Travellin' Man

As a rapidly rising titan of industry, I knew that one day, I'd have to start travelling for work. At first, I was scared. What if the security guards at the airport thought my delightful demeanor was all a sham, and decided to perform an exhaustive cavity search on me? What if the stewardess misinterpreted my hatred of peanuts as a critique of her performance, and peed in my Fresca in retaliation? What if the pilot, *gasp*, accidentally gave me Tetanus while trying to pin on my commemorative flight wings? After months of fear, I decided that the only way to deal with this crisis was to spit in its eye and start preparing now. I bought a full set of luggage, I memorized the entire SkyMall catalog, and I played hour after hour of Pilot Wings on SNES, in case the pilot got sleepy and wanted me to take over. I was ready to rock.

After a few false alarms, I finally got the call today. Sometime next month, I'm headed to either Billings, Montana or Santa Margarita, California, the two epicenters of the software industry. Since there are two options here, I get a choice of where I'd like to go. This is an interesting dilemma. I've been to California before. I thought it was an okay place, but the aspect that had the largest effect on me was that I had to pay to use the bathroom in McDonald's. It wasn't a lot of money and it was only in McDonalds, but I hate to carry change and I'm pretty fond of urinating regularly, so this is just a brewing disaster. Yes, I could wear adult diapers, but I'm scared it'd undermine my professionalism if I had to constantly leave meetings to go put on a new pair of Depends.

The other option, Billings, Montana, doesn't seem like it was made to order, either. I imagine I would get stomped on by a buffalo immediately upon leaving the airport. If I somehow managed to avoid the buffalo stampede, I am certain I would wake up in the middle of the night and find a grizzly bear trying on my pants. I can come up with an endless number of crazed wildlife scenarios, leading me to think that Billings is a city I should only dream about.

After waffling back and forth on these for roughly 30 seconds, I consulted with Paddy, who'll be going to the location I do not visit. He had no preference, so we elected to find a regulation quarter/dime/nickel and decide this like two rational adults. At this point, the boss man set us straight and said I should just plan on going to California. That's cool with me, but I feel I need to make an announcement. If you happen to be in Santa Margarita in 3 weeks and you see me barreling through the streets with a pained look on my face, for the love of God, toss me a roll of quarters.