Getting Some Culch.

I started this job with some naive expectations. I knew the glamour of the airline industry was long gone, and I (surprisingly) don't have a problem with restocking the galley or emptying the trash in the lav myself. But I imagined my overnights would take place in quaint salt-of-the-earth towns where I would dine at hidden gems of restaurants known only to the locals and certain food magazine editors, and maybe attend a Steel Magnolias-type carnival or local production of Dreamgirls before retiring to my modern yet comfortable lodgings in the heart of downtown. Tragically, things have a habit of not turning out exactly the way I want them to. True, there are exceptions (San Luis Obispo and Memphis come to mind), but most often I spend the night in Savannah or Austin or Fresno or wherever at the airport Holiday Inn Express with (if I'm lucky) an IHOP for dinner. There are no carnivals. What they do have, always, is free cable TV. And thank god for that, because the second-best thing to experiencing the culture of these great United States firsthand is eating chicken fingers from Carl's Jr on my hotel bed while watching I Love New York. Remember when one of the girls from The Bachelor got her own show? This is like that except our heroine New York is a reject from VH1's Flavor of Love, where her heart was broken (twice!) by old-skool rapper Flavor Flav.