I am, by nature, a last-minute sort of person. I do my best work -- frequently, my only work -- under pressure. Especially when it is one of those tasks that seems impossible, like picking out a gift for your husband's grandparents and uncle. For some reason, my brain just will not engage enough to make a gift-giving decision possible before December 23.
In fact, I really wish that gift-giving among adults was outlawed, or at least considered taboo or something. Most of us over the age of 25 have enough junk in our lives already -- I'm constantly getting rid of things lest I find myself featured on "Hoarders" someday. It seems that our entire economy is based upon people buying "gift items" for each other; but I can't help thinking that the world would be a better place if we just baked each other cookies or something instead.
Anyway, one year I had a fit of organization-ness. I get these bursts sometimes; they are usually pretty short-lived. So, I purchased a nice frame for my husband's grandparents, and found a picture of the kids where they were all smiling (or at least not crying). I had a nice print made and put it in the frame, and then I (this is the amazing bit) went so far as to wrap it up, in Christmas paper, no less!
I was so proud of myself. I mean, gifts for grandparents are always my personal Armageddon. It's very hard to buy things for old people who have already had to get rid of most of their belongings in order to downsize to a small home in a retirement community. I usually end up sending them a flower arrangement or a fruit basket; I have no idea if they even like flowers or fruit.
I packed the wrapped gift away so my kids wouldn't find it and open it (they tend to do stuff like that). And then...I TOTALLY FORGOT IT EVER EXISTED.
Several months later, on December 23rd to be exact, I realized in horror that I had once again forgotten to get anything for my husband's grandma and grandpa! In a panic, I paid $50 to have a fruit basket overnighted to them.
The following summer, I was cleaning out our mudroom and -- I bet you have guessed where this is going -- I found the wrapped gift. I stared at it for a moment, going "What the...???!!!" Then I unwrapped it and realized what had happened.
I stared at it for a long time. Then I banged my head against the wall for a while.
And that is why I never do my Christmas shopping early.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Why I Hate Halloween
I hate Halloween.
Or maybe Halloween hates me.
It’s always been one of those holidays that never quite lives up to its promise. Bags of candy, that turned out to have a high proportion of disgusting candies like Mary Janes and Bit-o-Honey, and not nearly enough Reeses peanut butter cups. Candy corn, which turns into an indigestible mass in your stomach and causes you to puke. Costumes which itch, or make you sweat, or your mother makes you wear a down jacket over your Cinderella dress even when you protest that Cinderella did NOT wear down parkas, EVER, because what prince would dance with a girl in a navy-blue down jacket that wasn’t even a GIRL’s jacket, it was a hand-me-down from her BROTHER?
It doesn’t help that I have never been particularly good at dressing up for Halloween. Indecisiveness, coupled with a truly astounding ability to procrastinate, usually results in me attempting to throw a costume together at 7 p.m. on October 31.
Even as a child, I was somewhat costume impaired. When I was very little, I wore costumes my mom bought for me at Woolworth, which usually involved some sort of plastic mask and a matching plastic smock which explained what the mask was supposed to be. By fourth grade, when kids take pride in making their own costumes, I favored my standard costume of “A Bum,” which simply consisted of rubbing dirt on my face and wearing one of my dad’s old hats. Sometimes I came up with variants on this theme, such as “Girl Who Has Not Washed Her Face In A Long Time,” or “Person Suffering from A Disease That Resembles Dirt.”
The dirt-based costume formula served me well for several years, and at some point I got too old to go trick or treating anyway.
One year, when I was about nineteen or twenty, my friend Jenn and I decided to go to a Halloween party at a local dance club. We knew a girl who worked there, and she assured us that the costume party at The Haven was the most fabulous Halloween party ever. The Haven, she told us, was FILLED with handsome, funny guys. She met dozens of them every night there, and they were all super nice.
I was skeptical. Dana was the sort of girl who was always telling us about amazing parties that we could never seem to find, and I wasn’t sure that her definition of a cute guy was quite the same as mine. The Haven had a reputation as a meat-market kind of place, where guys wore too much cologne and girls wore too little clothing. Worst of all, it was expensive – there was usually a hefty cover charge and they didn’t even have live bands or anything.
Jenn thought we should go. It made sense, she reasoned…if all the cute, funny, nice guys were hanging out at The Haven, it would explain why we never seemed to meet any. Plus, Dana had even promised to get us on “The List” so we wouldn’t have to pay the $15 cover charge. And, it would be fun to create hilarious costumes. She also pointed out that it would be an improvement over our standard Friday night activities, which included buying a big bag of Cool Ranch Doritoes and a couple of Milky Way bars, and then sitting in the car eating junk food and complaining how we never met any guys we liked.
Her logic was compelling, so we started planning our costumes . In fact, we spent every weekend looking for just the right costume components. Unfortunately, we couldn’t seem to decide what we were looking for. “Maybe we should be ninjas! No -- lumberjacks!” “No, we should go as breakfast cereal!” “I know – we should be Jell-O!” We were great at coming up with random hilarious costume ideas, but less good at figuring out an actual plan for creating any sort of costume.
7 pm on October 31 found us in the clearance aisle at Bradlee’s, desperately looking for something – anything! – that might work as a costume. Jenn noticed that pink saddle shoes were on sale for $2, so we decided to be Fifties girls. It seemed easy enough. Using fuzzy memories of “Joanie Loves Chachi” to guide us, we rolled our jeans up to mid-calf, wore ankle socks and pink saddle shoes, oversized men’s shirts and finished it off with ponytails and a string of fake pearls.
Delighted with our ingenuity, we dropped by the Baskin-Robbins where we worked to pick up our paychecks in preparation for the most fantastic Halloween ever.
“Can you cash our checks for us?” (This was back in the days before ATM’s and debit cards.)
“Oh, sorry…there’s not enough cash in the register,” our manager apologized. “Come tomorrow afternoon, I’ll cash them for you then.”
That put a crimp in our plans. We were nearly broke. But, we reasoned, Dana was putting us on the list, so we wouldn’t have to pay the cover charge to get in. And we were sure we would meet lots of guys who would want to buy us drinks…so we probably wouldn’t need much money at all.
“You guys are going to The Haven Halloween party tonight? You better go get your costumes on!” said one of our co-workers.
“We already have them on!” we replied, amazed at his lack of observation skills.
“Oh….um…so…what are you?” he asked.
“Duh! We’re Fifties girls! Can’t you tell?”
“Um…well…you kind of look the same as you always look. Except…uh…your pants are shorter.”
He was right. We always wore oversized men’s shirts and jeans! And we frequently put our hair into ponytails! How could we not have noticed this before? Horrified, we rushed out into the night to find new and more obvious costumes.
Unfortunately, the only retail establishment open by now (it was after nine) was the gas station. We reviewed the costume components available: breath mints? Air fresheners? Chapstick? Suddenly we spied the only Halloween-related merchandise in the mini-mart: plastic vampire teeth. It was apparent that Plan B would have to involve some sort of undead bloodsucking.
We headed back to Jenn’s house and tore it apart frantically searching for some sort of vampire-looking clothes. Alas, she really had nothing suitable, as vampires are not known for shopping at the The Gap. “How about ghosts?” I asked. “Maybe we could be ghosts! All we need are some sheets!”
Jenn obliged and brought out some sheets. They were fitted sheets, which complicated matters somewhat, and they had flowers on them which were not particularly ghostly looking, but we were past quibbling about details. I got out the scissors to cut eye holes.
“What are you doing!?”
“I’m going to cut out eye holes!”
“Why???!!!”
“Um…so we can see?”
“You can’t do that!”
“What?”
“I sleep on those sheets! You can’t cut them.”
Sigh. “Don’t you have any sheets we can cut?”
“No….those are my only sheets.”
Grudgingly, I agreed that there would be no eye holes. That made walking hazardous, so we opted to drape the sheets in a shawl-like fashion over our heads. We still had our Fifties girl clothes on, and we added the vampire teeth.
“Jenn?”
“What?”
“What exactly are we?”
“I don’t know. Maybe poor widows?” She considered for a moment, gazing at our rolled-up high-water pants. “Poor widows escaping from a flood?”
“What about the vampire teeth? Where do those come in?”
“Oh. Yeah. Um….how about poor widows who escaped from a flood but were then attacked by vampires?”
“That might be a bit cumbersome to keep saying.”
“OK. Laundry vampires. That’s it. We’re Laundry Vampires. From the early ‘50s.”
Laundry Vampires From The Early Fifties! It was a stroke of genius. These were truly the Best Costumes Ever – they were confusing, which would encourage guys to ask us what exactly we were! And then we could tell them, and they would laugh because our costumes were hilarious! They would love us – we were not only hilarious, but charming, in an offbeat sort of way. We knew that we would be totally in love with us, if we were guys, and that if we were guys who met such hilariously charming girls, we would buy them drinks and ask for their phone numbers and then call them and take them out on hilariously fun dates. It was the perfect plan. This was truly going to be the best Halloween ever!
By now, it was 11:30 pm. We headed over to The Haven, eagerly anticipating all the attention we would get from our confusing but hilarious costumes.
The bouncer looked us over skeptically. “Um…this is a costume party.”
“We are in costume. We are Laundry Vampires From The Early Fifties.” We gave him our most charming smiles.
The bouncer was unimpressed. “Whatever. There’s a $15 cover charge.”
It was obvious he did not grasp the hilarious implications of our costumes. Poor meatheaded bouncer. Clearly, his intelligence was in the sub-moron range. Other, smarter guys would be much more appreciative of our awesomeness.
“Oh, we’re on the list.” We told him our names.
“You’re not on the list.”
“Yes, we are. Check it again.”
“Nope, you’re still not on it.”
“Is Dana working tonight? Can you go ask Dana? Because we are supposed to be on the list.”
“Dana’s off tonight. She doesn’t work on Fridays.”
At this point, we probably should have just gone back to the gas station and bought a big bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a couple Milky Ways, and sat in the car eating junk food and complained about how we never meet any guys we liked.. But we were determined to get in and have the most fabulous Halloween ever.
“Fine. We’ll pay the cover.” That took most of our budget for the evening. Now we had four dollars left between us, and that was mostly in dimes and quarters.
He let us in, and we walked through the door.
Inside, the music was blaring and the dance floor was packed. Everyone was in costume. Sexy costumes. In fact, all the other girls were in sexy costumes. Every single last one of them. There were sexy vampires, sexy ghosts, sexy devils, sexy ninjas, sexy lumberjacks, sexy breakfast cereals, and sexy Jell-O. Sexy sexy sexy.
(Oh, you don’t believe me that there was sexy Jell-O? Well, there was. Sexy Jell-O, in a sexy miniskirt and sexy fishnets and sexy stilettos. You better believe it was sexy Jell-O; or at least Jell-O all tarted up thinking she was sexy.)
No one wanted to talk to us; no one male, at any rate. Actually, no one female wanted to talk to us either. We did get a lot of strange looks, but no one seemed particularly interested in learning about our hilarious costumes. They were all too distracted by the sexy lumberjacks and the sexy breakfast cereal.
Feeling just a little silly, we decided to order a drink. Combining our last funds, we were able to purchase a glass of cheap beer, which we had to share.
“This sucks.”
“Maybe Dana didn’t mean she’d be working tonight. Maybe she has the night off because she’s coming to the party instead. You know, not working at the party.”
“It’s after midnight. Don’t you think she’d be here by now?”
“Maybe she’s running late. We should wait for her.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s not coming.”
“But she’ll be upset if we don’t wait for her.”
“I’m upset she didn’t put us on the damn list. And what’s more, I don’t even actually like Dana. This sucks. Look at this place. It’s a total meat market. Worst of all, they don’t seem to be even considering us to be meat. We are less than meat to these people.”
“But we’re hilarious! And charming, in an offbeat sort of way!”
“They do not appreciate hilarious or charming or offbeat here. They only appreciate sexy lumberjacks.”
“You’re right. Let’s go back to the gas station and buy a big bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a couple Milky Ways. And go sit in the car and eat them.”
”We can’t.´ We just spent our last four dollars on this poor-quality beer. Which, by the way, is flat. But yes, let’s leave here immediately.”
We spent the rest of the evening digging around under the car seats, in search of enough change to purchase gas station snacks. We found many things, but money was not one of them. Eventually, we got bored and went home.
And that is why I hate Halloween.
Or maybe Halloween hates me.
It’s always been one of those holidays that never quite lives up to its promise. Bags of candy, that turned out to have a high proportion of disgusting candies like Mary Janes and Bit-o-Honey, and not nearly enough Reeses peanut butter cups. Candy corn, which turns into an indigestible mass in your stomach and causes you to puke. Costumes which itch, or make you sweat, or your mother makes you wear a down jacket over your Cinderella dress even when you protest that Cinderella did NOT wear down parkas, EVER, because what prince would dance with a girl in a navy-blue down jacket that wasn’t even a GIRL’s jacket, it was a hand-me-down from her BROTHER?
It doesn’t help that I have never been particularly good at dressing up for Halloween. Indecisiveness, coupled with a truly astounding ability to procrastinate, usually results in me attempting to throw a costume together at 7 p.m. on October 31.
Even as a child, I was somewhat costume impaired. When I was very little, I wore costumes my mom bought for me at Woolworth, which usually involved some sort of plastic mask and a matching plastic smock which explained what the mask was supposed to be. By fourth grade, when kids take pride in making their own costumes, I favored my standard costume of “A Bum,” which simply consisted of rubbing dirt on my face and wearing one of my dad’s old hats. Sometimes I came up with variants on this theme, such as “Girl Who Has Not Washed Her Face In A Long Time,” or “Person Suffering from A Disease That Resembles Dirt.”
The dirt-based costume formula served me well for several years, and at some point I got too old to go trick or treating anyway.
One year, when I was about nineteen or twenty, my friend Jenn and I decided to go to a Halloween party at a local dance club. We knew a girl who worked there, and she assured us that the costume party at The Haven was the most fabulous Halloween party ever. The Haven, she told us, was FILLED with handsome, funny guys. She met dozens of them every night there, and they were all super nice.
I was skeptical. Dana was the sort of girl who was always telling us about amazing parties that we could never seem to find, and I wasn’t sure that her definition of a cute guy was quite the same as mine. The Haven had a reputation as a meat-market kind of place, where guys wore too much cologne and girls wore too little clothing. Worst of all, it was expensive – there was usually a hefty cover charge and they didn’t even have live bands or anything.
Jenn thought we should go. It made sense, she reasoned…if all the cute, funny, nice guys were hanging out at The Haven, it would explain why we never seemed to meet any. Plus, Dana had even promised to get us on “The List” so we wouldn’t have to pay the $15 cover charge. And, it would be fun to create hilarious costumes. She also pointed out that it would be an improvement over our standard Friday night activities, which included buying a big bag of Cool Ranch Doritoes and a couple of Milky Way bars, and then sitting in the car eating junk food and complaining how we never met any guys we liked.
Her logic was compelling, so we started planning our costumes . In fact, we spent every weekend looking for just the right costume components. Unfortunately, we couldn’t seem to decide what we were looking for. “Maybe we should be ninjas! No -- lumberjacks!” “No, we should go as breakfast cereal!” “I know – we should be Jell-O!” We were great at coming up with random hilarious costume ideas, but less good at figuring out an actual plan for creating any sort of costume.
7 pm on October 31 found us in the clearance aisle at Bradlee’s, desperately looking for something – anything! – that might work as a costume. Jenn noticed that pink saddle shoes were on sale for $2, so we decided to be Fifties girls. It seemed easy enough. Using fuzzy memories of “Joanie Loves Chachi” to guide us, we rolled our jeans up to mid-calf, wore ankle socks and pink saddle shoes, oversized men’s shirts and finished it off with ponytails and a string of fake pearls.
Delighted with our ingenuity, we dropped by the Baskin-Robbins where we worked to pick up our paychecks in preparation for the most fantastic Halloween ever.
“Can you cash our checks for us?” (This was back in the days before ATM’s and debit cards.)
“Oh, sorry…there’s not enough cash in the register,” our manager apologized. “Come tomorrow afternoon, I’ll cash them for you then.”
That put a crimp in our plans. We were nearly broke. But, we reasoned, Dana was putting us on the list, so we wouldn’t have to pay the cover charge to get in. And we were sure we would meet lots of guys who would want to buy us drinks…so we probably wouldn’t need much money at all.
“You guys are going to The Haven Halloween party tonight? You better go get your costumes on!” said one of our co-workers.
“We already have them on!” we replied, amazed at his lack of observation skills.
“Oh….um…so…what are you?” he asked.
“Duh! We’re Fifties girls! Can’t you tell?”
“Um…well…you kind of look the same as you always look. Except…uh…your pants are shorter.”
He was right. We always wore oversized men’s shirts and jeans! And we frequently put our hair into ponytails! How could we not have noticed this before? Horrified, we rushed out into the night to find new and more obvious costumes.
Unfortunately, the only retail establishment open by now (it was after nine) was the gas station. We reviewed the costume components available: breath mints? Air fresheners? Chapstick? Suddenly we spied the only Halloween-related merchandise in the mini-mart: plastic vampire teeth. It was apparent that Plan B would have to involve some sort of undead bloodsucking.
We headed back to Jenn’s house and tore it apart frantically searching for some sort of vampire-looking clothes. Alas, she really had nothing suitable, as vampires are not known for shopping at the The Gap. “How about ghosts?” I asked. “Maybe we could be ghosts! All we need are some sheets!”
Jenn obliged and brought out some sheets. They were fitted sheets, which complicated matters somewhat, and they had flowers on them which were not particularly ghostly looking, but we were past quibbling about details. I got out the scissors to cut eye holes.
“What are you doing!?”
“I’m going to cut out eye holes!”
“Why???!!!”
“Um…so we can see?”
“You can’t do that!”
“What?”
“I sleep on those sheets! You can’t cut them.”
Sigh. “Don’t you have any sheets we can cut?”
“No….those are my only sheets.”
Grudgingly, I agreed that there would be no eye holes. That made walking hazardous, so we opted to drape the sheets in a shawl-like fashion over our heads. We still had our Fifties girl clothes on, and we added the vampire teeth.
“Jenn?”
“What?”
“What exactly are we?”
“I don’t know. Maybe poor widows?” She considered for a moment, gazing at our rolled-up high-water pants. “Poor widows escaping from a flood?”
“What about the vampire teeth? Where do those come in?”
“Oh. Yeah. Um….how about poor widows who escaped from a flood but were then attacked by vampires?”
“That might be a bit cumbersome to keep saying.”
“OK. Laundry vampires. That’s it. We’re Laundry Vampires. From the early ‘50s.”
Laundry Vampires From The Early Fifties! It was a stroke of genius. These were truly the Best Costumes Ever – they were confusing, which would encourage guys to ask us what exactly we were! And then we could tell them, and they would laugh because our costumes were hilarious! They would love us – we were not only hilarious, but charming, in an offbeat sort of way. We knew that we would be totally in love with us, if we were guys, and that if we were guys who met such hilariously charming girls, we would buy them drinks and ask for their phone numbers and then call them and take them out on hilariously fun dates. It was the perfect plan. This was truly going to be the best Halloween ever!
By now, it was 11:30 pm. We headed over to The Haven, eagerly anticipating all the attention we would get from our confusing but hilarious costumes.
The bouncer looked us over skeptically. “Um…this is a costume party.”
“We are in costume. We are Laundry Vampires From The Early Fifties.” We gave him our most charming smiles.
The bouncer was unimpressed. “Whatever. There’s a $15 cover charge.”
It was obvious he did not grasp the hilarious implications of our costumes. Poor meatheaded bouncer. Clearly, his intelligence was in the sub-moron range. Other, smarter guys would be much more appreciative of our awesomeness.
“Oh, we’re on the list.” We told him our names.
“You’re not on the list.”
“Yes, we are. Check it again.”
“Nope, you’re still not on it.”
“Is Dana working tonight? Can you go ask Dana? Because we are supposed to be on the list.”
“Dana’s off tonight. She doesn’t work on Fridays.”
At this point, we probably should have just gone back to the gas station and bought a big bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a couple Milky Ways, and sat in the car eating junk food and complained about how we never meet any guys we liked.. But we were determined to get in and have the most fabulous Halloween ever.
“Fine. We’ll pay the cover.” That took most of our budget for the evening. Now we had four dollars left between us, and that was mostly in dimes and quarters.
He let us in, and we walked through the door.
Inside, the music was blaring and the dance floor was packed. Everyone was in costume. Sexy costumes. In fact, all the other girls were in sexy costumes. Every single last one of them. There were sexy vampires, sexy ghosts, sexy devils, sexy ninjas, sexy lumberjacks, sexy breakfast cereals, and sexy Jell-O. Sexy sexy sexy.
(Oh, you don’t believe me that there was sexy Jell-O? Well, there was. Sexy Jell-O, in a sexy miniskirt and sexy fishnets and sexy stilettos. You better believe it was sexy Jell-O; or at least Jell-O all tarted up thinking she was sexy.)
No one wanted to talk to us; no one male, at any rate. Actually, no one female wanted to talk to us either. We did get a lot of strange looks, but no one seemed particularly interested in learning about our hilarious costumes. They were all too distracted by the sexy lumberjacks and the sexy breakfast cereal.
Feeling just a little silly, we decided to order a drink. Combining our last funds, we were able to purchase a glass of cheap beer, which we had to share.
“This sucks.”
“Maybe Dana didn’t mean she’d be working tonight. Maybe she has the night off because she’s coming to the party instead. You know, not working at the party.”
“It’s after midnight. Don’t you think she’d be here by now?”
“Maybe she’s running late. We should wait for her.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s not coming.”
“But she’ll be upset if we don’t wait for her.”
“I’m upset she didn’t put us on the damn list. And what’s more, I don’t even actually like Dana. This sucks. Look at this place. It’s a total meat market. Worst of all, they don’t seem to be even considering us to be meat. We are less than meat to these people.”
“But we’re hilarious! And charming, in an offbeat sort of way!”
“They do not appreciate hilarious or charming or offbeat here. They only appreciate sexy lumberjacks.”
“You’re right. Let’s go back to the gas station and buy a big bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a couple Milky Ways. And go sit in the car and eat them.”
”We can’t.´ We just spent our last four dollars on this poor-quality beer. Which, by the way, is flat. But yes, let’s leave here immediately.”
We spent the rest of the evening digging around under the car seats, in search of enough change to purchase gas station snacks. We found many things, but money was not one of them. Eventually, we got bored and went home.
And that is why I hate Halloween.
The Time We Tried To Pick Someone Up From The Airport
I don't do well with airports.
A good rule of thumb would be for people to pretty much never depend on me to pick them up or drop them off at airports. Things just always seem to go awry, when both an airport and I are involved. Even if there is no actual air travel in the equation, the mere proximity of an airport within a six mile radius is a recipe for disaster.
One time, my friend Jenn's family decided to give each other a trip to Cancun in lieu of Christmas gifts. Except Jenn didn't want to go to Cancun; she wanted a car. So she accepted her portion of the trip in cash and used it to buy a car. That's a whole 'nother story, though -- the Tale of Jenn's Car That She Bought For $300. I'll write that one of up someday.
Anyway, the upshot of the Cancun/car deal was that Jenn was supposed to pick her mom and her three sisters up from Bradley International Airport upon their return. The problem, of course, was that Jenn was afraid of driving on the highway. So she enlisted my help because if there is one thing I enjoy doing, it is driving really, really fast.
For some reason, it was decided that we would drive Jenn's mom's car, which was a Dodge Aries. I don't remember why I was driving her mom's car; it may have been an issue of me not having gas in my car, or maybe it was because I was car-less for some reason. It doesn't matter.
I was fine with the whole concept of picking up my friend's family at the airport, until Jenn sprung it on me that we had to pick them up at 7 AM. On a Saturday morning.
"7 AM? You're kidding. Why are they arriving at 7 AM?"
"You know how my mom likes to get up early."
(That part was true -- Jenn's mom habitually rose at 4 AM, for reasons that we never fully understood.)
"But that means they are leaving Cancun at like 5 AM??!!!"
"My mom always does stuff like that. Remember how we always have Thanksgiving dinner at 10 AM?"
We chalked the unlikely arrival hour up to Jenn's mom's innate weirdness. It did, however, raise a problem; namely that we would have to leave around 5:30 AM to get to the airport in time. And I, unlike Jenn's mom, am NOT a morning person.
"Why are they flying into Bradley? Why not LaGuardia? That's so much closer!"
"I don't know. She must have gotten a cheaper rate or something. You know how she likes bargains."
The big problem here was that we were having this conversation at around 1 AM on Friday night. So I was pretty sure that the chances of me actually waking up at 5 AM to drive to the airport were pretty slim. I was a notorious oversleeper.
I decided the best plan, to avoid oversleeping, would be to stay up all night. Which seemed like a good idea at the time. Because driving to an unknown destination is always better when you've been awake for twenty-two consecutive hours.
Around 4:45 AM, I was starting to nod off. I countered this by taking a shower. When I got out of the shower, I noticed that it had apparently been snowing for some time. That was fantastic. Because sleep-deprived people always do better driving in snow.
We got into the car and started heading in the general direction of the airport.
"Jenn?"
"What?"
"Where's the airport?"
"It's in Hartford, I think."
"Oh."
I had a vague idea of how to get to Hartford; I'd driven through it on a few occasions, usually on our way to Boston. I hadn't noticed any airports, but then again, I hadn't really been looking for them. I figured that there would probably be signs or something. How hard can it be to find an airport?
We headed north on I-95. The snow was really starting to come down. Somewhere around New Haven, we got onto I-91 and confirmed we were going in the direction of Hartford.
I-95 had been pretty clear, but it was snowing a lot harder once we turned away from the coast. I-91 was pretty snowy. Truth be told, I was getting a little nervous driving Jenn's mom's car; we were slipping and sliding around quite a bit.
The snow started really coming down. I couldn't see where I was going, so I decided to follow a truck. All I could make out through the snow was its taillights. We named it "The Truck of Safety" and had every confidence it would not lead us astray.
We probably should have named it "The Truck of Getting Off At Random Exits Without Signalling," though, because that is what it did. I realized just in time that it was not leading me to Hartford after all, and slammed on the brakes to avoid following it onto the off ramp.
Of course, slamming on your brakes is the worst possible thing to do on a slippery, snowy road, when you are sleep-deprived and driving a Dodge Aries-K. We did a nice fishtail and locked into a skid. I avoided hitting anything, which made me very proud; but we did end up stuck in a snowdrift.
Jenn and I got out to assess the situation.
"We need a shovel. Do you have a shovel in the trunk?"
"Why would we have a shovel in the trunk? We don't travel around looking for holes to dig."
We checked in the trunk. There were two tennis racquets, left over from our brief foray into Tennis As A Recreational Activity (that's going to have to be a post of its own). But no shovel. In fact, there was really nothing even vaguely shovel-like.
We considered using the tennis racquets, but didn't see how that would help the situation.
While we were standing there contemplating our lot, a car stopped and a guy in military fatigues got out. He wanted to know how far it was to New Haven.
We pointed out that he was traveling away from New Haven, and in fact was halfway to Hartford. It seemed he was supposed to report to some sort of military thing in New Haven, but since he was already late and going in the wrong direction, he opted to try to help us.
Another guy stopped; he was the driver of a Stop & Shop truck. Neither he nor the Army guy had a shovel, though.
They tried a variety of methods for extricating the Aries-K from the snowdrift. Pushing it, kicking the snow, swearing at it, rocking it back and forth -- none were successful. It seemed that the car was balance on top of a small heap of snow, so the tires were not actually touching the ground. We tried piling snow up under the tires but that didn't work either.
Eventually, Army Guy and Stop & Shop Guy decided to give the tennis racquets a try. They attempted to use them as shovels, but mostly ended up just making little waffle patterns in the snow.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a car stopped and a little old man with a garden shovel got out. Without a word, he ran over, dug the snow out from under the Aries-K, and was gone almost before we could thank him.
We thanked Army Guy and Stop & Shop Guy, and resumed our drive towards Hartford.
The snow had stopped, and the sun was coming out. It was a beautiful winter day; but we had made a disconcerting discovery: there didn't seem to be an airport in Hartford after all. It seemed that the airport was actually north of Hartford; in Windsor Locks, to be exact.
Since I get confused by things like "north" and "south," "left" and "right," it took a few false starts before we finally made it to Bradley International Airport. It was by now 7:30 AM. Jenn was in panic mode; her mom didn't like to be kept waiting.
We sprinted through the airport, looking for the arrival gate.
"What airline are they on?"
"Air Cancun."
"You're kidding."
"No, really! It's Air Cancun. At least...I'm pretty sure it's Air Cancun."
"There is actually an airline called Air Cancun? Why would they ... never mind. It must have been a bargain priced ticket, right?"
"Mom loves bargains."
We ran through the airport, glancing at all the various airline gates. Delta, American, United, USAir...all the major airlines seemed to have large information desks with large signs. There did not seem to be anything for Air Cancun.
Finally...and I swear I am NOT making this up ... we saw a small desk, like you would have in an office, with an "Air Cancun" sign above it. We raced to it and breathlessly inquired where we should go for the 7 AM arrival.
"There's no 7 AM arrival."
"Oh...is it delayed?"
"No...we don't have a flight coming in. We only have one flight per day -- it's arriving at 7 PM."
We stood there like slack-jawed cretins. It took a few moments for our sleep-deprived minds to process this information.
We had stayed up all night and gotten stranded in a snowdrift FOR NO REASON.
It was too confusing to try to think of what to do next. Plus, we were starving. We decided that we would go out to breakfast, then decide what to do.
The only problem was that we had absolutely no cash on us. In fact, all we had was an American Express card. It turned out that shockingly few breakfast-selling establishments took American Express.
Finally, we found a place that would accept this form of payment. It was the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza. We were hoping for some sort of buffet; but were ushered into a restaurant with white tablecloths. It was certainly a step up from our usual dining habits.
While I perused the menu, I noticed some fine print stating that there was a $20 minimum for American Express orders. It took some effort to order enough breakfast foods to meet the minimum, but we managed to do it.
As we sat there devouring our muffins, yogurt, fresh fruit, pancakes, bacon, and orange juice, a friendly older couple sat down at the table next to ours. We were the only people in the restaurant, and they were apparently from some other, friendlier, culture, as they struck up a conversation with us.
"Where are you girls from?"
"Greenwich...it's down by New York City."
"Greenwich! Oh, isn't that where Donald Trump lives?"
"Uh...I guess so. I don't actually know him, or anything."
"Did you hear that? They live near Trump!"
"I think he's only there on weekends, maybe. But I saw Ron Howard at the gas station, once."
"Ron Howard! He lives in Greenwich, too?"
"Yeah. He was wearing flip-flops."
This news amazed them. It was like we were celebrities, ourselves. Encouraged by their enthusiasm, we volunteered information on other celebrity sightings.
"Ivan Lendl gave me the finger, once."
"Ricky Schroeder went to my junior high, for a couple weeks. Then he transferred because everyone was mean to him."
"Tom Seaver comes into our ice cream store all the time. He always gets a quart of Gold Medal Ribbon. That's vanilla ice cream with fudge swirl and a caramel ribbon. He scoops it himself because he knows we hate it because it's always frozen solid."
The older couple were suitably impressed with our knowledge of high society. We were running out of celebrities sightings, however, so we started telling them the story of our trip to the airport, complete with the tennis racquets, waffle patterns in the snow, and the tragic AM/PM mix-up.
It may have been a slightly disjointed re-telling, because we were both really very sleep-deprived and kept forgetting important bits and then yelling them out later in the story. The older couple looked confused but made sympathetic noises. I told them that the worst part of it all was that it was my birthday, and I was spending it driving around some God-forsaken part of Connecticut frantically searching for bargain-priced airline arrival gates.
Finally, it was time for them to leave. We were still trying to eat the massive breakfast assortment we had ordered, so we waved goodbye to them. As soon as they left, a waitress emerged with two slices of cake for us.
"It's from that couple that just left. They said for you to try to enjoy your birthday."
We were dumbfounded. No one had ever done anything this nice for us, ever! We had never encountered strangers who would purchase cake for confused girls in hotel restaurants! Our hearts were warmed, indeed. And, it was carrot cake, with cream cheese frosting -- my absolute favorite cake.
When we were asked for the check, we got a second surprise. The older couple HAD PAID OUR ENTIRE BILL!!!!! And just left, without saying a word about it!
We thought we might explode, from sheer heart-warmingness. Vowing to spread joy and happiness wherever we went, from this moment forward, as a tribute to them, we left the restaurant and headed back to the car.
It turned out that the windshield washer fluid thing was broken, and the windshield kept getting that white crud all over it from the salt on the road. Jenn had to hang out the passenger window and periodically spray Windex all over it, so that I could clear it enough to see out of. We were tired and had to go to work and knew we had to repeat the whole adventure again that evening at 7 PM, but our faith in humanity had been restored.
A good rule of thumb would be for people to pretty much never depend on me to pick them up or drop them off at airports. Things just always seem to go awry, when both an airport and I are involved. Even if there is no actual air travel in the equation, the mere proximity of an airport within a six mile radius is a recipe for disaster.
One time, my friend Jenn's family decided to give each other a trip to Cancun in lieu of Christmas gifts. Except Jenn didn't want to go to Cancun; she wanted a car. So she accepted her portion of the trip in cash and used it to buy a car. That's a whole 'nother story, though -- the Tale of Jenn's Car That She Bought For $300. I'll write that one of up someday.
Anyway, the upshot of the Cancun/car deal was that Jenn was supposed to pick her mom and her three sisters up from Bradley International Airport upon their return. The problem, of course, was that Jenn was afraid of driving on the highway. So she enlisted my help because if there is one thing I enjoy doing, it is driving really, really fast.
For some reason, it was decided that we would drive Jenn's mom's car, which was a Dodge Aries. I don't remember why I was driving her mom's car; it may have been an issue of me not having gas in my car, or maybe it was because I was car-less for some reason. It doesn't matter.
I was fine with the whole concept of picking up my friend's family at the airport, until Jenn sprung it on me that we had to pick them up at 7 AM. On a Saturday morning.
"7 AM? You're kidding. Why are they arriving at 7 AM?"
"You know how my mom likes to get up early."
(That part was true -- Jenn's mom habitually rose at 4 AM, for reasons that we never fully understood.)
"But that means they are leaving Cancun at like 5 AM??!!!"
"My mom always does stuff like that. Remember how we always have Thanksgiving dinner at 10 AM?"
We chalked the unlikely arrival hour up to Jenn's mom's innate weirdness. It did, however, raise a problem; namely that we would have to leave around 5:30 AM to get to the airport in time. And I, unlike Jenn's mom, am NOT a morning person.
"Why are they flying into Bradley? Why not LaGuardia? That's so much closer!"
"I don't know. She must have gotten a cheaper rate or something. You know how she likes bargains."
The big problem here was that we were having this conversation at around 1 AM on Friday night. So I was pretty sure that the chances of me actually waking up at 5 AM to drive to the airport were pretty slim. I was a notorious oversleeper.
I decided the best plan, to avoid oversleeping, would be to stay up all night. Which seemed like a good idea at the time. Because driving to an unknown destination is always better when you've been awake for twenty-two consecutive hours.
Around 4:45 AM, I was starting to nod off. I countered this by taking a shower. When I got out of the shower, I noticed that it had apparently been snowing for some time. That was fantastic. Because sleep-deprived people always do better driving in snow.
We got into the car and started heading in the general direction of the airport.
"Jenn?"
"What?"
"Where's the airport?"
"It's in Hartford, I think."
"Oh."
I had a vague idea of how to get to Hartford; I'd driven through it on a few occasions, usually on our way to Boston. I hadn't noticed any airports, but then again, I hadn't really been looking for them. I figured that there would probably be signs or something. How hard can it be to find an airport?
We headed north on I-95. The snow was really starting to come down. Somewhere around New Haven, we got onto I-91 and confirmed we were going in the direction of Hartford.
I-95 had been pretty clear, but it was snowing a lot harder once we turned away from the coast. I-91 was pretty snowy. Truth be told, I was getting a little nervous driving Jenn's mom's car; we were slipping and sliding around quite a bit.
The snow started really coming down. I couldn't see where I was going, so I decided to follow a truck. All I could make out through the snow was its taillights. We named it "The Truck of Safety" and had every confidence it would not lead us astray.
We probably should have named it "The Truck of Getting Off At Random Exits Without Signalling," though, because that is what it did. I realized just in time that it was not leading me to Hartford after all, and slammed on the brakes to avoid following it onto the off ramp.
Of course, slamming on your brakes is the worst possible thing to do on a slippery, snowy road, when you are sleep-deprived and driving a Dodge Aries-K. We did a nice fishtail and locked into a skid. I avoided hitting anything, which made me very proud; but we did end up stuck in a snowdrift.
Jenn and I got out to assess the situation.
"We need a shovel. Do you have a shovel in the trunk?"
"Why would we have a shovel in the trunk? We don't travel around looking for holes to dig."
We checked in the trunk. There were two tennis racquets, left over from our brief foray into Tennis As A Recreational Activity (that's going to have to be a post of its own). But no shovel. In fact, there was really nothing even vaguely shovel-like.
We considered using the tennis racquets, but didn't see how that would help the situation.
While we were standing there contemplating our lot, a car stopped and a guy in military fatigues got out. He wanted to know how far it was to New Haven.
We pointed out that he was traveling away from New Haven, and in fact was halfway to Hartford. It seemed he was supposed to report to some sort of military thing in New Haven, but since he was already late and going in the wrong direction, he opted to try to help us.
Another guy stopped; he was the driver of a Stop & Shop truck. Neither he nor the Army guy had a shovel, though.
They tried a variety of methods for extricating the Aries-K from the snowdrift. Pushing it, kicking the snow, swearing at it, rocking it back and forth -- none were successful. It seemed that the car was balance on top of a small heap of snow, so the tires were not actually touching the ground. We tried piling snow up under the tires but that didn't work either.
Eventually, Army Guy and Stop & Shop Guy decided to give the tennis racquets a try. They attempted to use them as shovels, but mostly ended up just making little waffle patterns in the snow.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a car stopped and a little old man with a garden shovel got out. Without a word, he ran over, dug the snow out from under the Aries-K, and was gone almost before we could thank him.
We thanked Army Guy and Stop & Shop Guy, and resumed our drive towards Hartford.
The snow had stopped, and the sun was coming out. It was a beautiful winter day; but we had made a disconcerting discovery: there didn't seem to be an airport in Hartford after all. It seemed that the airport was actually north of Hartford; in Windsor Locks, to be exact.
Since I get confused by things like "north" and "south," "left" and "right," it took a few false starts before we finally made it to Bradley International Airport. It was by now 7:30 AM. Jenn was in panic mode; her mom didn't like to be kept waiting.
We sprinted through the airport, looking for the arrival gate.
"What airline are they on?"
"Air Cancun."
"You're kidding."
"No, really! It's Air Cancun. At least...I'm pretty sure it's Air Cancun."
"There is actually an airline called Air Cancun? Why would they ... never mind. It must have been a bargain priced ticket, right?"
"Mom loves bargains."
We ran through the airport, glancing at all the various airline gates. Delta, American, United, USAir...all the major airlines seemed to have large information desks with large signs. There did not seem to be anything for Air Cancun.
Finally...and I swear I am NOT making this up ... we saw a small desk, like you would have in an office, with an "Air Cancun" sign above it. We raced to it and breathlessly inquired where we should go for the 7 AM arrival.
"There's no 7 AM arrival."
"Oh...is it delayed?"
"No...we don't have a flight coming in. We only have one flight per day -- it's arriving at 7 PM."
We stood there like slack-jawed cretins. It took a few moments for our sleep-deprived minds to process this information.
We had stayed up all night and gotten stranded in a snowdrift FOR NO REASON.
It was too confusing to try to think of what to do next. Plus, we were starving. We decided that we would go out to breakfast, then decide what to do.
The only problem was that we had absolutely no cash on us. In fact, all we had was an American Express card. It turned out that shockingly few breakfast-selling establishments took American Express.
Finally, we found a place that would accept this form of payment. It was the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza. We were hoping for some sort of buffet; but were ushered into a restaurant with white tablecloths. It was certainly a step up from our usual dining habits.
While I perused the menu, I noticed some fine print stating that there was a $20 minimum for American Express orders. It took some effort to order enough breakfast foods to meet the minimum, but we managed to do it.
As we sat there devouring our muffins, yogurt, fresh fruit, pancakes, bacon, and orange juice, a friendly older couple sat down at the table next to ours. We were the only people in the restaurant, and they were apparently from some other, friendlier, culture, as they struck up a conversation with us.
"Where are you girls from?"
"Greenwich...it's down by New York City."
"Greenwich! Oh, isn't that where Donald Trump lives?"
"Uh...I guess so. I don't actually know him, or anything."
"Did you hear that? They live near Trump!"
"I think he's only there on weekends, maybe. But I saw Ron Howard at the gas station, once."
"Ron Howard! He lives in Greenwich, too?"
"Yeah. He was wearing flip-flops."
This news amazed them. It was like we were celebrities, ourselves. Encouraged by their enthusiasm, we volunteered information on other celebrity sightings.
"Ivan Lendl gave me the finger, once."
"Ricky Schroeder went to my junior high, for a couple weeks. Then he transferred because everyone was mean to him."
"Tom Seaver comes into our ice cream store all the time. He always gets a quart of Gold Medal Ribbon. That's vanilla ice cream with fudge swirl and a caramel ribbon. He scoops it himself because he knows we hate it because it's always frozen solid."
The older couple were suitably impressed with our knowledge of high society. We were running out of celebrities sightings, however, so we started telling them the story of our trip to the airport, complete with the tennis racquets, waffle patterns in the snow, and the tragic AM/PM mix-up.
It may have been a slightly disjointed re-telling, because we were both really very sleep-deprived and kept forgetting important bits and then yelling them out later in the story. The older couple looked confused but made sympathetic noises. I told them that the worst part of it all was that it was my birthday, and I was spending it driving around some God-forsaken part of Connecticut frantically searching for bargain-priced airline arrival gates.
Finally, it was time for them to leave. We were still trying to eat the massive breakfast assortment we had ordered, so we waved goodbye to them. As soon as they left, a waitress emerged with two slices of cake for us.
"It's from that couple that just left. They said for you to try to enjoy your birthday."
We were dumbfounded. No one had ever done anything this nice for us, ever! We had never encountered strangers who would purchase cake for confused girls in hotel restaurants! Our hearts were warmed, indeed. And, it was carrot cake, with cream cheese frosting -- my absolute favorite cake.
When we were asked for the check, we got a second surprise. The older couple HAD PAID OUR ENTIRE BILL!!!!! And just left, without saying a word about it!
We thought we might explode, from sheer heart-warmingness. Vowing to spread joy and happiness wherever we went, from this moment forward, as a tribute to them, we left the restaurant and headed back to the car.
It turned out that the windshield washer fluid thing was broken, and the windshield kept getting that white crud all over it from the salt on the road. Jenn had to hang out the passenger window and periodically spray Windex all over it, so that I could clear it enough to see out of. We were tired and had to go to work and knew we had to repeat the whole adventure again that evening at 7 PM, but our faith in humanity had been restored.
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