The Lucrative Side of Blogging: Bad Manners Sell

I didn’t always have a completely raunchy sense of humor. At age 12, I went to see Dumb & Dumber with my friend Richard (probably the lewdest person I know)(sorry Richard, but it’s true) and declared it a “completely disgusting” and “utterly offensive” work of film. I was one straight-edged little preteen apparently.

Ten years later, my father walked into the family room to find my sister and me watching one of our favorite movies, Super Troopers. Why is it that fathers have a knack for walking in at the worst possible moment? I could be watching a movie that’s all rainbows and picnics for two hours, but my dad manages to walk in during the three-minute, obscenity-filled sex scene.

Overall Super Troopers is an exceptionally raunchy movie. But my father dropped by during the worst scene of all. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say it involved a risqué billboard with a half-naked woman, a state trooper and a radar gun. My dad (who watches BBC miniseries for fun) sat down on the couch, watched the television screen for about 20 seconds as my sister and I stifled our laughter, then stood up to leave, but before he went, he left us with these words: “You’re debauched.”

I would have been offended if it weren’t so true. I don’t really know how I got here, but I think it has something to do with an upbringing completely devoid of scatology. Farting jokes had no place in our household, so by my teen years my version of acting out was cursing like a sailor and burping loudly. Some kids drink, some smoke weed. I told dirty jokes. Pretty tame, right? To each their own forbidden fruit, I suppose. The fact that I got away with being disgusting in our fairly strict household definitely irked my sister.

The truth is that I didn’t technically swear. I came up with a new cursing language, which consisted of words like fook, shite and ace-holly. My mother thought these little expressions were hilariously clever, and she would respond with a little chuckle and an “oh you; you’re so silly!” while my sister rolled her eyes and wondered, “why do you let HER get away with it?” Meanwhile, when we were in my sister’s room (next to my father’s study) I would burp loudly and then yell, “GOD! Johanna, that’s repulsive.” I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone, but being improper entertained me to no end.

My gross sense of humor was only exacerbated after college when all of my girlfriends scattered across the country, leaving me alone in D.C. with a bunch of frat boys for friends. Well I suppose I had one girlfriend from high school in D.C., but TheRom.com and her band of bartending friends are not exactly good influences, as anyone who knows them can attest. Anyway, I quickly gained recognition for my exceptional belching skills and ability to laugh at any joke, no matter how filthy.

Luckily I keep my lewdness in check these days, because I have a tremendous outlet. It’s called the internet. Blogs like GoFugYourself, TheSuperficial and Peapod's blogs (if he updated them more: IHateDelRay and Chronicles of Milwee) do the trick, but no blog holds a candle to BadNewsHughes, which strives to “punch people in the face by using the internet.”

Warning: if you have even a minor sense of decency, I don’t recommend visiting this site. Dad, I’m talking to you. Luckily, I have none, so I visit often and usually laugh myself to tears while reading about this guy’s upbringing. On the last visit, he gave links to Hughes family Christmas celebrations in 2004 and 2005. Let’s just say that the jello shots, nakedness and general debauchery he recounted made my family tradition of eating waffles for dinner on Christmas Eve seem a LOT less outlandish.

Anyway, he had a link on the site, which I happened to click on and it transported me to an Amazon.com page where his book will be sold come March. At first, I was convinced that he had created an impostor Amazon page so that it appeared that he had a book coming out, but upon further examination, it turns out the page is real. He got a book deal out of his blog, and the book will be called Diary of Indignities. Think David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day, but multiply the raunch factor by about 100.

Anyway, this made me feel really good. And sort of sad. Why does this shmo from Florida have a book deal? Maybe instead of spending $40,000 on a master’s degree to become a writer, I should just start writing about my warts (I have two) and tattoos (I don't have any, but I want to get a windmill on my wrist. I don't know why). Well the good news is that there are a lot of other burping degenerates (or at least people who APPRECIATE burping degenerates) out there. But until my father becomes one of those people, I think I’ll keep blaming my indiscretions on my sister.

The Good News and the Bad

I know it’s clichéd, but when my roommate came home from class, I asked her if she wanted the good news first or the bad. She wasn’t too brave. She wanted the good news first.

“I already bought the mouse traps,” I told her cheerfully. “I think you can guess the bad news.”

Overall, it wasn’t my day. I had my first class for cultural affairs reporting, and it seemed a little dry. In fact one of my classmates drifted off into dreamland on a number of occasions. And he’s a snorer. At one point the professor turned from the dry erase board toward the class and asked, “Was that a snore? Well I don’t blame you.”

I think there’s promise for the class to get a lot better though, if for no other reason than the professor talks with his eyes closed, which is sort of entertaining. Plus there are only four writing assignments, which doesn’t seem daunting after a semester of reporting bootcamp.

When I got home, I had ten new emails. My full inbox was the result of a string of missives back and forth between Peapod, the Scooby and our friend Martyball. Peapod had heard that a guy from UVa was in prison, because he had sex with a 14-year-old boy. He (who shall remain nameless) had a highly-coveted scholarship, lived on the Lawn, was an all-around leader at the university, and I was friends with him. We were admitted into the guide service at the same time (giving tours is dorky. I know, I know…) and so we spent a lot of time together. We were also from the same hometown and went to junior high school together (although he was in the super-dork G.T. program and I wasn't).

This news totally knocked the air out of me. I remember at times thinking that he was one of the smartest people I knew in college. I also spent a considerable amount of time thinking he was a little on the annoying side. But a child molester? Never. Now he’s serving three to five in a jail in Pennsylvania. What a waste….

This news in conjunction with seeing a mouse dart across my living room was almost more than I could take. My roommate and I set up mouse traps and went to yoga, hoping that by the time we returned, our new pet would be trapped inside of one of our catch-and-release traps. Alas, our traps were empty (unless you count half a cracker and some peanut butter), so now I’m sitting on my bed praying the little guy doesn’t make an appearance. Luckily, if I think about my new class, I should be asleep in no time.

Banana and Me: A Volatile Relationship

Every morning I eat a banana. I love them, and I sort of need to eat them (another peculiar health issue; survival of the fittest is SO two centuries ago) so each morning I wrestle with the stubborn banana top, pull down the peel and deal with the most disgusting of all fruit enigmas: banana strings. On my list of Vile Everyday Items, they occupy the spot just behind dirty band-aids and wayward toenails.

But this morning, I was a little lax with my (usually) meticulous peeling process. I took a bite of banana and noticed something hard that tasted relatively bitter. Oh God, NO! I could feel the limp banana string near my lips, so I reached in with my fingernails and pulled out the offending item. It was a big one, and even though I had taken a few chomps at it, it remained unscathed. What are these things made of?

So, naturally, I went on the web to find out, and now after many years of waging full-blown war on banana strings, I feel a little guilty. As it turns out, according to the Chiquita website, banana strings have a name: Phloem Bundles. Phloem is pronounced “flom” by the way. Phlegm with an o? Groders.

Except, they have an important purpose. Phloem bundles carry nutrients to the fruit, so I guess they are sort of like veins in a human (which I realize carry blood, but seem equally important).

In other words, I just want to apologize to the banana strings. I had no idea how important you guys are. From now on, while I will still avoid eating you, I will no longer unceremoniously toss you in the trash with an overly dramatic “Ew!” I will stop dangling you guys in front of my sister in an effort to emphasize your foulness and, most importantly, I will spread the word of the gifts you give to bananas everywhere.

The only issue might be remembering the name. My head is already filled to the brim with useless information, like the height of Mt. Rainier (14, 411) and the scientific name for a cicada’s naughty bits (thanks to Peapod: bursa copulatrix). But I’m going to do my best. Oh, and I suppose it goes without saying, but banana strings no longer reside in my top ten list of Vile Everyday Items. They’ve been replaced by the detached black hairs occasionally found in restaurant fare.













These bananas seem a little peeved after years of injustice. Can you blame them?

WebMD: A Cautionary Tale

I finally turned in my master’s piece (not to be confused with a masterpiece), so now I can blog freely without anything hanging over my head. At least until tonight, when my first class starts. I was comparing my class schedule with my roommate’s and it appears that I may have gotten screwed. She has about 6 hours of class per week. I have one class that alone will be occupying 10 hour of my week (three hours Thursday night (why would they schedule a class during The Office?) and seven hours on Fridays (so no more 3 p.m. buses back to D.C. to see the fam))

But on to more important topics, like valium.

My mystifying health problem started a few months ago. I was having dinner at a Mexican restaurant when something strange happened. I chewed a bite of chicken enchilada and swallowed, except that the food didn’t go anywhere. It just sort of sat in my throat impeding my breathing. It lasted for an eternity (or about 5 seconds) and then finally went down Esophagus Road and into my belly where it belonged. But I was totally freaked out for a few minutes, and then promptly forgot about it. A couple weeks ago though it happened again. I swallowed, except I didn’t, and my body went into I’m Choking! mode. It’s a horrible sensation. When the food is in my throat, it’s as if I’m trying to swallow but I can’t remember how.

After that, it just kept happening. At least I think it kept happening, but it’s possible that I had just scared myself. My mother was convinced it was an allergy, but a quick visit to WebMD had convinced me otherwise. After my little site search, I knew that my problem was one of three things: throat tumors, early signs of MS or esophageal cancer. My hypochondria was only exacerbated by a discussion with a friend. When I told her my symptoms, she said, “oh my mom has that. She has Parkinson’s.” I hadn’t even considered this possibility yet. Add it to the list.

I made an appointment to see a doctor, knowing that she would laugh hysterically at all of my ridiculous WebMD-fueled assumptions. As it turned out, she was more of an alarmist than I was. She told me that I needed to see an ear, nose and throat doctor immediately. “Don’t wait a week. Go today if you can.”

“This is it,” I thought to myself. “I’m really dying.”

So I made an appointment for the next morning with an ENT, Dr. Gopesh Sharma. Nice guy. He has a daughter my age and wanted to know what we (25-year-old girls, I guess) do at night when we don’t tell our parents where we’re going.

“I’m old enough now that I actually tell my parents my weekend plans,” I told him.

“”I guess if she told me, I’d probably follow her.” Okay. Weird. Let’s talk about my throat, shall we?

So he pulled the tip of my tongue down to my chin (ouch!) and began examining. In the end, he was convinced that the problem was that the muscles around my esophagus were spasming. Those muscles are supposed to relax when food comes their way so that an involuntary swallow occurs. Instead, they were tensing up, and even though I was trying to swallow the food down, it wasn’t really up to me at that point. It was supposed to happen automatically.

The doctor thought it was related to stress. Hmmmm. I guess it’s possible between a semester of journalism hell in New York, the Denver airport and my mater’s project. So he put me on valium. It sounds so 70s, right? Like Quaaludes or something. In fact, I talked to my college roommate about the whole ordeal (she’s a speech pathologist and knows all about these types of ailments) and she said that putting me on valium “sounded a little old school.”

I was thinking about going to see another doctor up here, but after a few doses of valium, I actually think I’m fine. Well, almost fine. I actually had a horrible headache yesterday. I wonder if it’s a tumor…

Procrastination and Panic Attacks

So tomorrow at 5 p.m. I am supposed to turn in a draft (I think 5,000 to 8,000 words) of my master’s project. Mine is about how technology is affecting the wedding industry. Why would someone who vows never to marry want to write about weddings? Well, I can’t really answer that question, but I do think that the topic is extremely interesting (at least, I hope). Yet I just can’t make myself sit down and finish writing the damn thing. So here I am…blogging.

Actually, since I have arrived at the computer lab this morning at 9, I’ve been very productive. I read an article about the upcoming season of my favorite show, 24. (since I’m no longer stuck in Denver, I don’t think CSI Miami can qualify as a favorite any longer. So long Caruso.) I have emailed a bunch of my friends to let them know that I’m back in NYC. I have finished my coffee. I read my favorite Monday Times article, the Media Equation. (It’s about blogs, and it’s very funny and insightful, so check it out!). I also emailed my dad about said article (Hi dad!).

Just a few thoughts before I get down to business though:

The average cost of an engagement ring is $3,500 to $4,000 and even though it started out as a marketing slogan, people actually believe that spending 2 months of their salary on an engagement ring is the norm. Two months. So a typical Initech employee who makes $30,000 every year is supposed to spend $5,000 on an engagement ring?

Well, a diamond IS forever I suppose. Unless of course, one day you’re raking leaves and as you’re throwing all of the detritus into a big plastic bag your ring falls off, never to be ogled again. True story, by the way.

I think it would make a lot more sense if men started buying little chocolate donuts for their potential spouses. It’s a practical option for a number of reasons: they’re easily replaceable from most high school vending machines, they're bigger than typical engagement rings (and bigger is better, right?), they are the breakfast of champions (according to John Belushi), and if you get lost in the woods, you can either turn your ring into crumbs, Hansel and Gretel style, or eat it, if you’re really desperate.

I decided to check out ebay to see what their rings go for, expecting to find all sorts of deals. In fact, there is one “buy it now” engagement ring for the price of 25 cents plus $3 shipping. That’s cheaper than a package of little chocolate donuts! Here is the description: “I cannot guarantee that this is a cubic zircon stone (approximately 1/3 carat in size), it may be glass.”

However, there is also an engagement ring on ebay that costs $273,000. And the diamond is in the shape of a heart. Grody. Shipping also costs around $300, but I guess if you’re spending that much on a ring, shipping is sort of a drop in the bucket.

Okay, enough procrastinating. If I wait to finish this thing, I may start to have a panic attack, which would be hard since I’m already on valium.

That’s my teaser, which is a little something I learned from 24. Stay tuned and I’ll tell you how I managed to procure such coveted prescription...

Day 4, Why I Really, Seriously, Completely Hate Denver: Getting in Touch with Our Emotions

Sure enough, Robbie was awake at 4 a.m. and my eyes popped open like I was five years old on Christmas morning. We’re getting out of this hellhole, I thought to myself.

We both showered and we were waiting for the airport shuttle by 5 a.m. We had to forgo breakfast, but I was getting a little tired of the buffets anyway, plus I figured there would be plenty of time to eat at the airport’s popular Panda Express.

Once we got to the main terminal of the airport, we saw a number of lines snaking around the various United counters. After further investigation, it appeared that all the snaking was really just two lines. I stood in the shorter of the two while Robbie went to verify where we should stand. Sure enough, a few minutes later he returned to inform me that we needed to be in the other line. The really long line.

It didn’t take as long as I expected. We had our tickets about an hour later, plus standby passes for the 10 a.m. flight. If we didn’t get on that flight, then there was one more Bozeman flight at 1. If we missed that second Bozeman flight, then we would hop on our United flight to Salt Lake, switch to Delta and be in Big Sky by dinner time.

We walked downstairs to stand in the security line. It seemed long, but I had no idea how long until we had walked for 15 minutes and still hadn’t reached the end. Robbie and I were laughing hysterically (because our flight wasn’t taking off for 9 hours) and I asked a woman if we were getting close.

“Not even,” she said, and then something like, “keep going and then keep going some more!”

As we kept walking, another line materialized, so that there seemed to be a line going around the inside of the terminal and one circling the outer edge. We finally reached an airport employee who held up a big sign that read: “This is the end of the line.”

It actually moved pretty quickly, especially since we struck up a conversation with the people behind us. People-watching was also amazing. I saw one girl crying her eyes out and yelling into her cell phone: “I should have gotten here at 3 this morning....How was I supposed to know?”

We continued to move forward but 45 minutes later, we were still standing in line with no metal detectors in sight. Still, what could go wrong? You stand in line long enough and you’ll reach your destination. Right?

But at one point, the inner line and the outer line appeared to converge.

“Oh God, what do we do?” the four of us wondered. There was another man with a “this is the end of the line sign” so we asked him where we should go. Basically, the two lines converged into this huge cluster and then on the other side of the cluster, two clear lines remained. The man told us to stay in the outside line, so we did, but a lot of the people we had been standing in line with were in the inside line now.

We waited for a few minutes more, but Rob was dubious about our line choice, so he saddled me with his tiny, but back-breaking carry-on (what the hell did he pack in that thing?) and went to check things out. He was gone for a while.

“I think my brother might have found the front and left me,” I told our new friends.

“Could you blame him?” They wondered.

After a while Robbie returned with a familiar expression: red-faced anger. We were in the wrong line. The outer line apparently circled around the terminal in one big circle and never got to a security checkpoint. People were fruitlessly standing in the line to nowhere.

Rob left again to go ask someone what we should do. He called me a few minutes later to say that he had laid down the law….with the law. He had yelled at some police officers about our predicament. The man who had misguided us was standing nearby and Robbie began telling the cops how he had sent us into the wrong line. The man responded by despondently removing his orange vest. Then the cops passed the buck.

“Well his supervisor is right over there,” the policemen told Robbie. The supervisor actually helped us a bit. He told Robbie that another security checkpoint was opening up in 30 minutes at the A concourse upstairs.

Rob headed up to the gate and instructed me over the phone to meet him there. The most frustrating conversation in the history of sibling conversations ensued.

“Go towards the atrium!”
“Is that near the United desk we stood by this morning?”
“What United desk? No, it’s by the Post Office. Go North.”
“How the hell do I know which way north is? Is it by the first line we stood in?”
“What line? No! You are in the wrong place!”
….and so on. For about 10 minutes. It was painful, but I found him and thirty minutes later we were waiting at the gate to fly standby to Bozeman.

Flying standby is a really interesting process. I always had this naïve misconception that it’s first come first served. In fact, it’s the result of some intricate equation involving premier status and how much a passenger paid for his or her ticket. Neither Rob nor I are premier members and our tickets were free, because our mother used frequent flyer miles. I didn’t realize these details while Robbie and I sat hopefully waiting for our names to be called for the standby list on the first flight.

A lot of names were called. None of them ours. I felt like I’d just been cut from the junior varsity basket-weaving team. It was awful.

We walked over to the gate of the next Bozeman flight with some other people. We talked to the gate agent to make sure we were on the standby list and she told us: “this flight is very oversold.” She must have told the girl behind us in line the same thing, because a moment later she joined the cry-your-eyes-out crew. She was inconsolable. That flight left an hour later. We weren’t on it and neither was she.

Over the course of the morning, Robbie and I had been monitoring the flights to Salt Lake. It appeared that they were all delayed. At that time, the flight we were on was running about 20 minutes behind schedule and we only had a 35-minute layover.

I decided that the best idea would be to check in for the second flight so that if we were late, they wouldn’t give our seats away. We hopped on the train to go to the Delta concourse and started walking towards the desk. On our way, we checked out the departures screen. Our flight to Salt Lake was getting later and later.

We walked up to a little blond cherub of a lady and told her that we needed our boarding passes from Salt Lake to Bozeman.

“Nope. You’ll have to get that there,” she told us. It was becoming clear that she wasn’t the most helpful cherub in the world. I described our predicament to her and she looked at our flight from Denver to Salt Lake and said something like, “hmmmm. I don’t think you’re going to make it” and then kept tapping away at her keyboard with a grimace.

At that moment, I felt a familiar feeling that I had experienced many times over the previous four days, but managed to suppress. This time though, the tears were on their way and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I managed to forgo any whimpering and just stood there with a stoic expression (that Norwegian part of me attempting to make itself known) as gallons of tears made a run for it.

The cherub glanced up and did a double-take when she realized that I was completely losing it. I could actually see the frost around her heart melting. Then she looked back at her computer and began furiously typing away again.

I looked at Rob and he said, “it’s going to be all right” as sweetly as he could.

“Okay,” cherub said. “I’ve made a note for your flight from Salt Lake to Bozeman to tell them that your flight is delayed and that they shouldn't give your seats away until the last possible minute. I’ve also put you on standby for the next flight from Salt Lake to Bozeman in case you miss the first one.” Then she told me not to worry, and as an afterthought she told us to wait and started typing again. “Ugh. That’s all I can do she told us,” shaking her head apologetically.

We thanked her and headed back to hell, aka the United concourse.

Robbie went to the bar, per usual and I sat on the ground by our now 90-minute-late Salt Lake flight because there were no seats. Plus, I didn’t have complete control over my emotions and I suspected that just about anything could set off the waterworks again. For example, I picked up the phone to call my family in Montana, but just the idea of hearing my mother’s voice left me hiding behind my book before I even punched one number into my cell phone. I had officially joined the crybaby crew. I’m just surprised I held out as long as I did.

A half hour later, after probably making 15 new friends, a drunken Robbie joined me on the floor. I decided that I should call Montana. My mother picked up and we immediately started figuring out alternate plans. She was looking up other flights on the computer and I was sitting with the phone dangling from my ear, when over the loudspeaker came what may as well have been the voice of God:

“Mike Hunt, please report to a white courtesy phone. Mike Hunt.” Just then my head whipped around and I managed to see Rob’s expression turn as he realized what he had just heard. The old Porky’s gag. I’ve never needed to hear a stupid joke so badly. We were both rolling on the ground laughing hysterically while my mother shouted into the phone wondering, “what’s so funny?”

“Oh nothing,” I responded and then looked around to see that no one else had apparently gotten the joke. Or maybe they had, but weren't so desperate for the comic relief.

When we finally made it to Salt Lake and sprinted to the Bozeman gate, our plane had already left. It had been delayed, but not enough. I stood in line to double-check that our names were on standby for the next flight to Bozeman, but I knew we wouldn’t make it. A man from West Yellowstone must have overheard our lamentations because he mentioned that we could try to get on flights to other cities and still make it to Big Sky.

“Missoula is only a three-hour drive away,” he told us. At this, I went back up to an agent to see if we could get to Butte, Billings, Missoula or somewhere else in the general region. We had even considered driving from Salt Lake, which would be a 7-hour drive or so.

The gate agent said that everything was oversold, but decided to look just in case. Miraculously, she told me, two seats had opened up on the next flight to Missoula that was set to leave at 9 p.m. I told her that we would take the seats and then called my parents. They were sitting forlorn eating barbecue in a restaurant in Bozeman, and offered to drive the three hours to pick us up from Missoula. At that moment, I noticed that the flight for Bozeman was boarding so I walked over to hear all of the standby names, fully knowing that our names wouldn’t be called. Robbie didn’t even feign interest; he sat talking on the phone to our sister.

There were four available standby slots. A couple was called first. And then, sweet fancy Moses, the woman said, “Robert Merry?”

I was stunned. “Yes!” I shouted and she looked at me as if to say, “you don’t look like a Robert.”

“But there’s two of us. Robert and Stephanie! We’re siblings! I have to go too!” There were about 15 other people waiting to fly standby and I could feel their evil glares.

“I don’t see your name,” the gate agent told me shaking her head. “Oh wait. Here you are. Sorry about that!”

And with that, I sprinted over to Robbie, we grabbed our bags and got onto our 50-person plane to Bozeman. I hate flying, but needless to say, I’ve never been so happy to be on a scary, little puddle-jumper. After discussing this fortuitous turn, Robbie and I decided that we must have had an angel watching over us. More specifically, a blond cherub at the Delta desk. I don’t know how else we would have been on the top of that standby list. (I need to start a late-night infomercial: "See! Crying really works!")

So Cherub, if you’re out there….thanks for everything. We made it to Bozeman. Our parents and two of our three bags awaited our arrival, and we celebrated Christmas with our family, just as it should be.

Denver, Day 3: The Deliciousness of Strip Malls

Robbie and I had another restless night. I think he woke up at 4 or 5 and I stayed in bed until 6. I talked to Scooby’s mom and my parents and the consensus was that there was no point in flying standby because all but one Bozeman flight had been cancelled already.

So I decided to go hit up the breakfast buffet. Robbie wasn’t in the mood to eat, so I went downstairs and gorged myself alone, which felt really depressing. At one point, I called my family in Montana and they were planning on skiing and watching movies. As I hung up, I managed to convince myself that crying at a table by myself over a heaping pile of scrambled eggs was a bad idea.

As I walked back up to our room, I passed two women talking to each other about their travel nightmares. As I walked past, I heard a familiar word. Bozeman. I turned around and struck up a conversation. As it turns out, this middle-aged woman was also heading to Big Sky with her husband and two sons. I told her that I was almost desperate enough to take the Greyhound bus at this point.

“Greyhound?” She asked with her eyes wide. And I explained that she could get on the bus at 10 p.m. and be in Big Sky by 3 p.m. tomorrow. I’ve never seen someone so excited. She ran into her room to tell her family the “good” news.

Another woman began talking to me on my way back to the room. I asked her why it appeared that so many people had their luggage when all of the airport officials had told me that it wasn’t possible to retrieve my suitcase. She informed me that all of the luggage (thousands of passengers worth) was sitting in a giant room in the airport and anyone so inclined could go in and grab their bag. Or any bag at all. This news made me feel a bit sick.

Luckily, I had two things to look forward to: Wal-Mart was open for business and the Scooby Snacks was flying into Denver later that afternoon on his way to his parent’s ski house.

I left the hotel with instructions to pick up some boxers for Robbie. A woman at the hotel entrance told me that one of the shuttle drivers was about to drive her over to the Wal-Mart, which seemed like a better plan than walking over a highway on a snowy, shoulderless access bridge.

I have never been so excited to set foot in Wal-Mart. I grabbed a cart and started too look around. I decided that I needed a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt along with new underwear. I grabbed my new clean clothes and left them in the cart while I wandered off to find boxers. Not three minutes later, when I returned with Rob’s new boxers in hand, my cart was gone.

This was a problem, particularly because almost everything was out of stock. I think I found the last size small pants and t-shirt inside of the store, so if I lost my cart, I’d have to get an XXL instead, which wasn’t going to cut it.

I started to wander around and noticed a man pushing a cart. The contents looked like mine and the guy was practically sprinting away from me with a guilty look on his face. As I caught up to him, sure enough, the contents of his cart were mine, but he had pushed everything to the back of the cart and started to add his own potential purchases.

“Umm. This is my cart,” I told him. His response was extremely logical:

“Oh, well there were none left..."

“So you just took someone else’s?” I wondered and then amid his nervous apologies, I grabbed my clothes, said “happy holidays” to him as sarcastically as possible and walked away.

Not a great way to start the day.

Luckily, putting on new clothes was enough to make me forget that big, dumb, cart-stealing animal.

I did yoga for half an hour, watched some television and then prepared to head to the airport on the shuttle to meet the Scooby. On my way out, Robbie returned from his morning adventure. After I returned from Wal-Mart, he decided that he wanted to go across the way as well, and headed over to Ross. When he returned, he was wet and limping slightly. He had walked over the highway, across access bridge, and he had fallen down. He was obviously in pain, but all we could do was laugh.

“I probably looked pretty funny,” he said.

“I wish I could have seen it,” I admitted.

I was so desperate to get out of the hotel that going to the airport to see Scooby seemed like the most fun ever. When I saw him standing amid a million people in the main terminal, I almost knocked him over with one very aggressive bear hug. Seeing a familiar face in Denver (other than Robbie’s, of course) was the highlight of my day. Even better than clean clothes.

We hung out for about an hour before he had to catch his shuttle up to Breckenridge at which point I caught a bus back to chez Renaissance. I found Rob exactly where I expected to—the bar. He was chatting with another new friend, this time the bartender. We had a typical Renaissance Hotel night. Drinking and chatting followed by a buffet dinner followed by him snoring in bed at 8 p.m. while I glumly watched television.

I turned the light out by 9 and didn’t bother setting the alarm, even though we wanted to head to the airport around 5 to try to fly standby before our 3 p.m. flight. I knew we’d be awake. Neither of us could sleep for more than an hour at a time.

Still in Denver: We Heart Television

My first night in the Renaissance Hotel was a restless one. The first time I awoke, it was the direct result of flashing blue lights. Startled, my eyes popped open to find that the television was on; this was my first hint that Robbie and I have different sleeping habits. Television is his Ambien. It’s also my No-Doz.

About an hour later, I woke up drenched in sweat. The room wasn’t sweltering per se, but my pajamas consisted of my new blue sweatshirt. Any normal person who wakes up hot takes off a layer. This was clearly not an option with my brother a few feet to my left. Just telling people that I was forced to share a bed with my brother, made me feel a little “Flowers in the Attic,” so I was trying not to exacerbate the situation.

Another sleep hindrance was the fact that I was sharing a bed at all. I think every time I moved, I woke myself up as a defense mechanism, because I was terrified of waking up to find that I had accidentally spooned Robbie in the middle of the night.

Let’s face it though. Anything was better than sleeping under a payphone bank at the airport.

I think Rob was up by 6 and I followed suit soon after. I was completely famished, because I had eaten one meal the day before, which was the repulsive chicken finger-beer-bloody Mary combo at Wolfgang Puck’s. I had contemplated a mid-afternoon meal, but realized the lines for every food establishment in the airport were longer than the customer service line. The Panda Express never had it so good.

Robbie and I headed down to the breakfast buffet where I ate more than I normally eat in a week. I had seconds and thirds, including, but not limited to: eggs, bacon, hash browns, coffee, yogurt, orange juice, milk, and a croissant (for dessert). There were large windows looking out into the thriving metropolis that is Stapleton.

In fact, Stapleton used to be kind of a little hotspot, what with the airport and all. Once the airport moved locations though, the area suffered. This little snowstorm was doing wonders for business at the Renaissance Hotel. Their occupancy leaped from 5% of capacity to 95% in the span of one blizzard-filled day.

Across the highway, we could see (near the now defunct United terminal) a Wal-Mart, a McDonalds and a Ross (Dress for Less!). I’ve never been so excited to see a strip mall. I had showered before breakfast, but cringed as I put on the same underwear I had worn the day before. My next plan was to wander across the highway (there was no one out driving anyway….) and hit up the Wal-Mart for skivvies and dental floss.

Luckily, before I headed out into the still snowy weather, Rob mentioned that most likely the strip mall stores would be closed since the roads were impassable. Good thinking brother. In fact, there was not a sole parked in the parking lot and when I called down to the front desk, they confirmed Robbie’s hunch.

So what else do you do when you’re stranded in a hotel? I had a great book I could have read, but reading wasn’t depressing enough considering my situation. Instead, Robbie and I sat in front of the television and watched a marathon of CSI Miami.

I have to admit, I kind of fell for the melodrama of it all. Plus I was intrigued by the way David Caruso’s face looks like it’s made of cream cheese. It also gave me some really interesting insights into his acting methodology. Mr. Caruso taught me that if you want to act really, really intense, all you need to do is say the same thing twice. Except the second time around, you leave pauses between the syllables.

For example: “When you have everything, sometimes it feels like nothing. Some….times. It…….FEELS. Like…….no………..thing.”

He also wears sunglasses all the time, which frankly is a valuable lesson for all blue-eyed redheads. That Miami sun can be brutal!

When we weren’t watching CSI, we watched the news, which was more of a tear-jerker than the Notebook. We learned that the airport would not have flights that day, but planned to open on Friday. Suddenly the Saturday flight was sounding pretty promising. Certainly more promising than my mother’s plan: a 16-hour Greyhoud bus ride. Buses and cars were not an option however, because every major interstate was closed.

The newscasters cut to the airport and they estimated that about 5,000 people had slept there. They showed cars stranded on highways, the snow-covered runways of the airport and people cross-country skiing to work. And the whole time, the newscasters LAUGHED. They appeared to think that the whole blizzard was some cute little joke, as if the most adorable baby in the world had caused a wittle mess-mess. Rob and I enjoyed increased solidarity in our joint hatred of the Denver news anchors.

The rest of our day included such highlights as talking to our family 18 times, watching Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and the Perfect Man (a Hilary Duff double-feature! neato....) and being the first people at the bar when it opened at 4 p.m.

Robbie and I both stayed relatively positive throughout the day, although we were both suffering occasional negativity, which manifested itself with ideas of going back home to McLean, VA (I don’t know how we planned to get there in our little dreamworld). We decided that if we couldn’t get to Bozeman, we would go home, pick up the dog and have waffles for dinner, just like we always would. Every time we discussed our potential two-person (plus dog) holiday, my already marred Christmas spirit faded a little more.

After a day of sitting on my butt with Robbie, David Caruso and Hilary Duff, I was exhausted. We hit up the buffet for dinner after the bar and crawled into bed by 9. Back in my bright blue sweatshirt, bathed in the glow of the muted television, I started to worry that I may never get out of the Renaissance Hotel.

Why I Hate Denver: Day 1, the Airport Adventure

The first snow of the season is usually a call for celebration. For me, this usually entails a 30-second dance in the backyard and the consumption of snowflakes. This year, I witnessed my first snowfall at 8 a.m. on December 20th as I landed at Denver International Airport with my brother. It was supposed to be a 30-minute layover on my way from D.C. to Montana where my parents, sister, brother-in-law and niece were awaiting our arrival.

We had been circling over the airport for about half and hour, so I was a little anxious as we were taxiing at a turtle’s speed around the tarmac. I couldn’t stop tapping my foot and rubbing my palms together as I thought WE ARE MISSING OUR FLIGHT. But I figured that the weather that had hampered our arrival would also affect our departure, so I called Peapod for a little peace of mind. I gave him our flight number and heard him tapping away at his keyboard. He started to say something, but faltered.

“Oh wait. I just want to double check something. Did you say Denver to Montana?” he asked.

“What is it?” I knew something was up.

“Oh…well….ummmm….it says your flight is cancelled.”

A number of four-letter words pinballed around my head. GLAD was not one of them.

I called Montana to tell my parents the news, but said that I would figure something out. As all of my fellow-passengers filed out of the airplane, a woman with four small children turned around.

“I heard you say your flight was cancelled. I’m so sorry,” she told me with apologetic eyebrows and I thanked her for her concern.

“We’ll figure something out,” I replied optimistically.

Perhaps this woman was a Denver resident. Maybe she hopped into a four-wheel-drive taxi and headed home. More likely the following few days were more hellish for her than they were for Robbie and me, because she had an entourage of little ones.

As soon as we exited the airplane, I hit the ground running. I looked at the departures and everything was either delayed or cancelled. Intrigue. This did not bode well. I went to an agent at a random United desk and asked what our next step should be.

“The customer service line,” he told me and pointed to a quickly growing, mile-long line of disgruntled passengers.

More four-letter words on the brain, but I decided that I could keep it together for at least another hour or two. As some uplifting parting words, the agent told us that only one flight had left Denver at 7 that morning and he doubted any more would depart for the rest of the day.

As we waited in line, rumors began flying.

“Well I heard Denver was supposed to get four feet of snow”

“It’s supposed to keep snowing for at least four days.”

“We’ve done something to infuriate God and He doesn’t want us to get home for Christmas.”

At moments like this, people are either super friendly, completely withdrawn, or total assholes. I quickly learned that my brother was the first variety. This was sort of a shame, because I prefer the second method. (Thank God though that neither of us is the third choice; that could have been awkward.)

I called the Scooby. I soon realized that Scoobs is a great person to date because (a) he is a frequent world-traveler and knows what to do when encountered with just about any flight problem and (b) his mom works for American Airlines and has all kinds of crazy access that us poor laypeople know nothing about. He told me that the line I was standing in was probably useless and that calling United directly would be my best bet.

On kind of a funny (in a sick, demented way) note, Scooby Snacks had a flight from D.C. to Denver that same day because he planned to spend Christmas in Breckenridge. Before my plane even landed in Denver, his flight had already been cancelled, but his mother, the miracle-worker, had already gotten him another ticket for Friday.

We stayed in line as I frantically called United. I expected a monotone voice to come on and tell me that I would be on hold for two hours waiting for the next available agent. Instead, I got something much, much worse. After punching different buttons and shouting “AGENT” into the phone, I got….

a busy signal. How could this be?

I tried a couple more times. Same thing. I looked around and noticed some red phones nearby. These phones were supposed to be a direct line to United agents. I left Rob in line and picked one up. In about 10 seconds, I was talking to a real-life human being. He told me a few more troubling bits of information: the agent couldn’t guarantee us on a flight to Bozeman, Montana until December 27th. My flight from Bozeman back to D.C. was on the 28th. I told him he needed to find a way to get us to another city, so we could get to Bozeman. Here comes the second bit of sad info: United flies from either Denver to Bozeman, four flights per day, or from Chicago to Bozeman once every week on a Saturday (the 23rd), but that flight was already oversold.

I got back into line with Robbie and told him that we needed to rent a car to get the hell out of there before the snow got any worse. Suddenly Rob became trapped passenger, variety three. He thought this was the stupidest idea in the history of the world and wasn’t having it. Fine. We continued waiting in line.

When we finally got up to the front of the line a woman whose nametag read Bitch-head (at least, I think that’s what it said) helped us. She spoke to us for about 30 seconds and then a short little troll of a man (her supervisor maybe?) came up and announced that all agents were to report to the break room for a mandatory meeting.

“I’m sorry,” Bitch-head told us. “My manager thinks that it’s more important for me to go to this meeting than to help you.” And with that, she and her five coworkers were gone.

***

Fifteen minutes later, the United agents trickled back to their desks. Bitch-head was nowhere to be found. Another woman took her seat, I told her that Bitch-head had been sitting there and helping us. Another United agent said, “well, do we look nicer?” Was this a trick question? They all looked pretty pissed off to me. The new woman began to help us and just then Bitch-head strolled up, grabbed her coat, scarf and purse.

“You’re not staying?” another United agent asked.

“WHAT? They’re only giving us per diem. What’s the incentive? We’ll get paid if we stay or if we go.” At this point she was getting louder and redder. “So what’s the point in staying? I mean, do they even value us at all?” And then she said something like, “I’m outta here,” and she hopped on her broom and flew away. It was all pretty mystifying.

New agent sighed, looked at her computer screen, sighed some more, puffed up her cheeks, pursed her lips. She typed, and typed some more. Then she told us there was nothing she could do. She offered to put us on the flight on the 27th, but then” “Oh. Actually now that flight is booked. Would you like me to put you on the flight on the 29th?”

As we walked away from the desk with our shoulders hunched, Robbie said, “This is how Trains, Planes and Automobiles starts.”

The snow was falling more and more quickly and the forecasts weren’t looking good, so we walked away from the pointless line, and I called Montana while Rob called a hotel. He made a reservation at the Renaissance Hotel in Stapleton (by the old Denver airport) and after that, we decided there was nothing left to do but go to the bar.

It was 10 a.m. Denver time and I was sitting at the Wolfgang Puck bar in the United terminal drinking Fat Tire beer. I followed that with another beer, a bloody Mary and some chicken fingers and fries. Rob opted for two pizzas and, if memory serves, 4 Dewar’s on the rocks (make it a double, which apparently means make it a quadruple in Denver language). We made friends with a cute family from Tacoma, Washington and Robbie made stupid jokes with the bartender, who rolled her eyes and poured even larger glasses of Dewar’s.

By noon I had a hangover, and decided to get to the hotel. Robbie and I waited outside for the airport shuttle for about an hour. I called the airport to make sure shuttles were still running and they said yes, but a little slowly. It never came. There was a line for taxis at least 60 people long, but only one cab arrived.

After a while, I decided to do something “productive” and started calling United in the hopes that seats would miraculously open up. Robbie and I went to the main terminal because we thought that the United agents there would be somehow more helpful than the customer service representatives. I called on a red phone in the main terminal and asked if we could fly standby on the next flight. The agent first told me how sad it was that someone with the last name Merry was going to miss Christmas. If I hadn’t been so hungover/drunk, I might have cried. Then she told me that she couldn’t put me on standby, and that I had to speak to someone in the airport.

“Do I have to wait until tomorrow,” I asked her, because word had already spread that the airport would reopen the next day, Thursday, at noon. She told me that under the circumstances, the agents would put me on standby for the next day even though it wasn’t protocol.

At about that time, I got a call from Scooby’s mother. She had contacted her boss who had contacted someone at United and she had been able to get me on a flight on the evening of Saturday, the 23rd of December. The flight would go to Salt Lake and then I would take a Delta flight to Bozeman from there. I thanked her profusely, but in the back of my head I kept thinking, “Saturday? I’ll be long gone by Saturday.”

Time for another snaking line. Robbie informed me that it would behoove us to switch off. We would each wait 20 minutes and that way, we could take naps and he could sleep off his early afternoon hangover. I knew better and should have called bullshit on his plan, but I felt kind of sorry for the guy. I could feel a migraine coming on, but I sent him off to pass out and relieve me in 20 minutes. A moment later, I looked over and he was lying on his back next to the electronic ticket machines with his baseball cap over his face.

I started talking to the two people in front of me. One was a pretty blond from Florida who told me she was a newscaster. The other guy was extremely friendly and from Hawaii. After ten minutes he told us that he had flown from Honolulu to San Francisco to Denver and he was trying to get to Detroit for his mother’s funeral. He told us that his siblings had held off the funeral for an extra couple of days so that he could be there for it, but now it looked like he would miss it. He was still so upbeat. I told him that I was sorry and he just said, “it’s okay, I’ve done my mourning. She knew I loved her.”

As I approached the front of the line, (let the record show that I waited for over an hour and Robbie never woke up) I called Rob in case we could get our tickets reissued or something. I could see him from where I was standing and watched him sleep through all three of my calls to his cell phone.

Another agent. As I walked up to her, I gave her my most winning smile. “HI!” I said a little too loudly and then I asked her how she was doing. “Fine,” she said. She was all business. I told her I needed to get on a standby flight for Bozeman.

“You’ll have to do that tomorrow,” she said and then called out “NEXT!”

I tapped Rob on the shoulder, nudged his stomach, kicked his leg and finally yelled in his face before he awoke. I told him the news and he fell right back to sleep, so I talked to the guy sitting next to me. Another heartbreaking story about how he needed to get back to his mother in Baton Rouge who was dying of cancer. It was like I was walking through the chapters of a Chicken Soup for the Soul.

After a while, I told my brother that I wanted to try to catch the shuttle to the hotel again. The idea of sleeping in an airport with my impending migraine could not have been less appetizing. Rob wasn’t so keen to wait in the blizzard for our shuttle to come, so I told him to wait (or sleep) inside and I would stand outside and call him if the bus came. He wasn’t surprised an hour later when I came back inside, freezing and frustrated. I once again called the hotel to see if the shuttles were running. Their response was less than promising. “It should be,” they said.

The main terminal was packed with people. Some stranded passengers had set up little refugee camps. People sequestered themselves within suitcase walls and transformed their coats into sad little mattresses. Every chair was taken; people sat on stalled luggage carousels. I have never seen so many people openly weeping in public.

Robbie came up with the brilliant idea to go back to the United terminal, which was located in a separate concourse. We walked over to the security line which was deserted. I had a feeling that the TSA personnel wouldn’t let us in with expired boarding passes, but they didn’t seem to care. They just wanted to make sure that we didn’t have any liquids with us.

Once we got over to concourse B, we had to find an outlet. I made the idiotic decision to put my phone and iPod chargers in the boot bag that I checked. The ever-so-helpful customer service representatives had informed us that we wouldn’t be able to get our checked bags back until we reached our destination. Our luggage would supposedly be on the first flight to Bozeman whether or not we were on that flight.

Our first stroke of luck was that Robbie had packed his phone charger in his carry-on. Our second stroke was that we use the same charger even though we have different phones. After we reached the concourse, we cruised up and down the corridors looking for outlets. It appeared that there was one outlet for every gate, and even though this concourse seemed deserted, every outlet appeared to be occupied by other people’s laptops and phone chargers. After cruising the gates for 15 minutes, we found a bank of payphones with 4 outlets. Eureka.

Rob stood by the windows and made some calls and I curled up in a seat and tried to doze off into dreamland. Unfortunately every seat had armrests, so if I wanted to be supine, I quickly realized that the floor was my only option.

After a few minutes of fruitless sleeping attempts, a man came up and sat two seats away from me. This seemed odd, because the terminal was pretty much empty. A moment later a woman walked up to Rob and handed him a small bag, which included everything a stranded passenger might need: toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. As the woman walked over to me to hand me her last bag, the strange man sitting near me, popped out of his seat and made a beeline for her. She seemed a bit startled, but handed him the bag and told me she would be back for more.

So much for ladies first.

He turned to me and reiterated, “she said she would come back with more.”

“Oh really? Thanks!” I said sarcastically gave him my best obviously fake smile. I guess he got the hint, because he moved to a different area, but as he was walking away, he tried to make small talk and said something along the lines of, “I wonder what’s in the bag,” as if it was the most exciting Christmas gift he had ever received. My head hurt too much to respond.

Rob left shortly after to go find some food and, I suspected, alcohol. The terminal was freezing. I had on my ski coat, a hat and gloves, and I was still shivering. Generally when I have a migraine, the only thing that helps is to be in a place with no light and no sound. This is understandably difficult when stranded inside of an airport. Fluorescent lights glared down on me and every 30 seconds, a new announcement came over the loud speaker. Robbie came back an hour later with standby boarding passes. The next flight to Bozeman would be the next night at 8 p.m. and airport personnel claimed the airport would be shut down until Thursday, late afternoon.

I felt like crying. I couldn’t imagine being stranded in this airport for another 24 hours. Every time I closed my eyes, I tried to envision myself curling up under a puffy white comforter atop king-sized pillows. The reality was seeping into my fantasy though. It was hard to forget the fact that I was wearing jeans and hiking boots. At one point Robbie went to the gift shop to buy me a sweatshirt. It was royal blue and said Colorado in big letters.

Robbie curled up under the phone bank and I got down on the ground next to him under my new blue sweatshirt. We both closed our eyes and steeled ourselves for a long night.

Not five minutes later, another announcement came over the loudspeaker.

An airport official informed us that city buses would be arriving momentarily. “So if you have a hotel reservation, well then, um, cheer!” the man laughed.

I sat up and started throwing things into my purse. Rob didn’t move.

“Come on!” I yelled at him. “This is great!”

“There’s no way they’ll still have our reservation, and besides, I don’t even know if the buses are going to our hotel. It’s all the way over in Stapleton.”

I couldn’t believe it. Was this my brother or some drunker version of Eeyore?

“Well do you want to TRY or would you rather sleep here?” Before he could answer, I said, “give me the hotel reservation number” and I dialed the phone number of our hotel. The woman at the hotel couldn’t find our reservation and when I gave her our reservation number she told me I had the wrong hotel.

“All of our reservation codes start with 16 not HL,” she told me. I heard a man yelling at her in the background. “Oh wait. Is this Rob? Oh sorry. Yes, we have your reservation.”

“Don’t give anyone our room. We’re coming!” I yelled and then accidentally hung up without saying goodbye. As we rode the train to the main concourse, people screamed into cell phones attempting to get hotel reservations. It sounded like people were having luck; apparently there were still rooms available for those willing to try. But there were still a ton of people sleeping on the floor within their suitcase forts as we exited the airport.

A long line of buses sat in front of the airport and the first one was headed for heaven: Stapleton. The people boarding the bus to Stapleton were beaming. One couple was especially excited. A minute later though I heard the woman say to her husband: “Oh God! The tickets! Our tickets! They’re gone. They were in my wallet. Where’s my wallet?” She immediately started bawling. Her husband ran back into the airport and emerged twenty minutes later with the lost wallet.

It took close to an hour to get to Stapleton, which is about 45 minutes longer than usual. Robbie and I checked in, and then headed up to our room. As I opened the door, a rush of freezing air hit my face. The window had been open. Rob walked over to close it, only to realize that enough snow to make a snowman had accumulated inside of our room.

We went back downstairs for a different room.

“Oh, and if possible, could we get two beds instead of one? We’re siblings,” I informed the woman. No luck.

Robbie and I brushed our teeth with our emergency airport kit toothbrushes and crawled under the covers of our king-sized bed. I considered building a pillow wall between us so that it would be more like two beds, but I was just too exhausted.

It was just like my dream. A heavy white comforter, king-sized pillows, pitch dark and totally quiet.