Welcome
back, Conrad! Last time, the witty slacker gave us a bungling account of
working low-wage retail and fast-food jobs in The Customer is Always Wrong. I just enjoy this author’s hilarious
accounts on work and life. His satirical prose summarized how much working
sucks. Now, as he approaches his 20’s, he begins working as a baggage handler at
Aircraft Services, which allowed him to fly damn near anywhere for free, which may
not sound like much, but for a Minnesota kid, who was “landlocked in the center
of the United States” and has never been anywhere, this was a desperate cry for
freedom. “There was a big world out there full of fun girls.” (8)
This book takes the
reader into the life of a Ramp Rat. “In
some ways, the airport was a lot like prison: each day you passed through a
secured gate into restricted government property and spent the next eight hours
surrounded by men with nothing but time on their hands.” (29)
I kind of
figured working the grinds of a terminal airport would be mindless and tedious.
Admittedly, the day-to-day tasks slowed down the story a bit with all the plane
jargon and whatnot. But, just like the last book, the story was full of
colorful characters and snarky dialogue.
“I pondered my next move: my girlfriend had just dumped me, my rent
was being raised, and my overnight bag smelled like piss.” (63)
In this
sequel, good ole’ Conrad learns the hard way that life ain’t all peachy keen
and that sometimes, even though you don’t want to, you have to be a grown up.
The book had
the same old intellectual wit and crude commentary from the previous work, but
it just felt a little subpar. The story tended to go off-tangent at times and
it sort’ve lagged a bit. I definitely liked the first book better. This one was
pretty good, but not as good as the first.
My rating: 3.5 stars
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