you had a sweet window seat back in coach, seventeen hours is a long time to sit down. The only time you got to stretch your legs was when you got up to go to the bathroom, but that did no good, because you were shy and afraid someone was gonna walk in. No big deal, there's a bathroom at the hotel. You're not quite sure what you expected here, but you have the sudden realization that international airports tend to be in major cities. You quickly accept that and make it the starting point of your trip. So you get a cab to the hotel you booked on Orbitz, and you check in and go to your room. You're jetlagged like hell, and it's 3AM anyway, so you decide to call it a night.
So you wake up the next morning. You had that completely satisfying kind of sleep where you wake up in the exact same position you fell asleep in, and you have to stretch extra today to shake off the stiffness. You go to the bathroom sink to tidy up, and WAIT! DON'T DRINK THE TAP WATER! IT'S NOT SAFE! JUST GRAB ONE FROM THE MINIBAR INSTEAD! No biggie, dude, it's complimentary. Try finding THAT in America, amirite? You brush your teeth, get showered, get dressed, and rush out the door to start your adventure.
You find the city hectic. Dirty. Crowded. Maybe a little dangerous. Maybe a lot dangerous. Hell, maybe you just don't like black people (I kid, I kid!). After a full day and evening exploring the city, the beach, the bars, the restaurants, the police station you spent three hours at because you forgot your passport and visa at the hotel, and they thought you were rich because you were white, and they were shaking your ass down hard for bribe money, you decide that while you're here, you're gonna explore nature. If you want to explore nature, this is damn well the place to do it! The hotel knows a good travel agency and they set you up. Tomorrow you're leaving Dar es Salaam and headed west to the end of the world. Or the beginning, depending on how you look at it. NATURE. Rhinos. Tigers. The works. Yep, maybe you'll catch a cool bug that they don't have in the USA, put it in a jar, and smuggle it back. You always wanted to upset an ecosystem and this is your chance to do just that.
The next day the tour van picks you up and you're on your way. Some hours later, you arrive at the nature reserve right in the middle of the Serengeti. You're all alone in the world right now. There's peace. There's nothing but you and the earth. You look to your right and see a looming titan, a hulking presence that still seems to exude both calm and command. That's the world's tallest free-standing mountain. You stare at it, jaw agape, and note to yourself how Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti. (YES! YES! I DID IT! I REFERENCED TOTO'S "AFRICA" IN A SPORTS BLOG! NONE OF YOU THOUGHT I COULD DO IT, BUT I DID! YOU DIDN'T THINK I COULD DO IT BECAUSE NONE OF YOU HAD EVEN THE DIMMEST IDEA THAT I WANTED TO, BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER! SUCK ON IT, HATERZ!) The sun is setting, but still huge and fierce, yet soothing. You unholster the ol' Polaroid and snap the last picture you'll ever take. A picture that will bring you joy for the rest of your life. There's a giraffe about a hundred yards to your left, a leopard about a hundred to the right, stalking said giraffe, and you have this thought: everything in the world is great. This is pure perfection. I could die right here, right now with no regrets.
Hold that thought, junior....
You don't notice the almost-silent rustling. You attribute the mild swaying of the grass to the calm, warm breeze coming from the Indian Ocean to the east. You are lost in a world where nothing matters. Where nothing changes or will ever change. This is the cradle of life, and you're standing on it.
You're dead. You're dead, man. Why are you still breathing?
As you turn around, you see a flicker of movement and feel a sharp pain in your leg. Then another, then another. You've been introduced to the black mamba. Deadliest animal on the planet, and that's only partly exaggeration. He got you three times. Once is enough, but you stuck around a few seconds too long, and he got scared. He panicked. And he killed you with zero effort. As the life drains out of your eyes, and your throat closes, and your heart just doesn't care anymore, you have this thought: that snake isn't even black. Why is it called that? It's because the inside of its mouth is, indeed pitch black. But there's an interesting marking on the inside of its mouth that you fail to notice before the sweet, sweet release of the most unpleasant death a person can experience. It looks kinda like this:
(Concerned Author's Note: should you find yourself in the vicinity of a black mamba, please do not get close enough to its mouth to check for the Kansas City Royals logo. Run. Run quickly. The snake will bite you and you will die, and it won't be a peaceful or honorable death. It will be an agonizing and gruesome death. If you have a firearm available, please aim it at your temple and squeeze the trigger. This is your best chance.)
Where the hell did the Kansas City Royals come from? Now, granted.. my knowledge of and/or interest in baseball is largely colored by where I happen to be at any given point in time. For example, I've lived in southern Pennsylvania/Western Maryland for over two years now, and as such, I've absorbed a vague acceptance of the Baltimore Orioles, who coincidentally happen to be KC's opponent in the American League Championship Series. But really? The Royals? How did that happen? They suck! They've sucked for decades! They even sucked when George Brett was on the team, so you can only imagine how much they've sucked since then. This is just surreal, man. It bears an uncanny resemblance to another thing in another sport that I've been oddly drawn to for a number of years now. Don't ask me to analyze anything here; I can't. I don't watch baseball enough to know even a single player on the Royals' squad, but I do know that a good friend of mine, the biggest Orioles fan I know, completely expects the Royals to walk away with this series. They didn't even give us any warning! At least the Seattle Seahawks were good for a few years before dominating their way to a Super Bowl, ya know? They should have said something! Nobody expected this! Nobody knows what to do about this except hope they win, provided you're not an Orioles fan yourself. I'm gonna have to get my illustrious co-blogger to sort this out for me, because he watches out for this kind of thing, and he's also a baseball fan. Me, I'm just perplexed. I knew the Los Angeles/Anaheim/California Angels were in it, and since they signed Pujols (spell it phonetically, and then say it. Poo-holes. Heh heh heh) I figured a World Series title was just a formality. Then they get swept by the Cleveland Browns of Major League Baseball. What is going on in this world of mine?
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