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Worse Place

In an elevator in Berlin. I'm not that keen on enclosed spaces myself and generally use stairs wherever possible, but I was exhausted from traveling so stepped in to head up to the fourteenth floor. There were too many of us in there, but that became more and more apparent as this poor guy started having a serious panic attack. Some idiot pressed the emergency button and killed the elevator. The guy was totally freaking then, flailing around among us all. I managed to get to the buttons but it seemed to take forever before we started up again and when we stopped, the doors didn't open for another fifteen minutes. By then the guy was curled up in a ball, rocking and whimpering while a couple of us were just kneeling with him, stroking his head. Seemed forever to me, but it was a nightmare for that poor guy. At least there was a doctor standing by when we finally got out. Stuck with the stairs after that.
 
The state I'm living in - North Carolina.

Let me sum up what our advertisement should be:

Welcome to North Carolina, where we Obama is the Anti-Christ, we hate the gays, all black people are lazy niggers, and hunting dogs are treated better than our wives. So if you're anything other than a white, middle-aged, repulican hetero Christian man, GET THE FUCK OUT.
Can't wait to see you in church on Sunday, y'all!


Or, at least that's what I've learned from being stuck here for 10+ years.
My view might be skewed since I'm the "black sheep" around here.
 
True story.

In Istanbul, Turkey. Ataturk Airport.

Our flight was initially delayed for two hours because of thunderstorms. I was cool with it because I travel a lot and my terrible luck usually leads to my flight getting delayed or cancelled. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that 80% of the flights I've taken in my life received some sort of delay. They kept gradually delaying it every 45 minutes even after the storm had passed because they didn't want to mess up other flights in the schedule. After 5-6 hours, they told us to head to the gate because they were about to start boarding soon. Oh gawd yes, finally. When it was time to board, they decided to move us to another gate at another time. Again, we went there and waited, then were sent back to the first gate. This happened a few times before they decided to just take our flight from the flight screen all together (It had been saying 'boarding' all the time). How convenient. Now we don't have to walk back and forth.

Then we spend I'd say 4 hours just camping next to the gate while travelers came, boarded, and flew. Trip after trip. Whenever we (we: the 50-60 passengers lying next to the gate like a refugee camp, including my family) talked to any employee at the airlines, they told us to take it to customer service. The gate we camped next to boarded maybe 3-4 flights during the time we were watching in disbelief. The gate opposite to ours had another refugee camp of a different European flight who received similar treatment.

I was getting fed up so I decided to separate from my family and just go fite talk to customer service upstairs. My phone had been dead for a few hours but I hadn't noticed. Now upstairs I struggled to find the customer service office. Airport employees just kept directing me to all sorts of different places in different levels. I somehow ended somewhere underground where I couldn't hear any flight announcements, arguing with a guy speaking a language I don't understand. I decided to give up after an hour and just took the elevator upstairs back to the area where all the gates were.

Then I hear them announcing that my flight is now boarding, and is on final call. I ran like I was being chased by a horny rhino. I practically shoved people away, yelling in distress for them to clear the way as if I was heading a royal procession. Directly in front of the escalators leading me downstairs, there was a scene just like this:

zombie_swarm.jpg

Swarms of the European flight passengers were protesting up the escalators, and there was a line of TSA agents blocking them and the escalators. Probably jealous we got to board first. Downstairs I could see my family standing in front of the empty gate gesturing for me to board before they leave me behind and adopt another child.

Folks I don't know how I made it, but I did. I remember taking a deep breath, jumping between a few bodies, hearing a few curses in different languages I couldn't understand, but I ended up the last person boarding the flight.

The entire delay was a little bit more than eleven hours. I loved every minute in Turkey, but I hated that trip more than anything in the world.
 
Long story, but in the Grand Canyon, by myself with a smashed ankle, no water and a hundred-degree temperatures for about twenty hours, until the Search and Rescue teams found me.
 
Now there's a tale just has to be told! Sounds horrendous, Mr Quixotic! You've lived, so now you have to tell all some day in some way.
 
Ah, I'm not sure where to start, to put it all in context. Let's just say that not long before I met up with a couple of American guys that I'd met on my travels, to hike the Grand Canyon, I'd been in Africa, running a temperature of over 105, which initially was thought may have been malaria, but I'd say more likely was along the lines of alcohol poisoning, considering the amount consumed on the trip!

I only knew the American guys superficially, so on the hike back up the Canyon, as everything I'd put my body through over the past couple of months caught up with me, and I started to throw up my stomach lining, and fall over every five metres, when I told them, "You guys go ahead, I just need a little rest," they said okay, and left me with about a half gallon of water.

It was only when they reached the top, about ten hours later, they realised there was no way in hell I was going to make it, so went to the Canyon Authorities. In the meantime, having ran out of water, and in my not quite clear state of mind, attempting to take a short-cut, I'd gotten well off the beaten path. I rested up overnight, and then decided to head back to where I'd found a stream bed previously. That's when I thought I'd take another short-cut, and instead of finding a way down the bank, I hung off a ledge, and dropped about ten-feet.

When I landed, I heard a 'crack', stood up, and my ankle was flopping sideways. Fortunately, the search-and-rescue teams had already been mobilised, and about eight or ten hours later, I was located, pumped full of fluids and morphine, and evacuated by Helicopter. The strange thing was I'd experienced no real pain until they arrived, then it hurt like a bitch!

Spent five days in Hospital, then rang my Mum, and her first words were, "When are you coming home?" Being stubborn Quix, my instinctive reaction to that expectation was "I'm not", so, after a few more days in a Hotel, I Amtracked it to Vancouver, and spent the next five weeks traversing the Canadian Rockies on crutches, and a foot to knee cast.

It was a fun experience, and all I can say, is thanks to whoever invented Travel Insurance :)
 
Oklahoma. Pretty much you could copy and paste what HeyThereLittleBear said about NC but add Baptist to what someone needs to be to be considered a person.

The town I lived in from Kindergarten to 2nd grade my family was the only non-Baptist family. Everyone in the town was the same at least outwardly. They were all white, cis, het, conservative and Baptist. I was called some pretty horrible things throughout my life in that state. I was even told by my teachers I could read my "heathen texts" out in the hallway while the principal read passages of the New Testament over the intercom. My "heathen texts" were early sci-fi readers.

The next school I went to with a population over 400 there were 12 kids who weren't white and Baptist. 2 students of Japanese descent, 1 Native American, 1 Greek Orthodox, 2 Jews, 3 African Americans, 1 Latino and 2 Catholics. The 12 of us had to look out for each other as we pretty much all got bullied often.

The other place that was awful was Jamaica. A buddy of mine, his girlfriend and I traveled inland to see what the country was like. When we hit this town which seemed nice we were harassed repeatedly being asked, "How much for the girl?" Now some of them were wanting to hire her for sex work but some of them wanted to buy her like human trafficking and we were disgusted. They mostly talked to my buddy and I because as a woman she clearly didn't have any say over her body. It makes me angry thinking about it. It was a really rough two days we were getting worn down, honestly we wanted to throw down but knew we'd get in trouble and beat up by most of the town if we did something.
 
Wonderful story, Quix! You're like an adventurer! Someone they'd make a movie about! When you first said you got stuck in the Grand Canyon with a smashed ankle for 20 hours, my initial thought was, "Hey, yeah, I saw that movie. The one with James Franco." XD Totally different mental impression than the actual story you told, so, I'm glad you shared it with us.

Lots of close calls, people! Everybody so far seems to get in these tight situations, like a bunch of action and drama stars.

I think mine would have to be a middle school in Connecticut that I can't remember the name of. It is one of those experiences that bore this deep distrust and dislike for teachers and school in general. This was the only time I was every really bullied and felt persecuted as a kid. Everybody says "high school is the worst" but I changed states when I went to high school, and everybody left everybody else alone, like they had more important shit to deal with. Middle school was my hell.

I was bookish and hated gym, so, often would not dress out, instead preferring to sit on the sidelines and wait for the class to be over. I also wore a lot of black during that time, pre-Goth in my awkward pubescence, not knowing that by doing so, instead of making me invisible, I was drawing attention to myself. A girl with a huge problem with me and I never knew why, would always corner me in the locker room by the door, while I waited for everyone to finish getting dressed and she'd just tear into me with questions meant to mock me and humiliate me in front of her audience of friends. My mother, having dealt with bullies in her own childhood and having overcome a lot of confidence issues in young adulthood, told me some things I could say next time this girl expressed her non-too friendly interest in me. She told me to sarcastically say, "Tch, thanks for the interest, Essence, but I like boys," implying that her preoccupation with me was fueled by a crush of some kind. Homophobic and not very appropriate nowadays but to mid/late 90's city kids, such a thing was social death(foreshadowing). So, I had gym and I had my perfectly smartass thing to say, was good to go, waiting in my black clothes by the door in the locker room, when she approached me. Heart pounding, never said anything smartass before, the words came out and for some cruel twist of fate, when I meant to say "boys" I instead said "girls." Despite my mortification upon delivery, my very obvious fumbling mistake, it was taken as gospel, and this of course being my first year in middle school, for the next 3 years in that school, I was known as a lesbian. I came out as bisexual 9 years ago, so, that part doesn't really bother me, other than the prejudice the other kids treated me with, afterwards. Particularly the boys, who thought that was the most ridiculous thing, while all the girls treated me with disdain or avoided me altogether.

One time, a huge ghetto girl confronted me on the bus because someone said I'd been looking under the tables at girls between their legs and she'd been one of them, supposedly. That old "gays are perverts and deviants" bias I experienced firsthand. I was very upset, especially since she was antagonistic and threatening, pushing me around a bit, about this thing I did not do to her. The bus ride then did not become a very safe place to be either because we lived in the same neighborhood.

The teachers were probably the worst yet, not very helpful, coming up with solutions that isolated me instead. I've only ever been accused of misconduct with a teacher twice, and both times were at this school. The one that destroyed me was my second year at that school, from the one teacher who had been supportive to me during my first year. He recognized my writing talent early on and would let me read my stories, often Stephen King influenced, in front of the class. This budding interest was definitely coaxed by that experience. So, next year, didn't have him as a teacher but wanted to show him some new artwork I'd done. I was mega into Sailor Moon at the time and drew a magical girl with seismic powers, where she pressed her fists together and Kamehameha'd at the ground with a huge energy blast, with a black ball and lightning coming from it, destroying the ground and kicking up boulders and rocks. Passing him in the hallway, I told him I had to hurry to class and handed him the drawing, rushing off.

Next, I get called into the office in this back room with the school authority figures like superintendent, vice principal, principal, and school therapist were all sitting around a table, and my mom is there, crying. I was totally blindsided. Apparently, the concept of magical girls and anime was lost on them, because they thought the positioning of the girl's fists, just happening to be hovering between her legs, meant she was masturbating. It didn't matter what I said. It didn't matter what my mom said. That was what it was and I was obviously trying to seduce my old English teacher, my explanation for giving it to him, "He was my friend" twisted into something perverse. I was banned from drawing for the next two years, put into Special Ed, despite not needing it(my grades going down were a direct result of the horrible conditions I was surrounded with from social pressures and apathetic teachers) and the Spec Ed teachers definitely did their best to enforce this rule. Even eating lunch with them privately one time, because I was scared to go to the lunch room with everyone else, I drew a little doodle on the chalk board and was reprimanded immediately.

Everything else that's ever happened to me is sunshine and roses compared to being in that school for 3 years, told not to draw because it was "wrong." Being an artist since I was very young, it was like death.
 
Not so much an adventurer, Rudolph. More like a combination of stubborness, stupidity, and ignorance, both on my behalf, and the guys, who, because of impatience, and because we really didn't know each other that well, believed me when I said I'd be fine. And, nothing in compared to the guy in the James Franco movie, which I haven't seen, but I have read Aron Rolston's biography. What he experienced, and how he survived, was incredible.

Sorry to hear about your Hell, and being stuck there for three years. High-School can oftentimes be the cruelest place of all.
 
How about in a room full of homophobes? No joke, lol. Got dragged to a sermon by my very staunchly Christian grandparents (While I was visiting. This was during a college break my freshman year.) when the topic just so happened to be homosexuality. Me and my flaming hairstyle didn't really do well once that started--also, a few family friends were there, all of which were aware of my transition from female to male, which just kind of worsened my anxiety. Every time I looked around, I saw someone eyeing me...unnerving as hell. It had to be the most uncomfortable hour of my life. I'm still not sure how I didn't just leave early. Not really sure what I expected from my podunk redneck town, especially since I already knew that this particular church wasn't very open to deviation.

I argued pretty loudly with my grandpa as we left, saying conventional church was total bullshit and a waste of my time if I was just going to be shamed for who I was. He thought there was nothing wrong with the sermon and once again reflected his disappointment in my life choices. I sped off pretty damn fast out of that parking lot. I decided to get my stuff and kick it with a familiar dude on grind for the night, rather than spend it with them. Which I guess is pretty funny, given the circumstances.
 
Bumfuck, Missouri

I was actually born there, and my earliest memories are moderately happy, but when my parents divorced I left with my mom to California and my dad stayed in Missouri. I'd visit in the summer, and that was reasonably decent, usually stay for a month or two before heading back to Cali.

What was shitty was when I was around 14, and I was a complete hellion for my mom. teen-aged rebellion, the usual. So she sent me to live with my dad for about 4 months, and finish up my 8th grade year. So I was a bisexual punk/goth atheist living in an area where church youth group was where you went to meet up with everyone. I was immediately ostracized, left with one friend.

But hey, that friend knew a couple older guys who like rock music and smoked pot, and lucky me, I got invited to go along. So I smoked pot for the first time with a cute junior, and I definitely pretended to be higher than I was, so I could fit in. This guy, probably 17-18 took that as an opportunity to feel me up and tried to fuck me, and I almost let him because I was so lonely and desperate for validation. But hey, don't worry. The fact that I didn't sleep with him didn't get in the way of being called a slut for the rest of my time there. Fun times. :rolleyes:
 
Mr Quixotic said:
Ah, I'm not sure where to start, to put it all in context. Let's just say that not long before I met up with a couple of American guys that I'd met on my travels, to hike the Grand Canyon, I'd been in Africa, running a temperature of over 105, which initially was thought may have been malaria, but I'd say more likely was along the lines of alcohol poisoning, considering the amount consumed on the trip!

I only knew the American guys superficially, so on the hike back up the Canyon, as everything I'd put my body through over the past couple of months caught up with me, and I started to throw up my stomach lining, and fall over every five metres, when I told them, "You guys go ahead, I just need a little rest," they said okay, and left me with about a half gallon of water.

It was only when they reached the top, about ten hours later, they realised there was no way in hell I was going to make it, so went to the Canyon Authorities. In the meantime, having ran out of water, and in my not quite clear state of mind, attempting to take a short-cut, I'd gotten well off the beaten path. I rested up overnight, and then decided to head back to where I'd found a stream bed previously. That's when I thought I'd take another short-cut, and instead of finding a way down the bank, I hung off a ledge, and dropped about ten-feet.

When I landed, I heard a 'crack', stood up, and my ankle was flopping sideways. Fortunately, the search-and-rescue teams had already been mobilised, and about eight or ten hours later, I was located, pumped full of fluids and morphine, and evacuated by Helicopter. The strange thing was I'd experienced no real pain until they arrived, then it hurt like a bitch!

Spent five days in Hospital, then rang my Mum, and her first words were, "When are you coming home?" Being stubborn Quix, my instinctive reaction to that expectation was "I'm not", so, after a few more days in a Hotel, I Amtracked it to Vancouver, and spent the next five weeks traversing the Canadian Rockies on crutches, and a foot to knee cast.

It was a fun experience, and all I can say, is thanks to whoever invented Travel Insurance :)
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I don't know if it's the way you've written it, but that sounds equally horrendous and hysterically funny. ;). You must be one tenacious critter to carry on like that, but sounds like you enjoyed most of it. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity and glad you're here to tell the tale! :)
 
No worries, Nature Girl. Although it wasn't so funny at the time, it's quite amusing in hindsight. As my brother said, between laughter, when I talked to him from the Hospital right after I'd spoken to Mum, "It could only happen to you." xD
 
For me it was highschool. I always been a social outcast throughout my whole life. Mainly due to my parents rules of no freinds ove type of thing. I met this guy in 8thgrade my buddy aled. No one understood him he had a heavy Mississippi accent and had somewhat of a speech impediment and got stuck in the special ed classes mostly because he did not do the work. Fast forward to freshman year we decided to take it to a relationship now my rep was antisocial but don't screw with me. Been in a fight or two standing up for ppl being bullied. I just gotten out of class and at the time I hung or socialized with goths and hippies. Me and a classmate where talking and I hear alex yelling from the other side of the school. Now the school is a decent size about three levels. I'm on top level at the end hallway I take off. At my he time I was in black get up and wore a black leather trench coat about ankle length. I come to one of the main stairs about 45 steps in all. I have no recolation of this besides seeing alex get hit. Though according to ppl that knew both me and alex I apperently took five steps down lept the rest of the way landed and as soon as my feet hit the floor I took off and superman punched the guy that just hit alex. Knocked his glasses off then kneed him the gut and hit him again knocking him out. Like I said don't remeber it not my proudest mokent but ever since thwt day in highschool I was called Beast. No ikagine a girl a bit heqvy set social awkward being called beast.
 
A place called Walhalla down here. It is a beautiful little town surrounded by hills, very scenic, a lot like living history as a lot of what there is quite old. On the downside it is fairly isolated and there isn't much there, the stores are usually closed, the coffee places, restaurants etc were closed on most days. The one place that was open would usually sell out of everything by noon! I was there for a week and by the end I couldn't get away quickly enough.
 
The worst place to be stuck for a long time. Well, I have been stuck on this planet called EARTH. The local population are intelligent but they only play political games against each other. They would like to be like frogs in a pot of slow boiling water. They keep on heating up their own planet and they are unwilling to do anything about it. If I do not leave this planet soon, I am doomed with the whole lot. Captain Kirk, come to Earth and have Scotty beam me up.
 
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