Monday, December 29, 2003

Home For the Holidays Awards

WORST QUESTION: "Would you like to buy a headphone set?" This stewardess tried to sell me $7 worth of headphones for a 90 minute flight. "What's showing?" the guy in front of me asked. "Oh, Entertainment Tonight-type features, music videos, that sort of thing," she said. Bitch, I don't watch Entertainment Tonight at home when it's on for free. The day I pay actual money to listen to Mary Hart talk is the day I want somebody to kill me for potentially poisoning the gene pool.

I glanced up a couple times from my book (purchased for $6.50, incidentally) at the TV monitors and those lucky, lucky headphone-wearers were watching some weirdass Claymation thing featuring reindeer who seemed to be going on a hike somewhere, complete with bedrolls. O, that I were only privy to the audio for such a marvelous doing.

BIGGEST SCREWING: Airport parking. Are you ready for this one? Are you ready for this? Forty dollars. FORTY dollars. To park. To park four miles away from the airport. And my apartment is seven miles away. Yes, we shall be taking a taxi next time.

BEST BABY: All of 'em. I had two babies at my disposal this week and one toddler. Brooke, my sister's best friend's baby, drooled and crawled around for my entertainment; my baby cousin Tyler continues to be The Most Worried-Looking Baby, Ever, but he did let me dance with him; and two-and-a-half year old Kaitlyn.... well, here's what Kaitlyn did:

BEST SAVE:
My cousin Melissa. We were at my family's party last night and I--awful as it was, much as I tried to avoid it-- could not suppress tears at the dinner table. (I'm sad about something, but to tell you the whole sordid tale would put you into about $940,000 worth of therapy, so let us just say: I'm sad about something.) I was quick and quiet about wiping them away, but my cousin Missy, just married, saw.

"What's wrong?" she whispered. "Talk to me."

We've never been tremendously close, Missy and I, as we were too much alike as youngsters, but she and I have been bonding more and more since adulthood. Now the very thing that had us knocking heads as children-- double artistic temperaments-- is drawing us closer and closer, and I caught the bouquet at her wedding. So I spilled a PG-rated version of My Life Thus Far. "Try to think of Taufling," she said. "I can't imagine my life without Kaitlyn and Tyler. They're the world to me. Your niece or nephew will look at you like you're the best person ever. There's no feeling like it." Which of course almost made me cry harder, but hey: It's Christmas! What's Christmas without a minor emotional breakdown?

Right about then Kaitlyn came scampering up to her Aunt Melissa, who whispered, "Tink is feeling sad, can you give her a hug?" Kaitlyn held her arms out, and damn if a two-and-a-half year old could fix what the double-shot of Butterkist couldn't.

BEST FAMILIAL BURN: Tie for:

-My sister's brother-in-law, who, upon seeing his sister in a truly hideous semi-fringe-on-ONE-shoulder shirt, said: "You look like a second lieutenant in the Swiss Army."

-My very tall brother-in-law Britton: At my family's party we played that game where everybody opens a gift and you try to "steal" somebody else's. Our cousin Mike is expecting a baby around the same time Taufling will be coming into the world. Mike took my sister's copy of Seabiscuit (fear not, she stole it back) and Britton said, "You just go ahead. My kid will beat up your kid someday."

BEST GIFT: At said gift exchange, I nabbed a baby toy from my uncle for Taufling. No one dared take it from me, lest they incur the wrath of Aunt Blonde. It was way better than what I originally opened anyway, which was, of course, a snowbrush. Always highly useful in Florida.

WORST DEFENSE: Cincinnati Bengals. YOU SUCKED TODAY. WAY TO SUCK WHEN IT MOST MATTERED. Don't even get me started, people.

There's Always Next Year At: blondechampagne@hotmail.com

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