No Fly List: Notes From Sub Pop’s Airport Store (November 2015)

Unthanksgiving at the Airport

Welcome to another dispatch from the Sub Pop store. The months of October and early November bring a relative downtime at the airport, in-between the busier summer vacation and holiday travel seasons. One might assume that we would use this opportunity to re-group, develop plans for improving the store, and/or stockpile winter-wear goods. Instead, I’ve used the lull to stew about all the regrets and perceived slights I’ve experienced this year. In honor of Thanksgiving, I decided to type out some things that I am particularly ‘unthankful’ for, because sometimes it’s necessary and cathartic to express your gripes, in order to see how petty/inconsequential/ridiculous they might be. I also strong-armed a few of my co-workers to join me in giving ‘unthanks’ this year. Enjoy!

Here at the store, I am unthankful for the following things:

-Dust bunnies that look like dreadlocks.

-Canadian coins in the cash register.

-Only being able to play a few seconds of Eugene Mirman’s ”full-hearted 45-minute cry-a-thon” in the store before I am overcome by emotion and have to change it.

-Not recognizing the following people until immediately after they left the store:

• Wayne Coyne
• Sherman Alexie
• Jaron Lanier
• The members of Poison Idea

-Customers who ask, “Will this t-shirt fit my son/daughter/wife/husband/niece/nephew/dog?”

-The sounds that emanate from occupied stalls in the men’s bathroom(s).

-The man wearing shorts who insisted on showing me his recent jellyfish stings on his legs.

-The question, “Now that Sub Pop has a store in the airport, does that mean they have officially sold out?”

-Waking up early to make a lunch and then forgetting it at home.

-The father who talked on his cellphone for 10 minutes about the consistency/texture/color of his new baby’s bowel movements. 

In my personal life, I’m unthankful that my favorite baseball player, Juan Uribe, is no longer employed by my favorite baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers. And also that this much-needed scientific device has not been released yet. 

Let’s turn it over to some of my co-workers!

Olivia: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCC8fDOqO7U

Kane:

“I’m unthankful for:

 - The Seattle Mariners

 - Ben Carson’s fully functional vocal cords

 - Rain but no snow 

 - No parks to speak of in Parkland (I know right?) 

 - Traffic (how original)”

Josh:

“Here we are again, at the eleventh hour, and of course, I show up at your “E” door-step in my sweatpants and curlers, yielding yet another untimely and, probably unusable, contribution to this months monthly news such and such. I am very sorry of course, but I can grant you no guarantee that this will not be the last incident of this sort, most likely all submissions will arrive in your “in” basket around 6pm of the afternoon following day any deadline given. 

So you have asked for us to submit  a list of some of the things things for which we were not so thankful for this year, leaning in the direction of funny. I am afraid my friend that I cannot grant you the wish that you desire. For, after an exceedingly large quantity of pondering, and a few glasses of Tang drink, I can’t, for the life of me, conjure up even one thing that I am unthankful for. I seem to busting at my pant legs with a sort of humble Gratitude for all, and all of my existence and the universe, and all of the whatnot of this sometimes crazy world we all have to live in. So apologize, I can’t fulfill this months request, at least not with this stupid brain.

I can however list a few of the wonderful things from this year that I, so very graciously, give thanks for. For example, I am overwhelmingly grateful for my family. This time of year you can’t avoid thinking about family. I always remember all of those good times we had while we were growing up, all of the holidays we spent together, and the summers too. How lucky am I to have been born into such a loving and caring group of individuals? I do kind of wish Randy was dead though.

I can no longer submit to useless negative emotions that can overwhelm you and withhold the marvelous wonders and joys that life has to give, such as, cats! What furry, kind and, beautiful beasts, so cute and small but bigger than rats and not as loyal as a dogs. Our cat, Tab, turned 5 this year and although I am deathly allergic to her fur and dander, and I really wish she would use the scratching post instead of the couch. I am really grateful the vet has the means to fight off her cancerous lesions thereby sustaining her life for a mere $500 dollars a session, ensuring that my wife and I will have a furry friend who tracks it’s cat bathroom sand throughout our once odor free home, for many years to come. 

The point Is, who am I to complain when there is so much suffering out there and I have so much in my life like, tinnitus, my illiterate mail man who doesn’t really “get” what numbers mean, and what about traffic?

Life is a gift and I have no complaints, only gratitude. 

If this is too long just put “White Sauce,” why does everybody put it on everything? What’s the deal with that?

-Coach Tuttle”