As Scott and I drove

As Scott and I drove back to the airport on our last day of our two-week slave labor vacation in Campbellsville, Kentucky, I realized that two weeks away from the routine of everyday life, even if you completely hate them, are healthy.

The Chorus:

I wake up in a small town called Columbia every morning at 4:30 in my king-sized bed, and flip on CNN as I get ready. This includes taking a shower, readying a pot of coffee, finding the least smelly of my clothes, brushing teeth and hair, etc. I get Scott from his room and we go down to the hotel lobby and get a donut or two. We drive north for 20 or so miles, passing 20 or so road-kill on the way, through complete darkness, and arrive at a stop light, turn right. Look for the mile-wide warehouse, park in the back. Walk through metal detectors, scan our badges, log in to the computer, stand at the back of the meeting crowd of like workers, and head to our gift-wrapping station.

Wrap gifts for 10 hours.

Log out of the computer, scan our badges out, walk through the metal detectors, find our car, drive in complete darkness for 20 or so miles, eat a burger, or a pizza, go to our separate rooms, have a beer to spite Kentucky, go to bed at 8:30. Sleep, fitfully.

Repeat x 10.

Some highlights:

Scott talks about our beer-seeking adventures here. See December 14th, 2001. No permanent links on pitas, cause Andrew sucks.

After a day of trying to wrap as many gifts as I could, I found the much more satisfying gift-wrapping strategy of trying to wrap fewer gifts with each passing day.

The locals hang out at the gas station on Saturday nights, with their large muffler-less trucks and their local honeys.

Campbellsville is in the eastern time zone, while our hotel was in the central time zone (yet they were north-south of each other). This created the pleasant sensation of having to wake up an hour earlier for work each day in order to get there on time, but luckily after work we often arrived home before we had left. Some people changed their hotel clocks to be consistent with eastern time zones, but I found it more entertaining to spring forward each morning and fall back each evening.

Two Seattle away-team employees were fired for having sex in the warehouse, on the fourth floor of a six-story structure that housed the toys of all the world's children. The employees were both girls.

Two other away team members hooked up with local kids during our stay.

Some people stayed on houseboats, and watched free porn while drinking beer and playing poker. I sat by myself outside by the water, not fitting in.

One girl fell in the water and turned up on the local news channels.

Overall, I did not have a good time, although it is possible to find a positive spin to the whole experience when I try. Nevertheless, I am glad to be back.