I downloaded some things and ripped a DVD and started working on a cool PowerPoint. I think my paper presentation will be 18 minutes of PowerPoint and 2 minutes of a really confusing plot summary. It will be hailed as the best paper anyone has ever heard, and I will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Joining such luminaries as Orhan Pamuk and probably Einstein, my words will travel across the globe, bringing hope and peace to all who they touch. I will also be asked to write a humorous article for the New Yorker. Unlike Orhan Pamuk, I will not use this opportunity to compose a morbidly depressing reminiscence about how I crushed the tender feelings of my father and then he died before I could say I was sorry. Thanks a lot, “Orhan.”
Bearded Gary called. His plane hadn’t left Denver yet. It was two hours late because of “weather.” Man, have I been there. Probably a million times have I been trapped in the Denver airport due to “weather.” First when it was Stapleton, then later when it was DIA. I’m sure I’ll be trapped there even when it becomes Transportron 3500 in the year Ork 12. As long as there is a world to live in, there will be “weather” trapping travelers in the Denver airport. I bet even when global warming is complete, and we are all living in holes in the ground, there will still be a blizzard keeping you from your connecting flight. It will be a miracle. The incredible black wormhole that is the Denver airport will become a beacon of light and hope for a scorched earth. Pilgrims will flock there from every continent, drawn by the cool winter chill of its unseasonal, bizarre “weather.” The Denver airport will become an international center of Eastern healing, and all the people who have been trapped there since time immemorial will turn their pallid, exhausted faces to the sky in rapture and cry with one voice, “See What God Hath Wrought!”
One time I was trapped at the Denver airport for so long that my dad finally just got in the car and drove to Denver and picked me up. I don’t know how you can drive a car from my town to Denver but you can’t fly a plane from Denver to my town. Then again, I’m a Nobel recipient, not an airplane scientist.
One time my family was trapped overnight in the Denver airport on the to-date “Official Most Grueling Christmas Ever,” involving a trip to Texas that ended with all our luggage getting lost on Christmas Eve, and my parents having to run to the mall in order to buy presents for my brother and me, due to us being very young and intolerant of such things as “accidents” and “acts of god.” Which, in retrospect, makes me feel bad, although at the time I didn’t even realize what was happening, and was in fact mystified the next morning by my present, which was a “Nancy Drew secret diary.” I did not then like, nor indeed have I ever liked, Nancy Drew. But my parents really went the extra mile in scouring the emaciated holiday shelves at the awful mall, and for that I bless them. Then on the way back we got stuck overnight in the Denver airport and we slept on the floor, and then in the morning we kept having to run from gate to gate with hundreds of people because they kept changing which gate our flight was going to board at, and then finally my mom put down all her bags in the middle of the airport and started bawling, and I remember thinking, “WORST CHRISTMAS EVER.” I also remember having the vague impression that at some point our luggage would be returned to us (it wasn’t), and I would then get to have a SECOND CHRISTMAS, which, to my mind, would have gone a long way toward redeeming the first one. So in conclusion, I am a materialistic capitalist pig who would step over my own mother to get another “Nancy Drew Secret Diary.”
Another time I was trapped in the Denver airport they finally chartered a huge Greyhound bus and just drove all the passengers to my town. The rich people did not like this. They sat in the back and complained and ordered the driver around. This is the main thing that sucks about growing up in a ski resort, aside from all your schoolmates hating your guts because you are so bad at skiing. Rich idiots who ski in jeans and order the bus driver around and wear fur coats like they have no idea where they are, which they actually don’t. Excuse me, but skiing in jeans is only done by tourists and people from Massachusetts, who are called “Massholes.” You’d fit in better if you skied NAKED, which does actually happen a lot in these parts. And yes, I will laugh at you when you fall down in the lift line and then yell that somebody rented you faulty skis. I will laugh very hard, and then I will “spray” you with my buddies as we go past you much faster than you could ever attempt to follow.
Who am I kidding? I didn’t have any buddies.
But I COULD spray the shit out of some weak-ass tourists. And I’ll do it again, if you buy me a lift ticket. I may have been hands-down the worst skier in my weird 90% skiing-based junior high school, but that still means I can go fast! I can do a “daffy!” I can do a “Mobius!” (just kidding). I’m sick of not being athletic. I used to be on the “Freestyle Team!” I’ll spray you too, just watch me. I got a sweet pair of K2 Burning Luvs (170’s) and I just waxed them and my bindings are tight as fuck and if I don’t get first tracks I’ll punch you in the face.
Although I did once break my jaw going very fast down the easy part right before lift 4. And I never went fast again. So I guess that’s a sad story, and you can disregard my panicky hilarious faux-cockiness above. I think I wiped out in every competition I ever did, including a breath-taking “yard sale” during which I lost almost every article of clothing on my body, including my oversized novelty goggles that were big enough to cover my enormous glasses, and then, like, strangers had to climb under the ropes and help me hike up and down collecting all my stuff, and my coaches were so ashamed. All I remember from my years on the ski team was the feeling of constant, debilitating terror and the intense desire to stop being cold. Then I broke my jaw and showed them all.
As if I would have 170’s. I am a giant wiener.
Gary called again. “Guess where I am?” he said. “IOWA CITY!” I yelled. “No, guess again.” “You’re not still in Denver?” “No, I’m not still in Denver. I’m in Minneapolis now.”
Apparently the plane did eventually take off (miraculous!) but was re-routed due to “weather” and “trying to go around the weather” and “running out of fuel.”
“Now we are on the runway in Minneapolis refueling and they won’t let us off the plane.”
Luckily, he doesn’t have any appointments until tomorrow. Unluckily, he, in a fit of hubris, intentionally neglected to pack his phone charger. Poor little chompers.
I’m glad the airplane people are keeping my baby safe, but couldn’t things run just a little smoother? We can put a man on the moon but we can’t leave DIA on time? Not even once?
This wasn’t supposed to happen now that we made a pact never to fly Southwest ever again.
Mr. Beardy IV: Cranky At The Airport
I have 170’s to this day. Even when skiing last month, I was on my 170’s.
Also, Christmas of 1999, I spent in the Denver Airport alone.
The Daffy is the best jump ever.
oh gd, I read that article. The thing that killed me was the part about how his father always brought him a bar of chocolate, even when he (Orhan – I’m losing control of this sentence) was in his forties. THAT made me cry.