"Omaha, somewhere in middle America. Get right to the heart of mattters, it's the heart that matters more."*

           Did you know that you now have to pay for wireless at the airport? I guess my $523 airline ticket just isn’t enough to allow me free Internet service for an hour. This is why life is so freaking expensive. You get charged for everything.

            I remember the time I went to France I had to pay to use the public toilets. They operated like vending machines. You’d drop in a Franc (yeah, okay, this was a while ago) and then jerk the door open before the machine ate your money. And then when you closed the door after you finished, it would spray itself down completely with disinfectant. Unless you didn’t get out in time, at which point it would spray YOU with disinfectant.

            While I still find this system preferable to a port-o-potty any day (because I don’t want to look at anyone else’s leavings), I think that if I’m PAYING to use the toilet, there should be a little man who waits outside with a pair of rubber gloves and a towel so I don’t have to sit on a soaking wet toilet seat and stand in an inch of liquid cleaner. 

            But I digress. Oh wait, no I don’t. Because I hadn’t started to make any recognizable point anyway. Sorry.

            I’m flying to Omaha for the Thanksgiving holiday and I’m super excited. The only annoying part of all this (aside from the Internet not being free) is that there are no direct flights to Omaha from Los Angeles. So a trip that should really be three hours is going to take about 8-and-a-half door-to-door. That’s a real waste of my life.

            So, barring any serious mishaps, I should be living it up Omaha style by 11:25 p.m., CST. It’s a city unhampered by expensive public Wi-Fi or pay toilets. A city where they still don’t have those pervy x-ray machines at the airport (at least, they didn’t the last time I was there).

            In honor of the holiday, I’m going to leave you with a Top Ten List of things that make me thankful for Omaha. In no particular order.

 String of Pearls. Ooooh. Pretty!

1.     "String of Pearls” That sounds elegant, but it’s really just a string of street lamps they installed a few years ago along the road into town from the airport. When you’re landing at Epply Air Field, it looks (nothing) like a string of pearls.

2.     Getting from anywhere to anywhere else in twenty minutes or less. Really. Anywhere.

3.     People waving their thanks when you let them merge in traffic.
4.   Sgt. Peffer's: a for-no-apparent-reason Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band-themed Italian restaurant with really good rolls. Look at it here.

 Sgt. Peffers: The real magic is the interior decor.

5.    Free metered parking after 6 p.m. and on BOTH WEEKEND DAYS (when did this 8 p.m. thing start in Los Angeles? And Saturday's aren't free any more? It’s atrocious!).
6. Brothers.
7. La Buvette.
8. Zio's Pizza.

9.    Memorial Park. Kids like to go there to smoke weed at night. They usually park in front of my parents’ house beforehand and walk over so the cops won't bust 'em for parking in the park after sundown. It’s become a rite of passage for teenagers in Omaha. Cute. They also have a bad-ass, free concert every Fourth of July. And in the winter, you go sledding. Duh.

10. My parents’ den. I will most likely spend the vast majority of my trip sitting on my butt in there. It’s home.
11. Western Heritage Museum (Durham something-or-other). I know I said the list would have 10, but I changed my mind, okay? This museum has old trains that you can go inside. I want to go there RIGHT NOW!

            Okay, this list wasn’t well thought-out, but it’s what comes to mind. I don't have a lot of time before I board. Hooray, Omaha!

            Happy Thanksgiving!

(P.S. I'd like to apologize to Burbank/The Bob Hope Airport: there is, in fact, free Wi-Fi. I'm an idiot.)

Addendum: DFW, however, DOES NOT have free Wi-fi in all the terminals, so they can go fuck themselves. 

*"Omaha" by the Counting Crows. Yeah, baby!