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He crosses the Georgia state line at around 11 am and suddenly, like a bulldozer, the heat hits him. He squirms behind the wheel and pulls at the seat of his pants because his ass crack is just sweating a river right then. It's too bad that his air conditioning doesn't work but a convertible is still a convertible so he can't really complain.
There's a meeting for him at 4 and he needs to be sure to get there on time because he was kind of late to his last one and dammit if that guy wasn't a total dick about it.
Still, Todd Packer loves his job as traveling salesman. He loves it. He's not stuck behind a desk, he knows a world outside of Scranton, and the girlies down here make damn a two syllable word. He hasn't been to Hotlanta in a year and he's pretty sure the city is in need of a good Packerizing.
The meeting goes horribly, mostly cause the guy had a stick up his hole the entire time. The capital D - ouche had no intention of buying Dunder Mifflin paper and basically just used his time as an excuse to whine about the crappy economy, like he doesn't know about it already, so Todd Packer leaves pissed off and doesn't even care if the receptionist gives him a sexy little wave as he slams the door.
His car is 10 times worse from sitting in the sun and it's moments like these that he thinks maybe going back to his desk job in Scranton wouldn't be the worst thing. He's pretty sure that at 5 pm when he'd leave the office, molten leather seats wouldn't be scalding his thighs through his suit pants.
The blast of cool air when he enters the hotel lobby is refreshing and he adjusts his crotch because shit if his balls aren't still sweating. He drops off his luggage then heads straight downtown. Atlanta air is hot and he hopes the babes are hotter.
Packer's dreams come true because there's this girl, 7 from the front, 9.5 from behind, snapping her fingers clumsily at the back of the bartender's head so as soon he enters, Todd Packer sits down right next to her and buys her the drink she's attempting to get the guy to serve her. She thanks him with a hand on his thigh.
Da-yum.
He tries to tell her about the time he got into a fight with a bouncer but she already seems really far gone and when she opens her mouth to stick her gum beneath the bar stool he notices her breath smells like puke and cigars(?) and no matter how nicely her belly shirt rides up, the broad's a mess. There's such a thing as standards even if he may ignore them sometimes.
He only makes out with her for a little while.
The music here is pretty nice and he can feel that last shot starting to get to him. He can't remember when, but he's started to dance with these two brunettes and they're both shouting to each other, him in between the both of them. Holding his beer up in the air, he tries to get them to come back to his room with him but instead of answering they just sort of start hooking up with each other and he's pushed awkwardly out of the way. Todd Packer is puzzled because on any other night he would love this shit, two broads going at it right in front of him, but for some reason it's just depressing and fake. He can see their tongues and there's way too much spit everywhere for this to be even kind of hot so after awhile of watching, head cocked like a confused dog, he staggers off to yell at the bartender.
The music isn't actually all that nice he figures out; it's loud and deep and it's making his head pound like a mother. He stumbles out to a cab and let's the driver hear how shitty his night has been.
The brunettes don't see him leave and the cab driver tells him to fuck himself as he falls out onto the curb.
His hotel room is weirdly calm compared to the club and maybe his ears aren't used to the lack of noise because he can still hear soft thuds and buzzing. Looking down, Todd Packer notices he must've left his tie at the bar or on the dance floor but he doesn't care because he's really, really got to take a piss. The toilet is still clogged, he'd forgotten he'd clogged it when he'd brought his suitcase up here, so he stands in the shower and pees there.
He swallows and discovers something fascinating with the way his piss circles the drain.
Burping, he accidently calls the front desk and well, somehow his hand has found its way into his pants. The woman's voice sounds hot, like blonde hot, and he tries to get her to come up to his room, says, "Your place or mine?" and yeah, it doesn't make sense because they're in the same fucking hotel and his words are all slurred, but she tells him to get some sleep and he responds with, "On top of you," and that's when she hangs up and the phone goes quiet and he burps again.
It's getting late and he's not drunk enough to pass out. It's actually a horrible realization because it will be the first time in 9 days that he's going to have to try and go to sleep. He strips off his pants and shirt and falls onto the bed like a car plummeting into the ocean. For a moment he thinks he might just down the little Jack Daniel's in the mini-fridge and slip away into a drunken bliss but he really can't have the bearded twerp on his ass again for spending on the company account so Todd Packer is stuck there, settling stupidly on the line of too drunk and not drunk enough.
For a moment he thinks he can feel the shag carpeting of his apartment between his toes but there's nothing there even though he sort wishes there were.
Michael -- he's going to try and list everyone at the Scranton branch and maybe he'll fall asleep -- Michael and Dwight and the receptionist and Queero Jim and the redhead. That's all he can do. It took him about 4 seconds and he's no closer to sleep than he was 4 seconds ago.
In his underwear and black socks, he stares up at the ceiling and tries to think of everything and nothing at the same time but all that he's imagining are the tits on those girls from earlier that night. He can't remember how to fall asleep, like he's a toddler or anything other than a traveling salesmen but then he thinks about that play he'd read in high school, the one about the salesmen who was a total screw-up, who cheated on his wife, and ended up killing himself and fuck, Todd Packer is crying. He's laying there with hot, sloppy tears pouring down his face because that a-wipe died in the end and everyone hated him.
Willy Loman.
Willy Loman and Todd Packer he thinks, and normally he'd be amazed that he could remember anything from high school other than his English teacher's caboose or that fight he got into with Chris Lannagan by the loading dock one afternoon but it's really not that big of a deal because Todd Packer doesn't have a family or even an illicit lover so maybe he's better off in that sense: no one to screw it up with.
Michelle the dog walker (this time it's girls he's done before) and the blonde from Milwaukee and Heather the gym teacher he met at the 7-Eleven and the redhead from Scranton and the bitchy twins from the club with Michael and this really isn't that fun, he decides, because he's a grown ass man crying in a hotel room so he stops the list even though he knows there are so many more. He turns over to his side and the tears are silent now and the whole place is very quiet except then he realizes that the TV has been playing the entire time he's been in the room and it's an infomercial for something he can't make out with bleary eyes. He bets that, whatever it is, Michael owns it.
Looking across the room, he counts the beds and sees that 3 other people were meant to sleep here but it's just him on one side of one bed and he's only a fourth of the entire crappy room. There's really no need for him to still be crying but he's glad that no one's here because he must look really stupid -- drunk and fat and bald, he just remembered that he's bald, and he's got to wake up and go to another meeting tomorrow morning.
So Todd Packer slips under the covers, closes his eyes, and decides that being a traveling salesman is better than his alternatives.
Besides, he can always bang the maid before he leaves tomorrow -- and before she sees the mess in the toilet.
Story Notes:
The story you never even knew you didn't want. The geography and timing might be all wrong, I didn't check. I'm never going to be happy with this one but I decided to post it anyways.
