TWIR, X “Home for the Holidaze – Part Deux…”
Sunday, January 7, 2007 at 11:21pm
Contrary to what many people think, text messaging is not an acceptable alternative to actual conversation as a permanent means of communication. I’m not saying that it’s never appropriate. I mean, no one actually likes all of their friends, so I don’t begin to blame people for texting them rather than calling if the message is short. And certainly, it is fine for the first round of contact after someone takes your number at a bar. I definitely don’t fault some boy for being wary of calling the crazy girl he might have thought was cool at 2am – I’d be scared to call me too. However, I think it’s reasonable that at some point, we as adults (you know – by default because of age) stop building relationships by spelling them out on a keypad, and start talking into the receiver… but not for too long. Long conversations on the phone are just irritating.
I honestly don’t understand people who give up caffeine. I go through about five cups a day without thinking twice. There were these skinny girls in the kitchen the other day talking about a friend of theirs who totally gave up caffeine and then went into Starbucks and was accidentally given real coffee instead of the decaf garbage she asked for. Apparently she couldn’t breathe all day after that, nor sleep that night. How can you work in New York and not have caffeine? I don’t understand how there is even a market for decaffeinated coffee, and why anyone would go into Starbucks to buy it. I put it on the same bizarre level as non-alcoholic beer and cheese-less pizza. Moral of the story: don’t give up caffeine/that which makes you function like a normal human being.
I know I’ve mentioned before that holidays give me anxiety. For once in my life, I’m really not exaggerating or just being dramatic. My ride to the airport alone justifies it. In spite of my advertising salary leaving me with bundles of leftover money each month, I called Super Shuttle to take me to the airport. Big mistake, lesson learned. It was an hour late and went to the wrong address on Lexington, but the driver – who was about as mild-tempered as Bob Knight and looked like he was going to have a heart attack and die at any minute – assured me that the rest of the pick-ups were right around us on the East side of Manhattan, and we’d be through the midtown tunnel to JFK in no time.
Not the case. We go from 47th St to 34th St to 57th St to 23rd St to FDR Drive down to Alphabet City and then supposedly we were on our way to the airport at long last. Now, to give you an idea of the general mood of the van, he has picked up four other girls, also in their mid-twenties, and a woman who speaks no English. We’re all raging at this man, pushing him closer and closer to sudden cardiac arrest. Every time he put another piece of luggage in the van, he’d wheeze and say, “Jesus Christ, what do you have in here?” I’m sorry, is it not your job to drive people to the airport? I’m having trouble understanding why it is you’re finding it surprising that my suitcase, which comes up to my natural waist, is heavy. I have no tolerance for ignorance and stupidity on that level.
Super driver gets a call from Super Shuttle’s dispatch and starts talking very quietly on the phone. Since he’d previously been talking at the level of Satan doing a special performance at a Black Sabbath concert, I knew something was up. He has agreed to pick someone else up. We head to Sutton Place to get this woman we now all hate. By this point, the woman who speaks no English has started to freak out because she’s fairly certain she’s going to miss her international flight. She starts to have a major anxiety attack, saying over and over again, “I feel bad. I feel bad.” To attempt to calm her down, we basically turn the van into a make-shift Lamaze breathing seminar. Unsuccessfully.
Being the Thursday night before the Christmas holiday, we hit traffic on the highway in Queens. Our driver, trying to avoid imminent mutiny, decides to drive on the shoulder of the road at – no joke – 90MPH. This is not easing the worries of the panic-stricken passenger in front of me who continues to tell us, “I feel bad” and flail about van, crying on the shoulders of the people next to her. Next thing we know she’s leaning forward, dry heaving, much like a cat with a hairball. The girl behind me throws her a shopping bag and she proceeds to vomit in it, while holding it in someone else’s lap. Special.
By the time we get to JFK, she is so wound up that she can’t identify her own luggage. The driver runs into the terminal yelling for a medic, we all jump out and scream at her till she tells us which bags are hers, and then I scream at the driver to just leave her with the police, that they’ll know what to do, and that he’d better damn well get us to the Jet Blue terminal ASAP. It is now 8:49PM and I have to check luggage and board my plane at 8:55PM. I make it, but I’m sure it took at least another year off my life getting there. All that stress, and I hadn’t even left New York yet. Oy vey, my friends, oy vey.
My family is crazy. I know that everyone’s family is crazy to a point, but I think mine might be popping a few more crazy pills on average. This is why I drank my way through the nine days I was back home, which by the way, is far too long to be at home once you’ve moved out. I actually found myself wishing our office wasn’t closed. Lesson learned there too.
My problem was that I drank my way through that week-long holiday with my family, rather than going out with friends. I only left the house to be social with old friends twice. The first time involved an old roomie from NY (who I miss terribly) and two friends from back home who actually live in NY now. Way to branch out, Venn. The second time involved the Jags/Pats game on Christmas Eve day, and my aunt, her manfriend and two kids came too. Even though I wandered around drinking beer for most of the game, behavior had to be monitored, and Christmas Eve dinner with all the crazies was looming in the not so distant future.
As has been tradition since 1992 (post Hurricane Andrew when the majority of the Miami sector of the fam moved to Jacksonville) Christmas Eve dinner was hosted chez Venn. I wasn’t really feeling well, so I started off with a screwdriver thinking that the OJ would brighten my spirits and the vodka would numb me to what I was about to endure that night and the five days after it. I was just trying to be resourceful.
My great-aunt had recently fallen down while shopping and banged herself up pretty bad. Now, I do feel terribly bad for her and wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, but I don’t, for the life of me, understand why old people want to talk incessantly about injuries and illnesses. It’s gross. She wouldn’t stop; she even brought pictures of what she looked like before the bruises started to heal. She also brought along her cousin, who is old, a bit eccentric, and losing control of her bladder. Perhaps I should say lost, as she did manage to wet my mother’s newly upholstered furniture before dinner. By the time we sit down to dinner, everyone is good and liquored up, which set the scene perfectly for my father to be extremely rude to my mom’s sister and her kids. Thanks, Pops, that’s not awkward or anything in a room of only 10 people.
Christmas Day. I think that for most families, the whole sit around and open presents thing lasts a few hours at best. In mine, try 12. No joke. Dinner time comes, and I might as well have been intravenously consuming wine all day long. Trust me, you would too.
The same ten crazies from the night before are sitting around having a casual dinner and watching football. My aunt starts to tell me about how Ohio State is going to bury Florida. I don’t know what’s actually going to happen with that game Monday night, but I know that was about the absolute worst thing you can say to the wino who is fanatical about Florida football. I argue up a storm with every stat ESPN.com has given me in the last threeve months. Mom/June Cleaver breaks it up and makes us stop. My aunt’s manfriend, who played football for Michigan back in the day, also tries to say something neutral. I respond to this by telling him I think the Big 10 is overrated. Dad tells me I’m being rude, and I run off from the table. Dad intercepts me at the front door, telling me once again how rude I am. In case you weren’t already thinking I should be involved in either a 12 step program, or hauled off in a restricting white jacket to a padded room, be fooled no more. I start yelling at my Dad, telling him that I’m not the only rude one, that his behavior around his in-laws on Mom’s side is awkward and embarrassing and that I’ll never bring a boy home, ever. This shouldn’t be a problem anyhow, considering my chronically single state and lack of ability to meet someone of an appropriate age, or who is appropriately available or I actually like. However Dad was still apologizing days later on the way to the airport, so it’s nice to know that I was not only able to make a scene, but crush his feelings. Way to go.
Fast forward four days and I’m back in New York. It’s good to be back. Maybe a little too good. I really think I’m becoming one of those people who don’t like to leave Manhattan, or maybe I’m still just scarred from nine days in back in the birthplace. At any rate, NYE came and went. In my life I will never be able to have pineapple juice again, and I have vague yet disturbing memories of some guy following me around the bar when really, he looked like he should have been at a Star Wars convention.
After the holidaze, I’d very much been looking forward to going out to Arizona to watch my Gators play for the crystal football. However, my dreams for the ultimate road trip were cut short when I found out that my rep got me tickets to the wrong game. Little did he know that the Fiesta Bowl was NOT the BCS championship game. Ass clown. In case you’re wondering, yes, he feels like a total putz. Somehow it has evolved into him becoming scary, stalker rep. He’s since offered to buy all other kinds of tickets and fund my night of drinking for the game, there by inviting himself to Gin Mill with NY Deeg. When I said no to that, he asked me if I liked Chris Leak. I said yes. He said, “say no more,” and hung up the phone. Who knows what that means. We’ll see, I guess.
Lastly, Kim deserves a pat on the back. If only we were all on a large gambling barge and had a bottle of Hennessey, we could celebrate properly. Little inside, I know.
Don’t be fooled by the pearls.
VENN
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