Chapters one, two and three.

Before I move on in my life and forget some of the details worth mentioning, I shall spew forth the info on my Christmas vacation, although I hesitate to call it a vacation because vacation usually implies relaxation, which there were none on this particular trip.  I laid out many thoughts in a previous post, so I will expand each in an abbreviated manner. 

Advantage Rental Car Agent:  We don’t see your reservation in our system, and besides we have no vehicles to rent anyway.  “Merry Christmas.” 

I stumbled upon this car rental agency last Summer while traveling down to Orlando.  They charged me around 150.00 to rent a car fo 10 days and it was an unbelivable deal since the next cheapest rate I could find for a car rental place was nearly 400.00.  I didn’t even end up with a compact car.  So, obviously I became a huge fan.  I have since booked them for this past trip to Vegas as well as my upcoming trip to Denver.  When we arrived to the Las Vegas Car rental facility, we waited in line for 30 minutes until we arrived at the counter, and the two people asked for my confirmation number.  I didn’t have it on me.  They looked up my reservation by my name, only to tell me that they didn’t have one in my name.  Before I had a chance to begin to flip out, they announced that even if they could find my reservation, they wouldn’t have a car to fill it with anyway, and that I would have to go to Budget car rental since that was the company that was fulfilling all of Advantage’s rental agreements.  Needless to say that Budget’s line was a good 200 people long and we were staring down a minimum of a two hour wait before we would walk out without a car.  I pulled out my laptop while in line with Budget, and pulled the reservation confirmation email that Advantage had sent me more than a month earlier.  While Jeanne waited in line, I went back to the advantage rep and showed them my confirmation.  They pulled my reservation in the system and began telling me that their system’s reservation showed that I was supposed to be there the day before, which didn’t match the email Advantage sent me.  They printed up my agreement, without it Budget would have charged their standard rate which would have been a good 200 more than what Advantage had offered.  Long story short, 1 1/2 hour into the wait, the girl with a couple in front of me started crying and I pulled out my balloons and began entertaining everyone in line.  I made a very large teddy bear for the little girl while the huge line behind us watched in amazement as I sculpted balloons into the cutest teddybear that anyone had ever seen.  Everyone began taking pictures and I felt the stress of the holiday travelers (this was christmas afternoon) in line behind me lift as people began laughing and chatting about this guy that was twisting balloons. 

We finally got our car, walked out to get inside of it only to find the parking spot where our car was supposed to be waiting empty.  45 minutes later, they located another car and we were on our way.  Thanks to Advantage Car rental, what should have taken 20 minutes took us three hours and our daytime 6 hour drive from Las Vegas to Mesa, AZ became a late afternoon/evening trip which sucked simply because we didn’t get to see all of the beautiful mountains and valleys during our trip. 

“We were just almost blown off that bridge”

Nothing cryptic to that one really, but we almost died.  Christmas day saw wind gusts of 60mph that I have to believe were stronger than that up in the mountains as we drove through them.  At one point we were up pretty high crossing a bridge over a really big drop and we were hit with a gust that I kid you not, blew the steering wheel out of my hand as I swerved to the left.  What was supposed to be a beautiful, scenic, 5 hour drive turned into a horrifying, rainy, hail covered, lightning, thunder, under the cover of darkness trip that became more about survivial than a beautiful road trip from Vegas to Mesa, AZ. 

 

Filed under: Christmas, Vacation

What Happens in Vegas gets written in my blog…

It’s pointless for me to abide by the slogan “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” when my wife is with me every waking moment while in Vegas.  With nothing to hide, I am free to write. 

We just got back home from a whirlwind of a trip that saw us fly into Las Vegas on Christmas morning, immediately (not so immediate but I will write about that along the way) rent a car and drive the 7 hours in 60mph wind gusts and hail from Las Vegas down to Mesa Arizona, shop shop shop, drive down to Tucson for two days, drive back to Mesa for one day, drive the 7 hours back to Las Vegas, and then do everything touristy over the next 48 hours that I would never do with the guys, and then begin our trip home.  Gone for 9 days and it was so action packed that I didn’t even get to take one freakin nap. What type of vacation doesn’t include a nap? 

I have many strange and unusual stories to tell.  But before I begin, I have no less than 350 emails and 15 voicemails calling my name. 

I will leave you with some of the fun topics that I will be talking about in the coming week as I rehash this insane non relaxing vacation. 

Advantage Rental Car Agent:  We don’t see your reservation in our system, and besides we have no vehicles to rent anyway.  “Merry Christmas.” 

Balloon twisting on Christmas day to stop children from crying

“We were just almost blown off that bridge”

My future home/Rancho Sahuarita/Old people live like they are in college/Catholic Mass in a pecan tree field with a mariachi band

Fresh fruit and family tidbits

Drive back to Las Vegas/Hoover Dam

“Winner, Winner…Chicken Dinner!”

Timeshare Presentation (this will be a doozie) Tahiti Village

Boobies and Cirque du Soleil

and lastly New Years Fall

I will visit each of these topics and more over the coming week.

Filed under: Christmas, New Year, Vacation, stupid, wife

Grandma’s bomb

As a follow up to the previous post, I came on today to finalize the story I promised about my grandmother, so if you are reading this one before the last, you should skip down right now to the previous story as to not read the end of the story before the beginning.  I think they call that a spoiler alert even thought I didn’t really get too far in the story to begin with. 

It’s snowing out again.  The weather people have said this will go down as the harshest December from a snow/temp standpoint on record.  It will be fun this evening trying to dig our third car out of the snow.  It hasn’t been moved since the snow started falling due to the snow removal company virtually shovelling it in.  I took pictures.  Where we park our car, it can only be backed out.  It’s hard to describe, but by the time I had come home a few nights ago, there was a 9 foot tall mountain of snow not only blocking our car in but also the neighbors.  So tonight I get to begin my quest of unsnowing this car so we can park it in the garage while we are out of town for the next week and a half.  I went out last night and bought a shovel and I was quite surprised to find out that of the three places I went, I couldn’t find one single metal shovel.  Only Plastic.  For the amount of snow that I will be moving, I hope a plastic shovel works.  I also home that I don’t have a heart attack of the variety that you read about each year.  “32 year old collapses and dies while shoveling snow”.   I have to expect with the 10 more inches they are calling for today that it might be possible that I will be unable to get it out.  I haven’t shoveled in a few years, so I will be interested to see how I hold up. 

…i’m stalling on the story…

So, two more days and I will be out of this cold frigid arctic tundra that we call Chicagoland. I can’t wait.  Arizona and Las Vegas will be fun.

…get with the story already…

So, without further ado (I don’t really know what that means) I give you the most disturbing conversation that I have ever had with a family member…

(names have been changed in this story to protect those individuals from what I have no idea)

The background on this story goes like this:  I was talking with my grandmother on the phone and discussing our holiday travels when the conversation turned to my cousin Mary.  So Mary is 22 now and I have known her to be a sweet innocent albeit chunky girl my whole life.  Lately I have noticed some changes.  She has been taking on the form of a boy.  I thought nothing of it since I have several girl cousins that are all tom boys.  So this past visit with my cousin I noticed a tattoo on her wrist.  It was of a heart filled in with the colors of the rainbow.  My wife noticed the same thing and it became obvious to us that my cousin is now a lesbian.  The icing on the cake was overhearing one of our 7 year old distant cousins ask my aunt (not Mary’s mother) if Mary was a boy or a girl.  I would have fittingly used the name Pat in this story, but I could not since I do have a cousin named Pat as well.  But I digress…

So, while talking with my grandmother, she announced to me that my cousin Mary was arrested this past week for stealing drugs out of the Walgreens that she worked in.   She was a pharmaceutical tech studying to become a full on pharmacist, but I doubt that can happen now.  They charged her with theft, and possession of drugs with intent to deliver.  My grandmother had no idea what type of drugs she was taking, but I have to believe that maybe they were the drugs needed to make Meth to which if that’s the case, we might see Mary go bye bye for a while. 

Upon hearing this news, I said “I’m not completely shocked since I have noticed some changes in Mary recently…”

“Oh…what changes are those?”  My grandmother asked.

“Do you  really want to know Grandma?” 

“Yes…I do.” 

“Have you seen the tattoo that Mary has on her wrist?” I asked.

“No,  I haven’t.” 

“It’s of a heart filled in with a rainbow.”  “Being from the Chicago area, I have seen similar tatoo’s and outward signs that represent being gay.”  “That is most defintely an outward indication that she has become a lesbian.”  I hesitantly told my grandmother.  I continued, “Haven’t you noticed that she has taken on the appearance of a boy with the clothes she wears and the way she cuts her hair now?” 

“Yes, I have noticed.”  “I have always told your aunt Brenda and your uncle Don to quit dressing the girls like they were boys.”  “I can’t stand that.” 

My grandmother continued, “Your uncle Don had told me in the past that Mary had mentioned about messing around with women.  I don’t believe that you are born that way, I think it’s a choice you make as you get older.  Everyone growing up is faced with thoughts about the same sex and experiment.  I even experimented with other girls growing up but I always thought about boys when I was doing it.”  (it was at this point that I began dry heaving into my phone)

“What was that grandma?” I asked as if I mis heard every thing she just said. 

“We all experiment and have unnatural thoughts, so I just hope this is the experimental phases for Mary and that she is thinking about Boys like I did.”  It was at this point that I don’t really remember the rest of the conversation.  She sounded like a school teacher in a Charlie Brown cartoon because I was pressing the Ctrl, Alt, Delete keys in my brain searching for a time in my memory before I heard what I just had to safely go back to.  In hindsight, my grandmother does say some off the wall comments from memory where my grandfather will look at her like she’s crazy.  I have to wonder if he could have heard what she said if he would have given her that look.  This is proof once again that I was actually dropped off on my mom and dad’s doorstep after birth. 

So, upon hanging up the phone, I immediately called my wife to tell her the story and ask if it was indeed true that all girls go through that phase.  I waited for my wife to confess but I got nothing.  “Maybe you aren’t there yet.”  “You wish”  was pretty much her reply.

Have a safe and happy holiday season.  Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kawnza, Winter Solstice, Birth of the Baby Jesus, and whatever else you can call it.  I have another funny fat coworker girl in training class with me story but i’ll save that for later.  If anything happens in Arizona/Vegas while I am traveling I’ll put it up.

Filed under: Christmas, Grandma, Lesbian, New Year, barf, creepy, puke, scared, train wreck, weird

It doesn’t seem like Christmas

I guess that is because everything has sort of moved into some sort of warp speed around me.  Just yesterday the leaves were beginning to fall off of the trees and now we have 6 inches of snow on the ground and we are expecting another 12 inches to fall this evening. 

In another 7 days I will be heading out of town with the wife for 9 days in our attempt to squeeze in one final crazy vacation this year.  It has been a really good year for travels for me.  Now that I think about it, this will be my third trip to Las Vegas in 2008.  I don’t know what that means…but I am sure it can’t be good. 

This trip isn’t all about Las Vegas though.  We are flying in on Christmas morning and then immediately driving from Vegas to Mesa, AZ to visit with family for five days.  Then we drive back to Las Vegas and celebrate New Years in style.  I am a bit nervous about this trip since this will be the first time that my wife has ever experienced Vegas before.  Vegas as I know it to be will be much different this time around.  A typical visit for me would go as follows.  Around 9:00pm we would begin by playing some table games before we go out to the bars/clubs until around 4:00am and then go back and play table games until 10:00am in the morning.  By that time we would stuble up to the room and pass out until around 7:00pm when we would attempt to get some sort of food in you to get you through another 24 hours of the same thing.  Outside of one of my past trips this summer, I rarely see the light of day. I would say that I take on a vampire like existence while out there.   But not this time…

My wife doesn’t like to gamble.  So, this trip will actually be about shows and dinners and people watching and doing touristy things.  Essentially we will be doing everything that I have never done there.  So, it should be fun, but not the Vegas I know. 

The whole “it doesn’t seem like Christmas” thing probably boils down to the fact that this is the first Christmas ever that I didn’t have a Christmas tree up.  For the first time ever I can honestly say that I now understand how much Christmas Spirit is attached to a tree.  There is nothing like watching the snow fall outside with the lights out and the fireplace on while the tree lights glow.  (That might have been the gayest thing I have ever said) Not having a tree was a tough decision but due to the holiday travels we thought that we would just completely forgo any sort of holiday decoration this year to save us time before and after we leave for this trip. 

I am sure after we get back there will be all sorts of stories to tell.  I’m gonna head out and prepare for the 28″ inches of snow that everyone is calling for.

Filed under: Christmas, Vacation, balloon, weird, wife, work