Monster Presents: Memoirs Of A Con, Part 1

Con-Tamination, Friday, June 24 2011, Day one.

Talk about a frantic day! I got up at 8:30am with full intentions to have everything done by 3:00pm. So much to do, so little time! Started the day wanting to wash my clothes for the trip. My water was turned off! Arrrgh!! I grab all of my laundry and head over to my Mother's house. While that's running I head to the nearest drugstore to pick up a few essentials. That went fine. When I leave the drugstore, I see my back tire is flat. I've been needing to get that replaced so I go to a nearby tire place. That went pretty well also. After I go pick up the wet clothes to dry at home, I call the water company to complain about my lack of water. I get the typical runaround BS. So I wait for the water guy.

In the meantime, I get everything packed and ready to go. I just need to take a shower, stop by my day job to pick up my Day Of The Dead DVD from Buffalo, gas up, and get the fluids in my SUV checked. They finally show up and get my water back on an hour before I need to go pick the crew up at 3. I take a quick shower. Speed up to my day job, grab the DVD, speed more over to the gas station, then to the Oil Change place. This is where the world comes screeching to a halt. I order the premium check up, which is Oil change, and fluid check. This started at 2:45. It shouldn't have taken much longer than the 15 minutes I had left. Much to my horror...I didn't get out of there until about 4pm. An hour late.

With an annoyed D calling me asking where I was, and a pissed off me pacing around the oil place, the trip was starting out a rather unpleasant one. I finally make it over to D's place. Tech Zombie and D are pacing outside waiting for me. We throw all of the gear into the SUV, and we're off!...to go pick up Clyde and Chanel. We got them loaded up and we hit the road.

As we enter Missouri we notice something... PORN! Everywhere there's porn! Fireworks too! Cracker Barrels as far as the eye can see!! Seriously there had to be at least one porn shop and fireworks store every other mile, with a Cracker Barrel about every third mile 'til we got just outside of St. Louis. Once in St. Louis we started to see other signs... WHITE CASTLE!! I for one had never had White Castle, so I was quite excited to have it before the weekend was up.

We stopped about 4 hours into the trip in a small town about 100 miles from the Hotel that the Con was held. We were all hungry, and running a bit low on gas. We stop at a little quicky-mart type place and all go inside. Much to our surprise, the rumors were true! THEY SELL LIQUOR IN CONVENIENT STORES IN MISSOURI!!!! After filling up we go next door to a Dairy Queen. Yet another treat none of us have had in a long time. Unfortunately this particular place did not make a good impression to the fine state of Missouri. The workers were slow, and the other patrons were quite rude.We decide to take our food and go, instead of sitting in the Mean ol' Queen. The food was really good though!

We are now on the final leg of our trip. As we get off the highway, the GPS starts telling us where to go. This is the only point where we got lost. It told us to turn right onto a particular street. Well there was a sign that had that street name, but where we needed to turn was really about a block away. Easy to find the right way. All of a sudden we see the beacon in the sky...the sign for the Hotel. The con was held at the Sheraton Chalet in St. Louis. We got there at about 10pm. Only about a 5 and a half hour drive. Not too shabby.

We all go into the Hotel to see what's going on at this time. KillSaw met us inside and gave us our Press Passes for the show, and we headed to the Con floor. As we are walking towards the stairs that go down to the con, we see Kane Hodder (Jason in Friday the 13th 7-8 as well as a crap-ton others) hanging out in the hallway with a few people. I gave him a nod and wave as to not go completely fan-boy on him. We reach the stairs and much to our disappointment, it was closed. The only thing going on was an all night Vincent Price marathon. As fun as that could have been, we were all exhausted. The first night was sold out at the Chalet, so we had to pick other hotels. D and I picked a cheaper one about half a mile down the road. Clyde, Chanel, and TZ stayed at a slightly more fancy Double Tree about 2 blocks from ours.

Before we went to our hotels, we decided to check out a Missouri Quik Trip. We go in and it's exactly the same as the ones we have here, except for one thing... LIQUOR! SOLD AFTER 9pm!! I quickly grabbed a small bottle of Jagermeister and a 2 liter of Rootbeer. This was at 11:30pm. WOW! My readers from other states may be asking "What's the big deal Monster?" Trust me. Alcohol after 9pm not at a bar is a huge deal for an Okie.

We drop Clyde, Chanel, and TZ off at their Hotel and go to ours. Check in and throw all of our stuff on one of those fancy luggage carts and head up to our room. 3rd floor. The elevator creaked and shook, and was all around scary as hell. As we step out we look both ways to see nothing but reeeeeaaaally long hallways with no decor. Just white walls with doors every few feet. Real Shining type stuff here.

We finally get to our room (which was at the end of one of those really long hallways). D of course can't get the door open. I think he has some sort of electrical pulse that kills key cards. I get us in and we scope out the room. It was ok. Firm mattress, but the pillows really sucked ass. I hate soft pillows. D and I polish off the bottle of Jager pretty quick and by about 2:30am we finally go to extremely restless sleep. Or at least I did. I think his bed was better than mine. Ugh. G'night!!

-Monster