Business Trip or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Kentucky

Our magazine is printed in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. It is supposedly beneficial for us to go down there to learn what they do, so off Danielle and I went for 3 crazy days of southern exposure.

Sunday:

11:45 AM: I wake up.

12:00 PM: I start packing.

1:00 PM: I arrive at the airport (I now love National).

1:30 PM: We catch the bus to take us to our tiny plane.

1:50 PM: Lady traveling alone agrees to switch to a different window seat one row up so we can sit together--is still nasty about it.

3:25 PM: We are picked up by "Starla" and "Cheryl" (complete with big hair and green eyeshadow up to the brows).

4:00 PM: We arrive at Caesar's Indiana, second largest riverboat casino in the United States. Also a contender for saddest place in the United States.

5:30 PM: After losing most of our money to ATM fees, secondhandedly smoking roughly half a pack, and seeing an old lady play two slot machines at once, we are ready to move on.

6:00 PM: Arrive in downtown Louisville, via sketch part of town. Drive around and see several posters of Colonel Sanders on lamp posts.

6:15 PM: Arrive at the Hard Rock Cafe: Louisville.

6:30 PM: Begin eating cheese topped with cheese while listening to the likes of Robbie Williams and Dave Matthews band. Drink a giant cocktail called a Tropical Colada (a pina colada with midori) because a) it's free b) it's possibly the most ridiculous thing I could order c) it comes with a free Hard Rock hurricane glass d) obviously, I need a drink by now.

6:40 PM: Starla tells us about how they give numbers to their magazine clients and we're "Customer Number Three!!" Little did we then know that we would hear this probably about 50 times from everyone that we met.

6:45 PM: Hear about how Starla's niece wanted to come meet us today, and Starla got nervous because of course she couldn't tell her where we were going. Niece's response: "Aunt Starla! Are you going somewhere Jesus wouldn't approve??"

7:10 PM: Get to see Cheryl's son's Christian Rock band album cover.

7:30 PM: Get to listen to Cheryl's son's Christian Rock band's cd while driving to the hotel.

7:45 PM: Hear possibly my favorite story ever about how Cheryl's son got a tattoo of Jesus, but his friends thought it was too small and he "needed to get some tribal around it." He then got the tribal in red, and when he showed it to his mom she said, "Why is Jesus in Hell?"

8:00 PM: Check into the hotel and commence watching an entire night of VH1.

Monday:

6:40 AM: Wake up entirely too early for my own good.

8:15 AM: Stop at McDonald's on our way to the printer so Starla can get a Coke. (Danielle had not believed me that they do that here).

8:20 AM: We pass "The Most Awesome Flea Market and Hickory Smoked Pit Barbecue." I see that if I were willing to ford the creek behind our hotel I could walk to it. Make a mental note to consider it that night.

8:30 AM: Meet our fellow students from other magazines "Apaloosa Horse" and "GX: the Guard Experience," based in Idaho and Nashville, respectively.

8:45 AM: I am bored out of my mind and desperately trying not to fall asleep.

11:45 AM: The ink tester presenter guy lets us play with his ink samples by spreading and mixing them on the table. I make a sweet ass purple, get it all over my hands, and have to be escorted out for a cleaning with their industrial-strength soy-based cleaner, making everyone else wait for me. It still rules.

3:30 PM: Wake up from my I-haven't-taken-a-class-since-2005-and-was-not-at-all-prepared-for-this-day stupor. Realize that everyone else has been collected by their liaison person and Starla is nowhere to be found.

4:45 PM: Starla finally packs us into the car. I am pissed because the Jim Beam distillery visitor's center closed at 4:30.

5:00 PM: We go to the Jim Beam distillery anyway and drive around, seeing his house and stacks of whiskey barrels. ....It still rules.

5:20 PM: Man from some financial analysis magazine who is also one of Starla's clients mentions that his magazine is based in Charlottesville and is always hiring. Danielle's boyfriend currently lives in Charlottesville. I threaten suicide if she leaves me to fend for myself at the magazine.

5:30 PM: We arrive at the Outback.

5:40 PM: Printer people joke that one of the other customer service guys always takes clients to this pit barbecue place where everything is served on styrofoam plates and there's a roll of paper towels in the middle of the table and how that's such a crazy thing to do. ....I fume at the unfairness of it all.

5:45 PM: Starla tells us about a fantastic book she found on an inspirational rack in an airport and she's read five times. It's called the Traveler's Gift. I struggle to keep a straight face as she describes the book that my sister once spent an entire Albany to New York train ride bashing because it is about a guy who tries to kill himself, then Jesus sends him back in time and he meets different historical figures who give him various obvious/stupid pieces of advice, including historical figures who are completely wrong (Columbus, for instance, talks about how he's not going to give up on his attempt to discover America). He then wakes up and realizes he has to have Jesus in his life and become a motivational speaker...just like the author, "Andy Andrews"...if that is his real name. Check out the Amazon reviews to see how much people love it.

6:30 PM: I think I have gained roughly 8 pounds.

8:00 PM: We recover enough to walk over to "Kart Kountry," home of the world's longest go kart track. We are not yet well enough to do go karts, but we do manage a rockin game of mini golf, complete with TWO holes in one and a relatively minimal amount of swearing. No breaking of clubs or falling in water this time.

Tuesday:

8:15 AM: Starla comes to pick us up. Apparently, while I'm up getting juice or something, Danielle comments on the hotel's constant stream of Fox News, pointing out that they're showing the girl who was kicked off Southwest for her skirt. Starla responds something to the effect of, "That's no worse than what that Paris Hilton wears! She just shows off her twat all over" Danielle is in shock at the use of "twat" before noon by a woman she barely knows who is too Christian to drink alcohol.

9:00 AM: We get to see the presses and the tour actually gets cool. Not cool: the warning stickers on every piece of equipment showing twisted and mangled hands, arms, or other body parts; the "Safety First" posters showing some kind of gross ass head wound; the fact that our tour guide tells us the workers have to reach in and do stuff to the spinning machines while they're running. My opinion of the press room job falls from "boring as hell" to "scary as hell."

12:15 PM: While eating fried pork tenderloin, baked ham, macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes, the Kentuckyians get on about Kentucky food. They tell us about a dessert called banana croquettes, which consists of bananas covered in mayonnaise and rolled in peanuts. Fear of giving offense loses out over inability to conceal disgust.

2:45 PM: We meet world's biggest sports fan, his entire office plastered in UK football memorabilia. Every example he gives in his presentation is sports related. "Say you wanted to give an award to Dick's Sporting Goods, you could just put their name in here, put some pictures of footballs here"..."You could replace these magazine covers with say, Sports Illustrated"

4:00 PM: Starla takes us to the Zappos.com headquarters, which has a large outlet shoestore. I have a newfound love for Starla.

5:00 PM: I finally get my snowglobe (Kentucky derby themed) and head to my plane. I ended up passing on the mini Maker's Mark bottle filled with gourmet barbecue sauce, I choice I already regret.

5:15 PM: Asian guy in front of me at security has what looks suspiciously like the scary future dream machine that I wrote about a few posts back. I am curious.

8:45 PM: I arrive home at my lame ass not at all southern apartment and start to get pissed that I have to go to work tomorrow.

The End