God, Lindsey, I thought I killed her!

My husband Jason and I had been planning our upcoming trip to Colorado forEVER! His best friend was finally tying the knot. This was the most anticipated wedding, since Luke and Laura's. I literally planned potential pregnancies around this wedding. With the exception of over-nighters here and there, we hadn't been away on vacation together in almost 7 years. We were due.



I'd been counting the days 'til we left. I took all the necessary precautions, ie. new dress, babysitter, dog sitter, rental car, fake tan, etc. etc. So, to say we were anxious for this trip to happen was an extreme understatement.



The "day of" came and we giddily (is that a word?) said good bye to our kids and sped down the driveway, leaving skid marks. We chatted (uninterrupted) and laughed (with each other not at each other) the whole way to the airport.


MISTAKE #1: We stopped at Four Winds Casino on our way to Chicago because...well, why wouldn't we? So, we leisurely had lunch, confidently played a few hands of black jack (lost) and we were on our merry way.



After driving for what seemed a bit longer than expected, my husband announces that we should have been at the airport by now. He's starting to panic because we only have about an hour buffer at this point and we're not even near the airport. Mind you, he JUST made this exact trip (same airline, same flight, same airport) 3 months ago for the bachelor party. So, we're driving and driving and he's freaking out. I call a few friends who know their way around the windy city fairly well and they assure us that we're absolutely heading in the right direction to O'Hare. Jason politely thanks them and then mutters that they don't know what they're talking about because he insists that we weren't going the right way.



MISTAKE #2: He sneaks his blackberry out of his briefcase and very surrepticiously begins to type in our flight information. I ask him, 'what are the chances that we fly out of Midway and not O'Hare'? He says '1%'. Then, what he fears the most is upon him and he whips his phone across the car. "&^%$!#$....WE FRIGGIN' FLY OUT OF MIDWAY". Yeah. Midway was about an hour and 20 minutes ago. We now have about 30 minutes to make our flight. Nevermind parking and checking our bags and such. He asks what we should do and I tell him to pull over and find an attorney because I'm leaving him.



We drive through Chicago's mid-day traffic (in a stick shift) for about an hour and half and I say nothing the entire time. I'm fuming. We finally get to Midway and we obviously miss our flight, but the ticket person assures us we'll get on stand by because there's 30 available seats and we're number 6 in line. So, once I realize that I have 3 hours to myself (which never happens) I exhale and decide to forgive my husband. I immediately walked into the nearest bookstore and began piling up books into his arms. He suggested that perhaps I don't have to buy all of these hardbacks, but wait and then check them out from the library. I glare at him and he lovingly walks up to the register with books in tow. Pretty much the same scene goes down at the jewlery store and when I've decided that I've gotten enough mileage out of his huge snafu, I sit down with my new books and begin to read.



It's about an hour before we're supposed to board for our stand by flight and I'm basically sitting on the ticket counter waiting for the ticket person to show up. When she finally does, I'm all but crawling over the front of the counter to get her to notice me, but she just keeps typing away pretending she doesn't see me. I'm absolutely certain that she was typing "I don't see you, I don't see you" over and over. I jingled my keys, I sighed loudly....nothing (you could hear crickets). Then she walks away. Finally comes back and I pop up from under the counter, "HELLO....Hi, can you help me"?? Her: (sigh...eye roll, glare) I shove my ticket in her face and she tells me that she couldn't possibly tell me if I've gotten on the stand by flight or not, it's far too early to tell. I look around, there's basically 12 people sitting there. So, she proceeds to call up the people who need assistance, then the people from the back of the plane and forward, then she calls up the stand by people one by one. She was like, "Ummm, ok, anyone..... anyone at all who aren't these two annoying people standing in front of me looking like toddlers who are about to pee their pants can board the aircraft. Finally, she sighs, nods her head and allows us onto her precious airplane.



Jason and I fought the whole way onto the plane about who will sit in the middle. I hate the middle, but I always give it to him because he's 6'2" and I don't want to hear him kvetch about it the whole way to Denver. I shove in next to what seems to be a very normal man. He was anything but. First of all, he mumbled to himself from the moment I sat down until we landed in Colorado, which ironically ended up being 3 times longer than it needed to be---but I'll get to that momentarily. He had this non-sensical, unaudible way of speaking which at first concerned me, but then really grated on my nerves. He had a comment for every single thing that was said within his earshot. Very annoying.



We're 8th in line for take off. We're 2nd in line for take off. We've sat idle for about 30 minutes when the pilot announces that the airport has temporarily closed down due to a thunderstorm. Oh....and they don't serve booze while still on the ground. The plane erupts into panic. And there we sit, for the next. 4. hours. I was getting dangerously close to losing it.



The guy. You know, the one next to me? Well, he has a ritual of sorts, see? It goes like this: Toiletry bag out. Place on lap. Unzip. Take out--in the following order--asthma inhaler, skittles, plain M&M's, chapstick. Use each one. Zip. Put away toiletry bag. Dig in pocket for 5 minutes (which is very pleasant for the person sitting next to you--which would be me). Finally retrieve wallet. Count 1's and 5's. Count credit cards. Put wallet back. Adjust ear phones. Get out phone. Scroll thru his peeps. Sit still for 2 seconds and..........then it starts. all. over. again. I was clawing Jason's thigh like a wildebeast. I was going mental. He wouldn't sit still. It was like sitting with my 3 year old, except my 3 year old is handsome...and funny. This guy was fat....and very un-funny. Plus, he kept breathing through his nose onto my hands and it was sending me to the moon. At one point I actually text messaged Jason the entire ritual and while Jason was reading it, the guy was doing exactly what I had written at that very time. Jason thought I was a magician of sorts, bless his heart. Oh, and another thing about this guy that I think is note worthy is that I find him to be a bit of a liar. He would scroll through his phone, dial and then say to the person on the other line, "Oooooh, you answered???? I was playing with my phone and it accidently dialed your number. I didn't want to be rude and just hang up. Me, oh, I'm alright, I guess. (Sigh) Except, I'm sitting on this plane in Chicago......" He did this to THREE different people. I couldn't believe it. Lying like that, in front of me, when I had already formed my awful opinion of him. I soooo badly wanted to grab the phone from him and "out" him. "he's lying...he's LYING--he didn't accidently dial your number--it was very deliberate--he's a liaaaar"!!!!



So, we finally land in Denver. It's 12:30 A.M. there (2:30 A.M. our time). We still have to get our bags, our rental car and get to our rented house, where 15 of our closest friends have been staying for several days prior to us getting there. Surely, there won't be anyone else at Hertz, after all, it is 12:30 in the A.M. Yep. Jason is 27th in line and there's one person working. A slow person at that.



I'll use this time to go into my description of the people with whom we're about to spend our weekend. The Rossi family. Ahh, the Rossi's. The Rossi's 3rd child, Chris, is Jason's best friend in the whole entire world. We named our oldest son's middle name "Ross" after these people. Since Jason grew up with Chris, he's long since become an honorary member of their family. And because I'm so charming and witty, they've taken me on as an adopted daughter as well. Between you and me and the rest of the world, I feel closer to these people than I do my own family. I love spending holidays with them. Not the boring ones, like Easter and Christmas, but the really fun ones, like Memorial Day and 4th of July...and Saturdays. So, you get it, we're very close and so forth. Mr. & Mrs. Rossi (Joe & Irene), their 4 kids +spouses (who are mostly our age-ish) Joe & Irene's best friends the Dushane's (Ron & Linda) plus Jason and I all in a 10,000 square foot palatial mansion. This house is on the market for 2 mil and we all got to stay there. We're fancy that way. Now, the Rossi's and the Dushanes are drinkers. Their kids grew up together, there's a lot of history there and they're a riot to watch when they've had a few. Irene with her bloody mary's....Joe with his manhattans....there's no telling where the fun will end. Here's a whimsical little side story to depict the Rossi's.



I'm about 12 hours pregnant and attending a friend's wedding. Jason and I are seated with the Rossi's. Joe asks me what I want to drink, I tell him a long island. He whistles for the waitress and calls her "toots" and tells "toots" to get me a long island. His wife, Irene, screeches, "Jooooeeee, for God's sake, she's pregnant"!!!!!!! J0e looks at her as if to say "....and..???" So he says, "Irene, you drank with all 4 of our kids and they turned out fine". Irene comes back with, "Nooo, not Nick, I did NOT drink or smoke with Nick". Joe replies without hesitation, "Yeah, and he's our dumbest one. Toots, bring this young lady a long island, pronto"!!!! Me loves the Rossi's. And yet another story:



We're all sitting around the Rossi's patio (very typical) and Chris is a newbie attorney and he's telling us about some case where they had to use a NIT kit on someone. That's code-ski for Narcotics Indicator Test. Mrs. Rossi walks into the conversation and says, "what...what...a Nick test.....so, Nick smokes it and reports if it's good pot or not..."????? We laughed for hours about that one. Poor Nick. He's the baby of the family and they all called him Kato Kalin for a while because he'd be known to get drunk and pass out in the pool house on occasion.



But I digress. Back to our trip. So, fast forward a few more hours and we're finally at our destination. Our amazingly, beautiful rented castle which is currently housing some of my most favorite people, who all suck because they've fallen asleep awaiting our arrival. We pull up to the house and there's one lone light on in the kitchen. Out walks Irene (Mrs. Rossi) in all her glory. She's in her 60's, it's well after 2 AM and she's still clutching her glass of wine, God bless her. She greets me at the door with a beer and an Atavan. God, I love these people. Irene knows I love my pills. After we've beat up Jason a little for all of our traveling debacles, we retreat to our fancy schmancy guest room (one of 6) to pass out for the night. Of course, I think my 2nd wind has kicked in and I fight the sleepies. One beer and one Atavan later and I'm all, "I'm not even tir--...zzzzzzzzzz"

The next morning, Jason has an 8AM tee time and he leaves me two $100 bills on the end table. He tells me to have a nice day and gestures to the cash. I tell him that I feel like a whore. He tells me that I must not be a very good one for only $200. I laugh and fall back asleep.

Hours later there's a knock at my door. Mrs. Rossi is standing there with a very nervous look on her face. As it turned out, she just wanted to make sure I was still breathing. I've gotten the rest of the story from Linda Dushane, but this is how it was reported to me.

Evidently Irene has a habit of covering her mouth with her hands to relay a secret, especially if it's a secret that she thinks she'll get into trouble for. So she wearily walks up the stairs and finds Linda sitting on a barstool at the island. She sits next to Linda and leans into her. Linda says, "what the hell has gotten into you, Irene"? Irene places her two hands together like she's praying and then pinches her lips with her index fingers and looks around the kitchen, all shifty-like. "God Lindsey, I thought I killed her"! Anyone who knows me it takes much, much more than a beer and an Atavan to kill this old bird. I've racked up quite a tolerance to the pharmaceuticals.

...for the record the rest of the weekend was a hoot. No further drama to report. Oh, except when I was visiting a friend in Denver, who did we see on the streets of Cherry Creek while window shopping? None other than my seat mate on the infamous flight from Chicago. Just to prove it to Jason, we did take a picture of him leaning into a car window, probably annoying someone, or lying to them. I'll have to work on getting that picture.