A Flight Deferred

America, how dare you make me miss you?

August is so far away. It'll be eight months before I can have a chicken biscuit from Bojangles, or grits, or a disgustingly greasy double cheeseburger. Eight months away from open highways and the local classic rock station. Eight months until I'm greeted with a smile and a hey y'all at every register I walk up to. Eight months until I see the other side of 70 degrees.

I know that's all North Carolina centric, but I think the familiarity of home is what I'm going to miss. That seems obvious, I know. Other than your friends and family, you miss the things that you're accustomed to. You miss knowing where everything is and how the food is going to taste and how the people are going to sound. You miss your favorite soda or beer or snack. You miss your normal.

But me, I'm pretty good at adapting to new situations, making the life I'm living my new normal. I don't really think about how uncomfortable or inconvenienced or abnormal I feel until I'm out of the situation. Until I come home.

And now, I'm staring down months of being the outsider again. Months of sounding different from the norm, of using the wrong words for things, of making witty references that don't land because we don't exactly have the same shared cultural experience. And that's with being in a country whose language is basically the same as mine and whose people are generally inclined to like people like me-

Hang on, I have to go deal with an airplane.

***

Okay, nobody panic- my plane was struck by lightning but I wasn't on it at the time and now I'm rebooked on a better flight than I had before and am thankful that I'm not one of the people I see sprinting across the airport as I sit with my Bojangles on a rocking chair under a tree in the Charlotte airport. Everything works out okay. Usually. 

If you didn't get to see my face while I was in America, I'm sorry, but never worry! I made a video (which serves the dual purpose of introducing the new Vlogyries team for 2016) and I've put it below. Here's to new flights and new years! 

Cross-post: The Wafer

Editor's Note: In honor of the holidays, I stopped paying attention to my schedule. I'll have a post again for you tomorrow and we'll be back to normal on Friday, but for today, enjoy a post on a parody blog I contribute to! The original post (along with our archive, which is quality) can be found here. 

ABANDONED CHRISTMAS TREES WONDER WHAT THEY DID TO DESERVE THIS

YOUR TOWN, USA- Across the nation this weekend, conscientious homeowners have begun un-decking their halls and un-trimming their trees. There's one problem though- Christmas has only just begun.

“It's a very common misconception,” said Mary Criss-Mast, an expert on the holiday season. “The twelve days of Christmas are actually the twelve days after Christmas, not before. The liturgical season begins with the birth of Christ. It's confusing, I know, but those trees should technically stay up until Epiphany. It's only humane. They deserve their full lifespan.”

Meanwhile, the trees left on the curb are crying out, for those with ears to hear.

“I... I thought you loved me,” stated a dazed five-foot blue spruce out on 2nd Avenue. “I held your ornaments. I thought it meant forever.”

“I was devastated when they chopped me down, but then I was welcomed into this new home. The old trees, they told me about this. They promised me months of life. Months. Until the Kings came. Now look at me,” moaned an eight-foot Douglas fir leaning up against the dumpster on Church Street.

“Mmmrrr mmm mmrwwmmm,” commented the six-foot white pine laying face-down on the corner of 12th and Washington.

“It's inhumane,” said local tree advocate, Phil Jones. “We told them they were Christmas trees, not Advent trees. We're breaking their hearts. We've lied to them.”

Jones was then seen to toss the white pine into the back of his pickup truck to take it to a nice farm upstate.