fly away home

White Elephants gifts came from a culture where elephants were sacred but of course, expensive to maintain. If you wanted to ruin someone financially you would give the person a white elephant – they would be bound by the precepts of the faith to maintain and care for the elephant at great personal cost. My present from my parents has strings attached and hidden burdens – not unlike our storied white elephant.

My present each year from my parents, and to each other, is flying me home for the holidays. I appreciate this gift because I insist on living on one of the coasts and getting home in a timely fashion is not easy since my parents enjoy living as far from population centers as possible. Their city would barely qualify as one; if cities were measured by Ikeas and Costco wholesale stores – and that is how Vicki and would do it.

I was at Vicky’s house last night enjoying a traditional holiday meal with her family (the three for fifteen deal from Pizza Hut) and watching a holiday movie (Tallegada Nights does reference Christmas and baby Jesus) because my roommate, Coco, is sick and there are heating issues in our house and I did not want to be in the warm room annoying Coco or in one of the cold rooms. Vicki also wanted to show off her (amazing) Christmas gift from her husband and compare master’s theses in the restroom.

The weather in Phoenix has been very cold and I left most of my winter clothes at my parent’s house. I believed Coco when she told me it would be in the seventies until January and I thought that a few sweaters and sweatshirts would be fine instead of the vast collection of wool argyle and plush, marsupial goodness of my hooded sweatshirts. She suggested that since most people on the plane will have poor hygiene themselves or be wearing ode de homeless as their fragrance of choice that I should wear what I was wearing that day on the plane today since I was wearing my only hooded sweatshirt in Phoenix.

Flying at the holidays amplifies any of the annoyances of regular air travel. Many things that annoy most people actually do not annoy me in the airport. I am not annoyed, for instance, by the ubiquitous Starbucks in every gate-bay in the terminal and I am not annoyed by the security measures. I am annoyed by the people that complain about the security measures at the airport, who – incidentally - concurrently have on ode de homeless. People who complain about the ubiquity of Starbucks are going to be just one level up in hell from the people who take Oprah’s name in vane and one level down from people who pay attention to Paris Hilton. I realize that they are not in deepest, coldest hell with the litterbugs, Judas, Henry Ford, and people who do not recycle but they are still going to be well taken care of in the afterlife.

I will agree that some things we are asked to do are a little silly, but it makes life easier if you keep your bitching on your blog and out of my ears. Cooperating with the functionary who enforces the rules hurts no one and makes the day easier for everyone. If you want change, you have got it; take things up the Speaker of the House, Madam Nancy Pelosi. I am sure the people with the Transportation Safety Administration would like you to keep your stinky feet in your shoes and they probably agree with me that your Burt’s Bees are not elements needed to constructed a bomb but at the same time those silly rules and citizen vigilance have prevented another attack – knock on wood.

On a side note, if Burt Bees made a bomb it would be all-natural and have a low impact on the environment and I think that if they made that bomb we could all get behind it. I think the entire Soviet of Massachusetts and the People’s Republic of Washington State would insist we invade Iran using just those bombs or at least include them in our aid to the Israelis and Palestinians. I can just see Patty Murray presenting that aid with John Kerry on the Administration’s behalf, “Since you are going to do it anyway, why not go a little easier on Mother Earth?”

My point being that I was in this line and this man who had an aroma like none other was complaining loudly about the Administration, Transportation Safety and the airline we are using while wearing anti-Bush buttons. He said directly to me, “aren’t you against Bush, too?” At this point I made my trademark, crude comment about personal hygiene that I will admit reading in a Playboy magazine during the last Gulf War. I would repeat the comment but I do have to kiss my mother with this mouth later in the day and being in Kentucky, not a few cousins.

I read the article so that I could say that I had read the articles at a later date. I had no idea that I would ever get to use the information contained in them. I then grabbed the man’s arm to balance myself while I took off my cowboy boots and encouraged him to look into getting a blog, deodorant and teaching after his trip. One affords you to express your opinion in the off chance someone cares, the other makes you more amenable to those around you and the later gives you a captive audience to warp with your personal views in case – as is mine – that no one is reading your blog.

I also told him that as a conservative and as a Republican I was disappointed with the President as well but I had the good sense not to flag myself with the authorities by spouting my anti-Bush rhetoric in a public place where people are nervous as it is. I also told him that I found him to be really dull and his anti-Bush rhetoric to be sub par and that if the government were listening to his phone calls I am sure they had stopped almost as soon as they started because I myself could not wait for him to shut up. By this time I had worked my way through security with him and chutzpah for chutzpah’s sake wished him a Happy Hallmark and a safe flight.

Since I admitted to reading articles in Playboy I will also admit to secretly enjoying Chaos Bean’s music – I am listening to her Social Distortion right now – and I called Chaos Bean to relate that store but more importantly get the Kelly Belle baby update. While we eagerly anticipate the birth of Carl’s Junior we also feel for Aubrey, who we regard in higher esteem than any relative, because as exciting as the Christmas Baby is, Aubrey is soldiering through a lot changes the past year and a half and we feel for her. Concurrently, when our Aunt who has cancer came up – someone we should care about and love – we both agreed that karma is indeed a bitch. Chaos Bean and I will later throw a Burt’s Bees bomb at her screaming, “For the Ayatollah, and Aubrey!”

I am on that airline where you choose your own seat after being shepherded into one of three or four boarding groups. One of the women who was going to be flying on my flight was in the first boarding group but was late to the flight and wanted to cut me – being in the second group – telling me, “I was in the ‘A’ group so I can cut in front of you.” I had just let two old ladies in front of me and held a place for a lady with children too old for pre-boarding and not old enough to know to pee before lines formed so I felt secure in my own karma to tell her that she was cutting and I was not going to allow her in front of me. She then pushed me.

This is where Chaos Bean and I become different people. Chaos Bean would have wielded her prison shank that she made in the bathroom (can’t bring it through the checkpoint) and cut the woman into french fries in three different shapes. I am not as versatile with self-defense, her education is more comprehensive: I went to public school and Chaos Bean was in a convent. A convent girl can kill a man with her hands and I am well versed in, “take the fall, act hurt, get indignant.” I did stand up to her and used the methods my students use to keep someone from getting around them in line as she tried to get around me in the line, at the point where they scan your ticket, onto and through the jet way to the plane. She asked me where my Christmas spirit was. I wonder that myself, too, but as a teacher I feel obligated to constantly educate the masses and one lesson people have to learn is that you cannot bully people or cut them in line. I told her this and pointed out that her entitled attitude was what made other people’s Christmases and Hallmarks unpleasant and she should be ashamed.

I told her that she made the Baby Jesus cry.

It would have been easier to shank her. That would have been a better Christmas gift to all men. When the plane lands I am putting my Burt’s Bees Bomb in her purse. I think that Al Gore and George W. Bush could appreciate that.

The flight itself has been uneventful, God willing we will land without incident. I watched cartoons on my computer with this guy sitting next to me – who I have never met and eaten those peanuts that I would never eat on solid ground. The pilot just informed us that we need to put our stuff away in preparation for landing. I will catch you on the flip side. I hope the did not lose my luggage.

Added: After the deplaning I learned the woman fighting me was eventually not allowed on the plane. My luggage was also not lost.

This entry features sentences free of the passive voice and reflexive pronouns in a Chanukah-closing nod to the eminent Golf Widow. Many are called but few are chosen: we all adore her but I have gotten to share a traditional Hebrew holiday meal with her - Chinese food – while most people get to admire her from afar.

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