I never knew going to a travel agency would be so heartbreaking. Once I decided I was going to fly to Atlanta to see Belle and Sebastian, I needed to set everything into place as quickly as possible, before logic set in. "At the first travel agency I see", I told myself, "I am buying plane tickets." Cambridge Travel resides in a little dais-like mall area in Porter Square, the same building that houses my favorite burrito stand. Actually, I'm kind of pissed at the burrito stand - they used to play jaunty Mexican renditions of popular light-rock tunes, but about two weeks ago they switched to playing the actual light-rock songs, in English. I don't know about you, but I'd rather hear a Mariachi version of "The Wind Beneath My Wings" over the Bette Midler version. The last time I was there they were playing the aforementioned Bette Midler version and it took everything in my power to not turn to the guy behind me in line and me and exclaim, "Hey, do you know what this song makes me think of? High school graduations!" with fake over-earnestness. In retrospect, I should have done it. Boston is the most unfriendly place I've ever been to, let alone lived in, and I have to keep myself amused somehow. Oh yeah, Cambridge Travel. I don't want to use the word "ramshackle", at least not in a sentence, but there was a general feeling of disarray to the place. I had read somewhere, I think, that the whole business of being a travel agent was on its way out due to the internet, and airlines cutting costs. I was the only customer, and I looked a bit ramshackle myself. Besides, they were playing jaunty Chinese-language versions of popular light-rock hits. A good omen. My new travel agent, a middle aged woman of Asian descent, and I sat across from each other at a desk, and proceeded to hash out the details of my trip. I wanted to leave on a Monday, I said, and return either the next day or possibly on Wednesday. She asked me if it was a business trip, while staring at my black t-shirt for the punk band DOOM which says, I shit you not, "Making Punk A Threat Again!" on it. (digression : many moons ago, I would work Sundays at a record store in Providence, Rhode Island called Fast Forward so the owners, Ron and Judy, could have a day off. Ron and Judy used to pay me in merchandise, which was fine because I would just spend the money on records anyway. I was picking out twenty dollars worth of stuff one day, and after grabbing the used copy of "Snowball" by the Field Mice I picked out the DOOM t-shirt, because if they were Making Punk a Threat Again I wanted to be on their side. This was seven years ago, and Fast Forward is no more, but I still sometimes wear the t-shirt while listening to "Snowball") "No", I told her, "I'm going to see a band." This amused her, I could tell, as she started to figure out prices for tickets, muttering, "You must really like band..." Her quotes were about a hundred dollars over what I was expecting to pay, from checking out prices on The Internet, so I asked her to check some other airlines, and it was all roughly the same amount of money. And the travel agent told me that the airlines have stopped giving them commission, and she seemed to be resigned to losing another customer because of this, and the whole thing was just impossibly sad. A Cantonese version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart", playing in the background, only heightened things. I suppose it was a combination of guilt and altruism (guilt mostly) that spurred me to buy the damn plane tickets anyway. Hell, it's a Belle and Sebastian tour, and I want to see them as many times as possible. And I already bought the show tickets, and I want to see my friend Noah in Atlanta and drink coffee until five in the morning with him and talk about old soul records like we used to do before he moved. The travel agent seemed really cheered by this, and said "Thank you so much!" a couple of times, and my head filled with images of her returning to her family that night, declaring, "Tonight we dine like kings!" while brandishing the credit card receipt from our transaction. She shook my hand and gave me my plane ticket. I left quickly, before one of us started crying. Kevin +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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