I travel a bit for work and most of my clients are Indian casinos. Indian casinos are as you know, on Indian property which sometimes has a tendency to be a bit rural. Sometimes they are just plain in the middle of effen nowhere. This particular client was located in an itty bitty town called Mahnomen in Minnesota. The closest airport and lodging to Mahnomen was in Fargo, North Dakota. My partner in crime and career was Tracy. There will be more posts not only featuring Tracy, but certainly featuring Fargo and Tracy. This is a short and sweet story about the Fargo Holiday Inn.
The Fargo Holiday Inn, as far as I know, is the only chain hotel in Fargo. It’s where we always stayed when traveling there. Now being from Las Vegas, we had a tendency to assume that we would have at least some of the comforts of home, like food. Well that just isn’t the case at the Fargo Holiday Inn. Or surrounding areas for that matter. We had just flown in that afternoon and by the time we got situated it was late. By late in Fargo I mean 7pm. We got checked in to our shared two-standard-doubles room and needed showers but we were starving. We have no car, no room service and everything is closed anyway. After all, it’s 7:30 on a Wednesday in Fargo. The only option was to order pizza.
Trace got on the phone with the local pizza shack and ordered a pie and jumped in the shower first. Showered and squeaky clean, she informed me she was going to check out the stellar selection of TV entertainment while I showered and she waited for the pizza.
30 minutes later I emerged from the shower just as there was a knock. Pizza. Awesome. Before I could even adjust to the situation, I looked over and across the room Tracy approaches in her sleepwear, twenty dollar bill in her grasp.
Now let me stop you right here and explain something. Tracy is beautiful. I mean just gorgeous. She’s about five foot nine, long brown hair and blue eyes that are stunning. If you have ever been to Fargo, North Dakota you would know that they don’t make women like her there. I’m not saying that there are not pretty people in North Dakota; I’m saying this girl makes everyone look bad, but in Fargo, well she stuck out like she had Christmas lights hanging on her. The first time we walked the casino floor in Mahnomen men were physically dropping things. Money. Cocktails. Pull tab tickets. Wives. It was embarrassing.
So Tracy walks past me to the door….and I catch a good look at her, which I didn’t think to notice before. Her long hair is wet. She’s still shimmery drippy from the shower. She is wearing nothing but a white t-shirt that is so thin it only has one side to it. It barely covers everything of importance. BARELY. Let’s just say if she had to reach up for anything, someone’s gettin’ a show. Mind you, this was not intentional, we were both about to eat and turn in for the night. I mean in Vegas nobody would give two shits about an almost naked women opening a hotel room door…..But in Fargo….. ? She opens the door.
This kid could not have been but days over 16. He was skinny-scrawny, gangly and pimply. He wore glasses stronger than your seventh grade biology microscope and a trucker logoed baseball cap. One quick glance at Tracy and his bottom jaw was damn near resting on the cheap industrial carpet of the Holiday Inn hallway. There he was in all his glory - in shock, holding our medium mushroom and pepperoni.
“How much” Tracy blurts without batting an eye. She doesn’t even get it. I’m witnessing, astonished.
“Helllll oh-ho? How much?” She then looks over at me like “what’s his problem?” All I can do is grin.
The kid takes a shallow breath “Ba. Buh buh buh babababba. bah ba.”
“Darlin’” Tracy says “You have got to speak up. How much?”
“Buh buaa bu. Ba ba bub nun buh buh”
I shit you not, the kid could not speak. It was priceless. I am now fighting to keep from bursting into hysterics.
Tracy looks at me again with the “What the hell am I supposed to do with the mentally challenged pizza guy” and my only advice is. “Trace, give him the 20, take the pizza”
“But…” she starts to argue
The kid has not spoken. I think I see a string of drool. His eye is twitching. I’m afraid to look any lower than that.
“Give him the money Tracy, take the pizza”
The kid has no open hand, so Tracy pries the pizza from his hands bent at the elbow, the box at his chest. They stay intact, like claws. She forces the twenty into the kid’s paralyzed hand and shuts the door. He is completely frozen where he was the second we opened it, sans pizza.
“Well that was a weird little dude. There was no way that Pizza was 20 bucks” Tracy states, miss nonchalant. “Hungry?”
Unbelievable. She had no idea why the kid froze. I actually had to explain it to her. I am still convinced that to this day, the pizza kid is still telling the story. Let’s face it, shit like that does not happen in Fargo. My guess is that you can find it on his blog, right now.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Contact Your Dealer
So before anyone asks, I got permission from DeAnne to tell this story. She said as long as I made it funny, I could. I don't see how this couldn't be funny.
As most of you know, my mother is actually funnier than I am. The best part about this is, half the time she doesn’t even know it. She is truly hysterical. Unlike my Father who knew good & well that he could crack people up, DeAnne is just plain funny without any effort. Don’t get me wrong, I know she purposely does silly things on occasion, which yes, is funny, but the best ones are not intended, and this is one of them.
Every year for a dozen years now DeAnne has organized the Advertising Community Talent Show (ACTS). It’s a wonderful show; it raises money for a worthy cause. If you really want to know about it go to www.actslv.org . We are recruiting ACTS right now for this year. Various people have helped and the show is a story in itself, but this is not that story. This takes place after the show, last year.
ACTS was great last year. 80’s themed, wonderfully talented people performed and the advertising community in Southern Nevada again supported us at Green Valley Ranch. The show was about three hours and it really is exhausting. There were 13 acts, about 30 performers, just to give you an idea. It’s quite a production. DeAnne performed, with Dirk (yep, same one from the chicken story – see a pattern?) and she was awesome. After the show, there’s a lot to be done. Props, including a 6 foot high wedding cake, platform shoes, wigs, a life-size mannequin, various feather boas and a huge amount of neon spandex need to be packed. I’m backstage schlepping and well, most of the performers were out in the casino socializing.
Now a lot of us got rooms, which is good. But some of us, DeAnne included, like sleeping at home. Which may or may not be good in this case. Really, everyone is exhausted at this point, but high on performance buzz that often follows a great show. In DeAnne’s case, she was really into it. Performing as Grace Slick, she bought a wig for the number and now, two hours after the show has ended, will NOT take it off. She has developed some sort of alter ego that often comes with donning a disguise except as most of you know, DeAnne already looks like Grace Slick, so what the hell was the wig for? I couldn’t tell ya. I will say she looked great.
Looking good and feeling good are two different things, however, and D was not about to spend the night at Green Valley Ranch. The conversation went like this:
Ma, really, stay. We are all tired. We have a room, there’s another bed.
Nope. Going home. I’m exhausted.
That was it. Off she went, keys in hand, towards valet. Again, in a normal family this would be the end of the story. But for us, not so much.
DeAnne gets to valet, wig and all, and jumps into her shiny new Hyundai Sonata for the hefty trek across town back to her house. It’s mostly freeway, the 215, but still it’s a haul. It is midnight on a Friday night in Vegas, so yes Virginia, there is a ton of traffic.
Now before I proceed, let me explain. DeAnne loves new cars. She trades in more cars than anyone I have ever known. The problem is, she’s got a few clients and friends that are associated with auto dealerships, and well, no self control. So she sells them a remote broadcast for the radio station she works for, shows up to “make sure everything is ok” and dammit if she doesn't buy a car. They see her coming you know – she’s had eight cars since 2000. Really. This happens all the time. This was one of those cars. She just bought it a couple of days before from her friend Frank who is the Big Kahuna at Henderson Hyundai. I'm sure she bought it at a remote.
So, back to our hero - She pulls out from the valet at the casino and into traffic on Green Valley Parkway, gets in the turn lane for the freeway and hits her turn signal, makes the turn and takes the ramp in to traffic. No problemo. The turn signal clicks off……..and wait, what the hell is that?
She realizes, going 65, in the dark, in heavy traffic, on the freeway in a Grace Slick wig, that somehow her hazard lights are on.
I asked her what she had said at this point….
“Shit”.
Well traffic is really moving and she is scared to death to try and pull over. Besides, it’s just hazard lights; the switch has to be around here somewhere, right? It is at this point that DeAnne starts playing Go Fish with the mechanical features of her new 2009 Sonata. Horn? Go Fish. Cruise Control? Go Fish. Electric seat? Go Fish. Interior lights? Well, you get the picture. DeAnne told me she learned more about the inner workings of her vehicle in that 30 minute drive that she would have ever known about the car. EV-ER.
So here she is barreling down the freeway, hazards on and shit is going Inspector Gadget in the car. Lights are blinking, horns going off, seats moving – it is bad. But wait it gets worse. She finds the windshield wipers. Dear God. Now the windshield fluid is squirting and the wipers are going batshit. I mean if she couldn’t see before, now she was screwed. This goes on from Green Valley Parkway to Decatur. Now, for those of you that don’t know, that’s a decent amount of heavily travelled freeway.
In any other city, a heavily made up 4 foot eleven Italian woman in dressed in pleather and a Grace Slick wig zipping down a crowded freeway with every possible blinking, swishing part (including the gas tank cover) in perpetual motion - would attract attention. I don’t think she could get away with this in say, Ocean Springs Mississippi. But in Vegas, just another day. Not one call was made.
At this point, DeAnne is pissed. She’s nearing her exit and does not want to drive all the way down Decatur Boulevard with a possessed Hyundai (rhymes with Sunday by the way, DeAnne made sure I knew that). She exits the freeway and pulls in to the first parking lot available. This lot of course, is not lit and in the midst of her education on her new toy she did not take notes and therefore does not even know how to turn on the interior dome light. As a matter of fact, she did something so that the light now will not come on even when you open the door.
Well, time to take stock. She’s on the side of the road at Decatur and the freeway and cannot find the button for the lights and she’s not that far from home…might as well make a run for it. She puts the car in drive and off she goes. It’s almost a straight shot.
Thankfully and with more luck than skill DeAnne arrives at home and opens the garage. The gas tank door is open. The windshield wipers are still on delay and radio is on AM, but she’s home. “Thank God” she exclaims. “I’m going to turn this effen car off and go to bed.” It is at this point that DeAnne again is educated in automotive skill. She does not know that when you turn the car off, the hazard lights stay on. That’s what they are there for - a HAZARD. Such as an immobile car.
She is now sitting in a black garage. Yellow. Black. Yellow. Black. Yellow. Black.
“Shit”.
She gets back in the offending vehicle and now she’s really pissed. I mean how hard can it be? Then a flash of brilliance. The owner’s manual. In one motion the glove box is open and the manual is in hand. Hazards….hazards…..she’s mumbling to herself now. Ah –HA! Hazards. Now, she did not see the little drawing of the dashboard showing all of the little buttons and explanations. Here is what she did see:
“In the event that your hazard lights will not turn off, contact your Dealer”.
Well, ok she thought. If you say so.
While sitting in her closed alternating black and yellow garage with the owner’s manual of the vehicle on her lap, DeAnne whips out her phone and dials Frank’s personal cell number from Henderson Hyundai.
I’m not kidding.
Sometimes I wonder if there is a God, because thankfully, Frank did not answer. But of course, DeAnne left a message. At 1am.
“Frank, hi it’s me DeAnne. Hey Frank, when you get a minute, could you call me? I’m here in my garage and my hazard lights won’t turn off. I looked in the manual and it said to call you, so I’m calling. OK. OK. Bye.”
DeAnne now surrenders to the situation. She takes the keys out of the ignition and walks away from her blinking shiny new Hyundai. She leaves it, blinking, all night in the garage. Deal with it in the morning. At 1:30 am, she’s done.
Bright and early in the AM, DeAnne awakens. In those few foggy moments in between groggy and really being awake she beings to replay the movie in her head from the night before.
If all this is true, she thinks, I will have a car parked in my garage with the fucking hazard lights on.
She opens the door to the garage.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
“Shit”.
Literally in five seconds she walks over to the car, opens the door, leans inside and presses the huge, HUGE, big red button in the middle of the dashboard with the red HAZARD triangle on it and shuts the car door.
“ Well,. Guess I’d better call Frank”.
As most of you know, my mother is actually funnier than I am. The best part about this is, half the time she doesn’t even know it. She is truly hysterical. Unlike my Father who knew good & well that he could crack people up, DeAnne is just plain funny without any effort. Don’t get me wrong, I know she purposely does silly things on occasion, which yes, is funny, but the best ones are not intended, and this is one of them.
Every year for a dozen years now DeAnne has organized the Advertising Community Talent Show (ACTS). It’s a wonderful show; it raises money for a worthy cause. If you really want to know about it go to www.actslv.org . We are recruiting ACTS right now for this year. Various people have helped and the show is a story in itself, but this is not that story. This takes place after the show, last year.
ACTS was great last year. 80’s themed, wonderfully talented people performed and the advertising community in Southern Nevada again supported us at Green Valley Ranch. The show was about three hours and it really is exhausting. There were 13 acts, about 30 performers, just to give you an idea. It’s quite a production. DeAnne performed, with Dirk (yep, same one from the chicken story – see a pattern?) and she was awesome. After the show, there’s a lot to be done. Props, including a 6 foot high wedding cake, platform shoes, wigs, a life-size mannequin, various feather boas and a huge amount of neon spandex need to be packed. I’m backstage schlepping and well, most of the performers were out in the casino socializing.
Now a lot of us got rooms, which is good. But some of us, DeAnne included, like sleeping at home. Which may or may not be good in this case. Really, everyone is exhausted at this point, but high on performance buzz that often follows a great show. In DeAnne’s case, she was really into it. Performing as Grace Slick, she bought a wig for the number and now, two hours after the show has ended, will NOT take it off. She has developed some sort of alter ego that often comes with donning a disguise except as most of you know, DeAnne already looks like Grace Slick, so what the hell was the wig for? I couldn’t tell ya. I will say she looked great.
Looking good and feeling good are two different things, however, and D was not about to spend the night at Green Valley Ranch. The conversation went like this:
Ma, really, stay. We are all tired. We have a room, there’s another bed.
Nope. Going home. I’m exhausted.
That was it. Off she went, keys in hand, towards valet. Again, in a normal family this would be the end of the story. But for us, not so much.
DeAnne gets to valet, wig and all, and jumps into her shiny new Hyundai Sonata for the hefty trek across town back to her house. It’s mostly freeway, the 215, but still it’s a haul. It is midnight on a Friday night in Vegas, so yes Virginia, there is a ton of traffic.
Now before I proceed, let me explain. DeAnne loves new cars. She trades in more cars than anyone I have ever known. The problem is, she’s got a few clients and friends that are associated with auto dealerships, and well, no self control. So she sells them a remote broadcast for the radio station she works for, shows up to “make sure everything is ok” and dammit if she doesn't buy a car. They see her coming you know – she’s had eight cars since 2000. Really. This happens all the time. This was one of those cars. She just bought it a couple of days before from her friend Frank who is the Big Kahuna at Henderson Hyundai. I'm sure she bought it at a remote.
So, back to our hero - She pulls out from the valet at the casino and into traffic on Green Valley Parkway, gets in the turn lane for the freeway and hits her turn signal, makes the turn and takes the ramp in to traffic. No problemo. The turn signal clicks off……..and wait, what the hell is that?
She realizes, going 65, in the dark, in heavy traffic, on the freeway in a Grace Slick wig, that somehow her hazard lights are on.
I asked her what she had said at this point….
“Shit”.
Well traffic is really moving and she is scared to death to try and pull over. Besides, it’s just hazard lights; the switch has to be around here somewhere, right? It is at this point that DeAnne starts playing Go Fish with the mechanical features of her new 2009 Sonata. Horn? Go Fish. Cruise Control? Go Fish. Electric seat? Go Fish. Interior lights? Well, you get the picture. DeAnne told me she learned more about the inner workings of her vehicle in that 30 minute drive that she would have ever known about the car. EV-ER.
So here she is barreling down the freeway, hazards on and shit is going Inspector Gadget in the car. Lights are blinking, horns going off, seats moving – it is bad. But wait it gets worse. She finds the windshield wipers. Dear God. Now the windshield fluid is squirting and the wipers are going batshit. I mean if she couldn’t see before, now she was screwed. This goes on from Green Valley Parkway to Decatur. Now, for those of you that don’t know, that’s a decent amount of heavily travelled freeway.
In any other city, a heavily made up 4 foot eleven Italian woman in dressed in pleather and a Grace Slick wig zipping down a crowded freeway with every possible blinking, swishing part (including the gas tank cover) in perpetual motion - would attract attention. I don’t think she could get away with this in say, Ocean Springs Mississippi. But in Vegas, just another day. Not one call was made.
At this point, DeAnne is pissed. She’s nearing her exit and does not want to drive all the way down Decatur Boulevard with a possessed Hyundai (rhymes with Sunday by the way, DeAnne made sure I knew that). She exits the freeway and pulls in to the first parking lot available. This lot of course, is not lit and in the midst of her education on her new toy she did not take notes and therefore does not even know how to turn on the interior dome light. As a matter of fact, she did something so that the light now will not come on even when you open the door.
Well, time to take stock. She’s on the side of the road at Decatur and the freeway and cannot find the button for the lights and she’s not that far from home…might as well make a run for it. She puts the car in drive and off she goes. It’s almost a straight shot.
Thankfully and with more luck than skill DeAnne arrives at home and opens the garage. The gas tank door is open. The windshield wipers are still on delay and radio is on AM, but she’s home. “Thank God” she exclaims. “I’m going to turn this effen car off and go to bed.” It is at this point that DeAnne again is educated in automotive skill. She does not know that when you turn the car off, the hazard lights stay on. That’s what they are there for - a HAZARD. Such as an immobile car.
She is now sitting in a black garage. Yellow. Black. Yellow. Black. Yellow. Black.
“Shit”.
She gets back in the offending vehicle and now she’s really pissed. I mean how hard can it be? Then a flash of brilliance. The owner’s manual. In one motion the glove box is open and the manual is in hand. Hazards….hazards…..she’s mumbling to herself now. Ah –HA! Hazards. Now, she did not see the little drawing of the dashboard showing all of the little buttons and explanations. Here is what she did see:
“In the event that your hazard lights will not turn off, contact your Dealer”.
Well, ok she thought. If you say so.
While sitting in her closed alternating black and yellow garage with the owner’s manual of the vehicle on her lap, DeAnne whips out her phone and dials Frank’s personal cell number from Henderson Hyundai.
I’m not kidding.
Sometimes I wonder if there is a God, because thankfully, Frank did not answer. But of course, DeAnne left a message. At 1am.
“Frank, hi it’s me DeAnne. Hey Frank, when you get a minute, could you call me? I’m here in my garage and my hazard lights won’t turn off. I looked in the manual and it said to call you, so I’m calling. OK. OK. Bye.”
DeAnne now surrenders to the situation. She takes the keys out of the ignition and walks away from her blinking shiny new Hyundai. She leaves it, blinking, all night in the garage. Deal with it in the morning. At 1:30 am, she’s done.
Bright and early in the AM, DeAnne awakens. In those few foggy moments in between groggy and really being awake she beings to replay the movie in her head from the night before.
If all this is true, she thinks, I will have a car parked in my garage with the fucking hazard lights on.
She opens the door to the garage.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
“Shit”.
Literally in five seconds she walks over to the car, opens the door, leans inside and presses the huge, HUGE, big red button in the middle of the dashboard with the red HAZARD triangle on it and shuts the car door.
“ Well,. Guess I’d better call Frank”.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Friends, Fears & The Chicken
A good friend of mine Joan suggested I start a blog. She thinks I'm funny. This is about the equivalent of a mom putting your shitty macrame plant holder up in the house and saying it's beautiful, but that's another story. I guess for another blog entry.
Regardless, I actually called her bluff and here I have started the blog. Scared to death of this - If I believed in God, I ask for his help.
According to Joan, I am supposed to tell the story of The Chicken, so before I go off on a rant about how I can't even set my damn clock on my microwave- what makes me think I can blog, I'll tell the story. I don't know how long a blog is supposed to be, so I split this story into two parts. Why? No idea.
The Chicken, part I
It was July in Vegas, which if you haven't been subjected to is effen hot. I don't mean "damn, it's hot" I mean surface-of-the-sun Africa hot. And the wind blows, which is just fabulous. At the time, I drove a 1984 Thunderbird. 2 door, one window did not roll down. Not only did the air not work, but some jacked up short in the system made it actually BLOW hot air, even when the air was completely off. Travelling in luxury as usual.
I went grocery shopping on a Sunday. My father and my husband at the time (more on these two in later posts, thank you) unloaded the trunk of groceries. And this should be the end of the story, but you've never seen my trunk.
For the record, my trunk still looks the same as it did in 1998. It always does in every car. Shoes, musical equipment, cd's, file folders, jackets, cow bells, bags, Christmas ornaments - you get the picture. I have had several roommates and two husbands ask if I'm ever going to move in.
So I head to work Monday and well, something smells funny. Not funny ha ha. I don't think anything of it (it is 110 and my air doesn't work after all) it could be anything. At noon, I jump in the car to pick up a friend (that shit, but more about him later too) and of course now it's pretty stinky.
My buddy Dirk: "What the hell is that smell?" Me: "Don't know. Started smelling funny yesterday, but I think it's worse". Well that was about the end of it, until after lunch. I guess an hour in a parking lot at high noon in Vegas in July is bad, bad, bad for this situation.
My buddy Dirk "Ok, dude. What in Holy Hell is that smell? Is there food in the back seat? This is awful. Get me back to my office." Suit yourself and off he goes. He was right though, it was stenchy.
Day three, the stink progresses. I wake on Tuesday and declare that there must be an animal lodged in my engine compartment because its fucking awful and I can't take it. So the dad and the husband venture out into the heat (no garage or carport, by the way) and pop the hood. Nothing. Search the backseat for a remnant Big Mac. Nothing. I can't figure it out.
Day four. I am convinced that the remaining Mob in Vegas has whacked a guy and placed him in my trunk, but I am honestly too scared to look. I'm now getting some sort of rash. I go to work. It's still fucking hot.
At 5pm I have to drive across town to my drummer's house and drop off a mic stand. At this point, the toxic stench is unbearable. Seriously, I can't breathe. I roll down the Lone Window and stick my head out whilst trying to maneuver down Maryland Parkway and my throat is closing up. My eyes are red and itchy. I start babbling like a homeless guy, arms flailing in the front seat. People are staring. At one point I actually put the car in park in the left turn lane and jump out, cursing and drooling and start digging through the backseat for again some sign that there is a dead animal or some sort of organic substance that has taken a turn - to no avail. The light changes and I slump back in the seat. Swollen, wheezing and itchy with temporary Tourettes, I drive on.
I arrive at my drummer Rob's house, stumble out of the car and head to the trunk where the mic stand is living and it hits me. No really, it was like hitting a wall. The smell was astonishing.
I realize at that moment that whatever it is really is in my trunk. I place the key in the keyhole and turn. All I can say is the stench almost knocked me over. I start digging through the trunk, so much crap.....why do I have a turkey baster in here? ...And then presto! I hear something slosh. That can't be good.
In the midst of my collection of plastic grocery bags, (you never know when you need one of those) is a single bag still containing it's original contents. A whole chicken.
Now how, you say, does a women miss a whole chicken when unloading groceries? Well I don't - what I forgot was there were 2-for-1 chickens. I saw the one damn chicken in the freezer and well, it's lack of twin sister did not register.
The bird was in one of those plastic bags that was vacuum sealed with a little metal piece holding it together. Barely. The foul had swollen just shy of bursting the plastic bag. It looked like a bad parlor trick - Balloon With Chicken. I almost hurled right there in Rob's driveway.
I had to think fast as the toxic smell was seeping out and soon the entire neighborhood would know. I gingerly picked up the outer grocery bag and looking around set it gently in the bottom of Rob's curbside garbage can. What luck! I grab the mic stand run to the front door "Here's your stand - is tomorrow garbage day?" You should have seen the look on his face. "Uh, yeah. Why?" I don't even think I answered. I hear as I rush back to the car "Are you ok, you look a little sick" Yeah, no shit. I can only light a candle that he doesn't visit his garbage can before 5am.
The Chicken, Part II
As usual, and with almost anyone else, that would be the end of the story. But like my trunk, my friends (and family) are unpredictable and full of shit.
So, as I barrel west up Tropicana Avenue I begin to feel better. The stench has subsided (not gone mind you, but I could breathe) and I am starting to no longer see double. It's at this point, I do two things that often happen simultaneously . Burst into hysterics and call my mother. I'm laughing so hard she can barely understand me.
"What the hell is so funny?" So of course I tell her the final verdict on the smell. She was of course aware of the whole stinky situation as I have been giving her a play by play for the last three days. So now she starts laughing. It's at that point I remember that she was at the lunch I took Dirk to ..."Oh man" she laughs, "Wait 'til Dirk finds out what that smell was" Oh Hell No. I explain in detail as to why she needs to keep her damn flapper shut. It's embarrassing. It's irresponsible. It's really fucking stupid. Please. I beg.
I am given what later turns out to be a bullshit reassurance that she won't say anything and go home. I do not reveal the root of the smell to anyone in the house. No one asks.
The next morning, rise and shine and in to work. Regular day. Car still smells and I'm not sure what to do about that, but I am so damn thrilled to be rid of the source that I really don't care. I'm at my desk at about 9am when Jan at the front desk rings.
"Yellow, Kelly here"
"Uh, Kelly...you have a fax"
Big deal, I think. What the hell is the problem. Throw it in my box. I ask from who. She says she doesn't know. OK, is there a cover sheet, I ask? No. Is it addressed to me? No. Well then how in the hell does she know it's for me.
"Because you are the only person in this company that this fax can be for".
Oh shit.
I get up and run to the office, which is actually two doors down. She's holding the fax, which although is in reality a fax, it is not in memo form. It's a ransom note.
I'm serious as a heart attack - every letter is cut out of a newspaper or magazine and glued to a blank sheet of copy paper. All the letters are uneven and it's very creepy. I read it.
i kNoW whAt yOu DId tO THe cHicKeN
I'm shocked. What the fuck IS this? Are you kidding me? The chicken? Nobody knows about the chicken. Except mom. No, she did not. Oh yes she did.
Before I can pick up the phone to accuse her of this betrayal, another fax comes through. Are you kidding? It's the exact same note, no cover page. I finally have the smarts to look at the originating fax number from the first fax. Dirk. Oh hell.
Wait, then who is the second one? Rob. Oh shit, he know about the trash can too. Are you kidding? More faxes follow. On both fax machines in my office...all morning. Friends have gotten copies of the ransom note and are faxing them willy-nilly all damn day long. I can't reach my mother. Voice mail. She knows she's in trouble.
I now have to start explaining, to everyone in the office about the fucking chicken. It's too late. If I don't someone else will. My boss is amazed. Joan, who convinced me to write this blog finds it to be just a riot. When the faxes taper off at around 11am I think I am off the hook. I am wrong. Now begin the phone calls.
Phone on desk buzzes: "This is Kelly"
Whispery low voice : Iknowhwhatyoudidtothechicken". Giggle. Click.
This continues throughout the afternoon. Jan at the front desk claims no one will give their name, but I know at this point she's in on it too. She thinks it's hysterical. At this point some of the call are from inside the office. Bastards.
In one day I received approximately 20 faxes and a good dozen harassing phone calls. So-called friends and family decide to end the charade at 5pm. No more chicken threats.
To this day, nobody has REALLY admitted to blowing my cover (mom) sending the first fax (Dirk) and notifying accomplices (both of you). There were many other partners in this prank, I think even my ex-husband sent a fax. Or it could have been anyone else at Beasley Broadcasting, who knows. I got faxes from radio and TV stations, other advertising agencies and even the Water District. Which still confuses me.
I never buy whole chickens, ever. I don't care if they are giving them away. And when I shop I count my grocery bags. Every. Fucking. Time. I had to sell the car. Really. The smell never came out and it was unbearable. It got in the ventilation and was never the same. Come to think of it, neither was I.
And that my friends, is The Chicken Story.
Regardless, I actually called her bluff and here I have started the blog. Scared to death of this - If I believed in God, I ask for his help.
According to Joan, I am supposed to tell the story of The Chicken, so before I go off on a rant about how I can't even set my damn clock on my microwave- what makes me think I can blog, I'll tell the story. I don't know how long a blog is supposed to be, so I split this story into two parts. Why? No idea.
The Chicken, part I
It was July in Vegas, which if you haven't been subjected to is effen hot. I don't mean "damn, it's hot" I mean surface-of-the-sun Africa hot. And the wind blows, which is just fabulous. At the time, I drove a 1984 Thunderbird. 2 door, one window did not roll down. Not only did the air not work, but some jacked up short in the system made it actually BLOW hot air, even when the air was completely off. Travelling in luxury as usual.
I went grocery shopping on a Sunday. My father and my husband at the time (more on these two in later posts, thank you) unloaded the trunk of groceries. And this should be the end of the story, but you've never seen my trunk.
For the record, my trunk still looks the same as it did in 1998. It always does in every car. Shoes, musical equipment, cd's, file folders, jackets, cow bells, bags, Christmas ornaments - you get the picture. I have had several roommates and two husbands ask if I'm ever going to move in.
So I head to work Monday and well, something smells funny. Not funny ha ha. I don't think anything of it (it is 110 and my air doesn't work after all) it could be anything. At noon, I jump in the car to pick up a friend (that shit, but more about him later too) and of course now it's pretty stinky.
My buddy Dirk: "What the hell is that smell?" Me: "Don't know. Started smelling funny yesterday, but I think it's worse". Well that was about the end of it, until after lunch. I guess an hour in a parking lot at high noon in Vegas in July is bad, bad, bad for this situation.
My buddy Dirk "Ok, dude. What in Holy Hell is that smell? Is there food in the back seat? This is awful. Get me back to my office." Suit yourself and off he goes. He was right though, it was stenchy.
Day three, the stink progresses. I wake on Tuesday and declare that there must be an animal lodged in my engine compartment because its fucking awful and I can't take it. So the dad and the husband venture out into the heat (no garage or carport, by the way) and pop the hood. Nothing. Search the backseat for a remnant Big Mac. Nothing. I can't figure it out.
Day four. I am convinced that the remaining Mob in Vegas has whacked a guy and placed him in my trunk, but I am honestly too scared to look. I'm now getting some sort of rash. I go to work. It's still fucking hot.
At 5pm I have to drive across town to my drummer's house and drop off a mic stand. At this point, the toxic stench is unbearable. Seriously, I can't breathe. I roll down the Lone Window and stick my head out whilst trying to maneuver down Maryland Parkway and my throat is closing up. My eyes are red and itchy. I start babbling like a homeless guy, arms flailing in the front seat. People are staring. At one point I actually put the car in park in the left turn lane and jump out, cursing and drooling and start digging through the backseat for again some sign that there is a dead animal or some sort of organic substance that has taken a turn - to no avail. The light changes and I slump back in the seat. Swollen, wheezing and itchy with temporary Tourettes, I drive on.
I arrive at my drummer Rob's house, stumble out of the car and head to the trunk where the mic stand is living and it hits me. No really, it was like hitting a wall. The smell was astonishing.
I realize at that moment that whatever it is really is in my trunk. I place the key in the keyhole and turn. All I can say is the stench almost knocked me over. I start digging through the trunk, so much crap.....why do I have a turkey baster in here? ...And then presto! I hear something slosh. That can't be good.
In the midst of my collection of plastic grocery bags, (you never know when you need one of those) is a single bag still containing it's original contents. A whole chicken.
Now how, you say, does a women miss a whole chicken when unloading groceries? Well I don't - what I forgot was there were 2-for-1 chickens. I saw the one damn chicken in the freezer and well, it's lack of twin sister did not register.
The bird was in one of those plastic bags that was vacuum sealed with a little metal piece holding it together. Barely. The foul had swollen just shy of bursting the plastic bag. It looked like a bad parlor trick - Balloon With Chicken. I almost hurled right there in Rob's driveway.
I had to think fast as the toxic smell was seeping out and soon the entire neighborhood would know. I gingerly picked up the outer grocery bag and looking around set it gently in the bottom of Rob's curbside garbage can. What luck! I grab the mic stand run to the front door "Here's your stand - is tomorrow garbage day?" You should have seen the look on his face. "Uh, yeah. Why?" I don't even think I answered. I hear as I rush back to the car "Are you ok, you look a little sick" Yeah, no shit. I can only light a candle that he doesn't visit his garbage can before 5am.
The Chicken, Part II
As usual, and with almost anyone else, that would be the end of the story. But like my trunk, my friends (and family) are unpredictable and full of shit.
So, as I barrel west up Tropicana Avenue I begin to feel better. The stench has subsided (not gone mind you, but I could breathe) and I am starting to no longer see double. It's at this point, I do two things that often happen simultaneously . Burst into hysterics and call my mother. I'm laughing so hard she can barely understand me.
"What the hell is so funny?" So of course I tell her the final verdict on the smell. She was of course aware of the whole stinky situation as I have been giving her a play by play for the last three days. So now she starts laughing. It's at that point I remember that she was at the lunch I took Dirk to ..."Oh man" she laughs, "Wait 'til Dirk finds out what that smell was" Oh Hell No. I explain in detail as to why she needs to keep her damn flapper shut. It's embarrassing. It's irresponsible. It's really fucking stupid. Please. I beg.
I am given what later turns out to be a bullshit reassurance that she won't say anything and go home. I do not reveal the root of the smell to anyone in the house. No one asks.
The next morning, rise and shine and in to work. Regular day. Car still smells and I'm not sure what to do about that, but I am so damn thrilled to be rid of the source that I really don't care. I'm at my desk at about 9am when Jan at the front desk rings.
"Yellow, Kelly here"
"Uh, Kelly...you have a fax"
Big deal, I think. What the hell is the problem. Throw it in my box. I ask from who. She says she doesn't know. OK, is there a cover sheet, I ask? No. Is it addressed to me? No. Well then how in the hell does she know it's for me.
"Because you are the only person in this company that this fax can be for".
Oh shit.
I get up and run to the office, which is actually two doors down. She's holding the fax, which although is in reality a fax, it is not in memo form. It's a ransom note.
I'm serious as a heart attack - every letter is cut out of a newspaper or magazine and glued to a blank sheet of copy paper. All the letters are uneven and it's very creepy. I read it.
i kNoW whAt yOu DId tO THe cHicKeN
I'm shocked. What the fuck IS this? Are you kidding me? The chicken? Nobody knows about the chicken. Except mom. No, she did not. Oh yes she did.
Before I can pick up the phone to accuse her of this betrayal, another fax comes through. Are you kidding? It's the exact same note, no cover page. I finally have the smarts to look at the originating fax number from the first fax. Dirk. Oh hell.
Wait, then who is the second one? Rob. Oh shit, he know about the trash can too. Are you kidding? More faxes follow. On both fax machines in my office...all morning. Friends have gotten copies of the ransom note and are faxing them willy-nilly all damn day long. I can't reach my mother. Voice mail. She knows she's in trouble.
I now have to start explaining, to everyone in the office about the fucking chicken. It's too late. If I don't someone else will. My boss is amazed. Joan, who convinced me to write this blog finds it to be just a riot. When the faxes taper off at around 11am I think I am off the hook. I am wrong. Now begin the phone calls.
Phone on desk buzzes: "This is Kelly"
Whispery low voice : Iknowhwhatyoudidtothechicken". Giggle. Click.
This continues throughout the afternoon. Jan at the front desk claims no one will give their name, but I know at this point she's in on it too. She thinks it's hysterical. At this point some of the call are from inside the office. Bastards.
In one day I received approximately 20 faxes and a good dozen harassing phone calls. So-called friends and family decide to end the charade at 5pm. No more chicken threats.
To this day, nobody has REALLY admitted to blowing my cover (mom) sending the first fax (Dirk) and notifying accomplices (both of you). There were many other partners in this prank, I think even my ex-husband sent a fax. Or it could have been anyone else at Beasley Broadcasting, who knows. I got faxes from radio and TV stations, other advertising agencies and even the Water District. Which still confuses me.
I never buy whole chickens, ever. I don't care if they are giving them away. And when I shop I count my grocery bags. Every. Fucking. Time. I had to sell the car. Really. The smell never came out and it was unbearable. It got in the ventilation and was never the same. Come to think of it, neither was I.
And that my friends, is The Chicken Story.
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