Wichita Nights
I asked everyone I met in Wichita for something to do, and everyone gave me the same blank look.
"Just one thing. Is there one thing Wichita is known for, or one thing I should do while I'm here?" I asked the concierge at my hotel.
"No," she said. Behind her was a shelf with things I could borrow, including "The Wizard of Oz" videotape and a book called "The Word of God." She thought some more. She looked like my ex-girlfriend Amanda, with long dark hair, porcelin skin and these fruity red lips. "Do you like bars?"
I had read that Kansas ranks dead-last among the 50 states as a tourist destination. The top tourist spot in the state is a sporting goods store outside of Kansas City.
I asked the concierge if she'd like to be interviewed for a project I was working on, and she said no because she can't focus on things for very long.
"Do you have ADD?" I asked.
"No, I don't believe that really exists."
"Oh really?" said a second concierge, who had popped up like a prairie dog from behind a partition. "I'm obsessive-compulsive. Are you going to tell me that OCD doesn't exist either?"
"No, that's a real thing, I believe," said Concierge Number One.
"How does your OCD manifest itself?" I asked. She was a heavyset bleach-blond, with stuck-on eyelashes about a centimeter long. She came around the front desk to talk more intimately.
"It mostly has to do with cleanliness," she said. "I can't stand it if anything is contaminated or out-of-order."
"If you’re in a public restroom and you wash your hands, how do you get out without touching the handle?" I asked.
"I get a paper towel and use that to open the door," she said. "You know where I think I got it? From working in the hotel business."
"Did you hear about that study on hotel bedspreads?" I asked.
"Yeah, the one where they found blood, feces, urine, semen, everything? I think I saw it on 20-20. It was disgusting."
"I thought they just found like 100 different men’s semen on one bedspread or something. I didn't hear about the feces." I crinkled my nose.
"Yeah, it’s because they never wash them. I'm not saying anything bad about your Comfort Inns or hotels like that, but they only wash their bedspreads twice a year. Hotels like this, the extended-stay ones, we wash ours twice a week."
Perhaps everyone out there can understand The Concierge Dilemma, or maybe it's just me: you want to be talking to the cute one and you get stuck with the other one.
I tried to bring things back around to Amanda: "So what movie would you recommend? How's 'Beaches'?"
"Uh, do you like girlie movies?"
I guess I wasn't coming across as a manly man of the Plains. "I like some girlie movies, but probably not the--"
"It's a girlie movie. A crier."
"Did you cry?"
"I did."
We pretty much dried up on that note, so I picked up a six-page "Old Town Gazette" and went around to the dining room. It was 5:30 and the free meatball dinner would be served soon. The Gazette was a free monthly guide to entertainment in Wichita, and the first sentence I read was: "Yes, fellow Wichitans, it’s that wonderful time of year when shops are busy, cookies are baking, and Cabaret Oldtown puts on its Christmas show."
I kept thinking of reasons to bother Amanda. I went back to the front desk: "Excuse me, do you know what time the Best Buy closes?"
Over my meatballs, I tried to tune out the TV and read the Wichita Eagle. The front page featured a chart explaining what a Playstation 3 is, along with a picture of a young woman camping out for one at the Best Buy. I'd thought this was a pathetic local story, until I read in the national press that a Connecticut man had been shot while in line to buy one, and somewhere else a 19-year-old man on his way to buy one had run full-speed into a pole.
Beside the Eagle story about Playstations was a story about how four Wichita middle schools are being forced to offer parents transfers because so many failed state exams.
I wish I’d actually read the story so I knew what the hell a Playstation 3 did before going to the Best Buy and asking one of the campers. I approached a group of four young guys, three American Indians and one white. With his blackened teeth the shape of the limestone mountains of Guilin, and a metal stud through the bridge of his nose, the white guy did the talking. He rattled off the attributes that set it apart from Playstation II, and I stared back at him as stunned as a Wichita middle schooler looking at a textbook. "I’ve been thinking about this for six months," he said. They'd been waiting two days to buy Playstations for $500.
Inside the Best Buy, I cracked the following mildly unsuccessful joke for the clerks: "What's a Playstation? I'm still on Atari."
Since the top tourism site in the state is a sporting goods store, I thought I'd check one out. Gander Mountain offers about two football fields of hunting and fishing gear. Hanging from the ceiling were about 50 stuffed ducks posed in mid-flight. There was a black bear pouncing on a 14-point buck, and a bobcat lunging at a goose. There were tee-shirts ("Kiss My Bass") and scores of rifles, including a Winchester Model 21 for $28,000. I picked up an automatic submachine gun and sprayed the other customers but got no reaction.
"Just one thing. Is there one thing Wichita is known for, or one thing I should do while I'm here?" I asked the concierge at my hotel.
"No," she said. Behind her was a shelf with things I could borrow, including "The Wizard of Oz" videotape and a book called "The Word of God." She thought some more. She looked like my ex-girlfriend Amanda, with long dark hair, porcelin skin and these fruity red lips. "Do you like bars?"
I had read that Kansas ranks dead-last among the 50 states as a tourist destination. The top tourist spot in the state is a sporting goods store outside of Kansas City.
I asked the concierge if she'd like to be interviewed for a project I was working on, and she said no because she can't focus on things for very long.
"Do you have ADD?" I asked.
"No, I don't believe that really exists."
"Oh really?" said a second concierge, who had popped up like a prairie dog from behind a partition. "I'm obsessive-compulsive. Are you going to tell me that OCD doesn't exist either?"
"No, that's a real thing, I believe," said Concierge Number One.
"How does your OCD manifest itself?" I asked. She was a heavyset bleach-blond, with stuck-on eyelashes about a centimeter long. She came around the front desk to talk more intimately.
"It mostly has to do with cleanliness," she said. "I can't stand it if anything is contaminated or out-of-order."
"If you’re in a public restroom and you wash your hands, how do you get out without touching the handle?" I asked.
"I get a paper towel and use that to open the door," she said. "You know where I think I got it? From working in the hotel business."
"Did you hear about that study on hotel bedspreads?" I asked.
"Yeah, the one where they found blood, feces, urine, semen, everything? I think I saw it on 20-20. It was disgusting."
"I thought they just found like 100 different men’s semen on one bedspread or something. I didn't hear about the feces." I crinkled my nose.
"Yeah, it’s because they never wash them. I'm not saying anything bad about your Comfort Inns or hotels like that, but they only wash their bedspreads twice a year. Hotels like this, the extended-stay ones, we wash ours twice a week."
Perhaps everyone out there can understand The Concierge Dilemma, or maybe it's just me: you want to be talking to the cute one and you get stuck with the other one.
I tried to bring things back around to Amanda: "So what movie would you recommend? How's 'Beaches'?"
"Uh, do you like girlie movies?"
I guess I wasn't coming across as a manly man of the Plains. "I like some girlie movies, but probably not the--"
"It's a girlie movie. A crier."
"Did you cry?"
"I did."
We pretty much dried up on that note, so I picked up a six-page "Old Town Gazette" and went around to the dining room. It was 5:30 and the free meatball dinner would be served soon. The Gazette was a free monthly guide to entertainment in Wichita, and the first sentence I read was: "Yes, fellow Wichitans, it’s that wonderful time of year when shops are busy, cookies are baking, and Cabaret Oldtown puts on its Christmas show."
I kept thinking of reasons to bother Amanda. I went back to the front desk: "Excuse me, do you know what time the Best Buy closes?"
Over my meatballs, I tried to tune out the TV and read the Wichita Eagle. The front page featured a chart explaining what a Playstation 3 is, along with a picture of a young woman camping out for one at the Best Buy. I'd thought this was a pathetic local story, until I read in the national press that a Connecticut man had been shot while in line to buy one, and somewhere else a 19-year-old man on his way to buy one had run full-speed into a pole.
Beside the Eagle story about Playstations was a story about how four Wichita middle schools are being forced to offer parents transfers because so many failed state exams.
I wish I’d actually read the story so I knew what the hell a Playstation 3 did before going to the Best Buy and asking one of the campers. I approached a group of four young guys, three American Indians and one white. With his blackened teeth the shape of the limestone mountains of Guilin, and a metal stud through the bridge of his nose, the white guy did the talking. He rattled off the attributes that set it apart from Playstation II, and I stared back at him as stunned as a Wichita middle schooler looking at a textbook. "I’ve been thinking about this for six months," he said. They'd been waiting two days to buy Playstations for $500.
Inside the Best Buy, I cracked the following mildly unsuccessful joke for the clerks: "What's a Playstation? I'm still on Atari."
Since the top tourism site in the state is a sporting goods store, I thought I'd check one out. Gander Mountain offers about two football fields of hunting and fishing gear. Hanging from the ceiling were about 50 stuffed ducks posed in mid-flight. There was a black bear pouncing on a 14-point buck, and a bobcat lunging at a goose. There were tee-shirts ("Kiss My Bass") and scores of rifles, including a Winchester Model 21 for $28,000. I picked up an automatic submachine gun and sprayed the other customers but got no reaction.
posted by Thon at 7:27 AM
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