Well, Folks, the checkride sucked big ass. I was all nervous and stuff going in, and it showed when I pooed the ceiling before the examiner even got in the door. The ground portion went very well, the examiner even commenting on how well I seemed to know the material. Then the flight portion, and the most stressful hour of my life to this point. Keep in mind that I am flying a Piper Seneca that was made in 1972, and is basically a few flights away from augering into the ground in a ball of fire. Why do I fly it? Simple. Because it is the only multi engine plane I have access to…and I am stupid. Very stupid. We took off and he told me to go to my first checkpoint. Done. Steep turns with the blinders on, no prob. Timed turns were sketchy, but that was due to some unknown magnetic field generated by the radios or something and throwing the compass off kilter so it works only most of the time. Mr. Examiner was not impressed, but I think he assumed I knew how to count to thirty and let it slide. The turn coordinator is also for shit and needs to be worked on, but that’s not what caused the bulk of my problems.

I called Air Traffic Control and they cleared me for an approach, which I was handling pretty well. Then they told me to change frequencies and call the tower at the airport. I did this, and when I keyed the mike, I heard nothing but engine noise. Tap-tappy tap…Is this thing on? Then the realization that I had just had complete radio failure. In controlled airspace. With an FAA examiner in the plane. Ladies and gents, this is not a test. This is a real crappy thing to have happen to me at this moment. I can only assume that God must have intercepted the dirty letters I was sending to the orphanage and was getting me back, or maybe I had stolen someone’s dryer in a past life in a past Laundromat.*

I managed to hold my course and altitude better than I thought I would, and frantically unplugged and replugged my headset, tried my best to figure out what was wrong, and swore under my breath quite a bit. The examiner couldn’t hear me, as his headset was dead as well. I had four miles to go until I had to either continue the approach (Illegal unless I could fix the problem in the next ninety seconds), or get the hell out of their airspace. We were at 2400 feet, and it was about 80 degrees in the plane. I was a busy sumbitch, and I didn’t know that I could sweat that much. I was soaked, and he was looking pretty disappointed with the situation, helping me wiggle wires and flip switches. No one likes to break rules while they are flying, and I wasn’t about to break any rules. I flew to the last point they had cleared me to, and then turned and hauled ass out of there. We flew back to his home base, which is thankfully uncontrolled and doesn’t require communication, landed, and went back to his office to discuss at length what an enormous piece of shit we had just flown. He was frustrated because we had pissed off the folks at ATC, and because he has given checkrides in this plane before and had things go wrong more often than not. I was frustrated because I was looking forward to getting this over with, and now I have to go do it again. In a mighty fine gesture of humanity, he offered to just pick up where we left off (provided I show up in a plane that is airworthy), and I won’t have to shell out another $275 for the privilege.

I’m not going to stress out over this one, though, because a) I don’t have to re-take the oral portion, so most of the hard stuff is over, and b) I’m not going anywhere in that plane until I am satisfied that it is in prime shape, and that could take months if past experience is any indicator. What’s the point in stressing out for an as yet undetermined amount of time?

One of these days I’m going to write something funny again. Lately I have been slipping. I’ll admit it- there are letters of the alphabet that are funnier than I have been lately. Like the letter “R”. If you were here I’d make a face and say something in a weird voice to make you laugh, but you’re not so I won’t. This should hold you over until I come up with something good.

*On Sunday the Ladyfriend was at the laundromat doing our laundry because she is a woman and that is her job. She likes to keep the beatings to a minimum, so she does as she’s told for the most part.

Just kidding.

She doesn’t mind doing laundry, and I don’t mind paying for it, so it works out well for us. Plus, she would kick my crippled ass if I tried to “make” her do anything. I really should spend more time at the laundromat, because it’s like the zoo, except instead of animals being there, there are crazy people, and instead of throwing their poo, they are doing laundry and throwing their poo.

I got a call from the Ladyfriend at about noon on Sunday. She said, “Can you come down here? Some lady just took my clothes out of the dryer while it was still running and put her clothes in. I think someone took some of your clothes and is folding them now as if they were their own.” I said, “you didn’t kill her, did you?” Ladyfriend said, “No, but I might. I asked her what she thought she was doing, and she got all snotty with me like ‘I have to get my stuff done.’” That did it. No one gets snotty with the Ladyfriend but me.

I put on my toughest clothes, (which turned out to be a really tight pinkish t-shirt and a shower curtain, since all of my tough clothes were presently being folded by an insane person) and headed out.

When I showed up, I walked through and looked at everyone and what they were folding, and didn’t see any of my stuff. I talked to the Ladyfriend and she said the lady had left. We talked about the joy we would receive from breaking an ink pen or pouring a bottle of bleach into her load of clothes, but figured that ruining $100 worth of clothes over 50 cents would be kind of like burning someone’s house down because they took the last free sample of hot pockets at the grocery store. The punishment has to fit the crime, and that is why I don’t write the laws. We mutually agreed on the mature course of action, and that was to tell on her. The fact that neither of us had a pen handy was a factor, but not nearly as strong as the “take the high road” thing.

I went to the nice lady who runs the place and told her that the meanybutt lady (who had since returned to fold her huge, stained panties), had ripped off our dryer time. “I don’t care about the 50 cents! I want JUSTICE!” I screamed, jumping up on the counter brandishing a bottle of “snuggles” fabric softener. This was true to a point. If her life is so shitty that she has to dry her clothes on someone else’s dime, then she can keep it. She just can’t think she lives in a world where people are going to let her get away with it. That is where the Tornado draws the line.

The lady behind the counter was super nice and said, “I’ll tell you…I’ have worked here for ten years, and I am still amazed every day at the stuff adults will do to each other.” I went into my ingenious laudromat/zoo metaphor and suggested that we write a sociology thesis based on human interaction around coin operated washers. Then I speculated on whether it is a physiological reaction to downey dryer sheets and how we could sue big detergent for trying to rip apart the fabric of society. Then I made note of how cleverly I had used the word “fabric” as it related to our new cause. When I finished talking, she was gone. Happens to me a lot.

She was already back in the washer area talking to the lady, who didn’t deny it. She just said, “Hey, I’m sorry, okay? I had to get my clothes dry.” I’m all, “what? You think your clothes are better than mine because they’re WHITE?!? NO JUSTICE NO PEACE!! Why you gotta be hatin’ on my knit delicates and unmentionables?!” Okay, I didn’t say that, but I would go back and say it if I had a time machine. I’m working on one, and I should be finished with it yesterday.

Ladyfriend and I continued folding our stuff, and soon we heard a commotion coming from the other side of the room. It seems the lady who had taken our stuff out of the dryer was missing a load of laundry. She kept looking accusingly at us, and I silently begged her to come try to tell me we stole her clothes. She eventually turned her anger on another woman, saying, “Those are my clothes.” The woman responded with “no they’re not.” Which was a pretty damn good response, if you think about it. What do you say to that? “Oh, no, that is the only white button down shirt ever made, and I own it. It’s mine.” Once again, the guardian angel of static cling had come from behind the counter to straighten things out. I don’t think the woman ever got her stuff back, because she was still pissy when she left. When the lady who works there walked back past the Ladyfriend and I, she said quietly “See? It don’t take but a minute for it to catch right back up with you.”

I think there is a moral to that story, and if there is, it is making me question the wisdom in my stealing that girl’s dog. He had such a nice harness on, and he came with a “do not pet” sign on his side. She didn’t even try to chase me, so she must not have wanted him.

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