Monday, December 29, 2008

Truly an amazing supergroup

'Sup, internets! Long time no chats. I hope you had a nice holiday.

As you may know, I got my wish for a blizzard in Seattle--the city pretty much shut down for over a week. Sorry about that, Seattlites! Next time I'll also wish for some snow plows. I have to admit that I enjoyed the snow the whole time, but it's true that what we've been left with the past couple of days--big piles of sandy slush--is not as magical.

It also blizzarded in Utah, where we were visiting Mr. A's family. Specifically, it began blizzarding just as we were boarding our flight back to Seattle on Christmas night. So we ended up spending 3+ hours on the tarmac, waiting for the runway to be cleared and for our plane to be de-iced. There was no air conditioning, and from what I could tell, no air, period--I have never been in such a hot, oxygen-poor environment in my life. We sat there, watching it snow and sweating our asses off. LITERALLY!! I am now ass-less.*

Anyway, I know everyone has suck-o plane stories, and you probably have one that is way worse than this one, but I am telling you this story because I learned something interesting from this experience: the point at which I start yelling at strangers. And it involves Roy Orbison.

We had been sweating it up in the tin can for at least 2.5 hours when a guy behind me started singing. He sang each and every word of "Handle Me With Care," beginning to end, in a high falsetto. Then he started pontificating to his girlfriend. "The Traveling Wilburys--truly an amazing supergroup. Tom Petty. Roy Orbison. Bob Dylan. Incredible song-writing. Indeed, this was one of Roy Orbison's final recordings."**

AND THEN. He started up again, from the top: "Ev-ree-BAH-dee. Needs sum-BAH-dee. To LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN on."

At that point I turned around and smushed my face into the crack between my seat and the seat next to me so as to be able to make eye contact and said (hissed), "Listen. I don't mean to be rude but we've been here a while and it is VERY HOT and I REALLY DON'T KNOW IF I CAN TAKE ANY MORE SINGING OKAY?!? GREAT!!"

The guy obviously could see the crazy in my eyes because he said, "I'm shutting up now." And he did.

And that is how I spread Christmas cheer by preventing others from singing loud for all to hear!


*Sadly, not true.
**Okay, maybe he didn't really say "indeed." But he was definitely using an "indeed" voice.

5 comments:

Librarian Girl said...

Welcome back!

This may sound weird, but I love hearing an anecdote where you yell at people. Because to me you are nothing but lovely, nice, and perfect, so it is amusing to me to try and picture you as you SNAP!

Is that wrong of me to get a weird kick out of that?

Anonymous said...

I love hearing anecdotes where you smush your face between airplane seats and hiss!

Utah? Interesting. Over the past year I have been sucked into the world of Mormon bloggers, for no real particular reason. This just resulted in my very first Christmas card from Utah. Lovely people those Utahans.

librarianista said...

Oh, Librarian Girl, what a rosy and innaccurate picture of me you paint.

It is true, Jennie, the Mormons are extremely nice. They also have great skin. That is a science fact.

Anonymous said...

You were much nicer than I would have been under such circumstances. While boarding my flight from Chicago to Austin, there was a dispute over seat-ownership between two women. After letting them yell for a minute, our very pregnant flight attendant went up to them and said, "You two can take your seats or I can put you off this plane. What's it going to be?" They both sat down and shut up.

Anonymous said...

A) I have not yet told you, but I am now - I am very happy that you decided not to quit your blog, after all. 2) I have to tell you that I burst out laughing while reading this entry and actually clapped - yes clapped - with glee. I, too, see you as such a super-sweet person that this vision was priceless to me.