The Archive

The best laid plans

Phoenix is enormous.

And I'm not even in Phoenix. I'm in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix.

For example, yesterday I went to have lunch with the rather lovely Jen from the Internet. She lives in Scottsdale. I have a hotel in downtown Scottsdale.

She was over ten miles away. Ten miles of featureless three lane roads and strip malls that are entirely indistinguishable from one another.

How anyone can live here is a mystery to me.

Although they do have a cinema at least, so I managed to catch Monsters vs Aliens (quite good).

Oh, and another thing I learned they have here is tarantulas.

And that's not the worse thing. For what could be more horrifying than a tarantula? How about a bug that is so badass it lays its eggs inside a tarantula and when it hatches it eats its way out. Ah, the beauty of God's creation eh?

Yes, that would be the tarantula hawk (actually a wasp, but frankly that word doesn't do it justice).

Apparently "The stinger of a female tarantula hawk can be up to 1/3 inch (7 mm) long, and delivers a sting which is rated amongst the most painful in the insect world."

And it looks like this...



So now I'm living in a state of permanent fear. Thanks for telling me about that beast, Jen. Thanks a lot.

Anyway, after a day of insect horror stories and riding around for miles, I stopped back at the hotel where I met some very interesting pottery people.

No, I'm not going mad and talking to sculptures. There is a potters conference in town, so I learned all about naked firing, which is far less exciting than it sounds.

And then off to the strip club to meet my date.

Michelle had very kindly left me a pass on the front door, but I have to say it's a very odd first date which begins with your date sitting topless on your lap.

I'm not against it, but it does add a strange dimension to the thing.

Obviously she was working, so she'd wander around the room and pop back to talk to me ocassionally. And then, suddenly, she disappeared.

So basically I sat in the club, drinking gin and tonic for the last couple of hours, then the club closed and I went home.

Now this struck me as particularly strange, until I recalled that approximately the time she vanished (and ceased responding to texts, as it happens) was when I set her straight about me being wealthy.

Ah, right, I see what happened there then. Ah well.

Meanwhile, on the way home, I met (was accosted by) a really drunk girl. A bit worried about her safety, I got into a cab with her and ran her home.

Throughought the cab ride, she tried to convince me to stay over, although slightly undermining her appeal with additional tales of her father adn her dog, both of whom were in the house.

Yeah, sounds really safe love, thanks.

So the cab gets to her place and she has to go inside to get some cash. Whilst she's in there, the cab driver turns to me and says, "Don't go in there man. Just go home."

Well, I know good advice when I hear it and this good advice was neatly underlined by the aforementioned father coming out looking really, really angry.

Dude, I was just getting your drunk-ass daughter home safely, don't be raging on me.

So, I stuck with the cab and went home, incurring a fifteen dollar cab fare. Which isn't much, until you consider that the original encounter with the madwoman was about a block away from my hotel.

Oh, and the really rather sad final piece of advice from the cab driver as I paid him? "In this country, don't ever help anyone."

Now that really is sad.

So there it is, another triumphantly successful night. Makes me almost pine for the desert full of lesbians.

posted by Peter The Great @ 6:49 PM