My flight has been delayed for 3 or 4 years now and I’m getting to know the many citizens living in this airport community. There’s “Red Cap” reading a book by Vince Flynn, an older man with a mustache and no beard who CAN NOT believe that someone could be stupid enough to leave their laptop in the plastic tray after going through security. Can. Not. Believe. It.
There’s Rag Reader, perusing In Style to unearth the deats surrounding Brangelina’s latest breakup. I eye the cover of her magazine. Gradually my pity for their invaded privacy turns to disdain for people who read that trash, turns to morbid curiosity, turns to a burning NEED TO KNOW what kind of needless argument could have caused the split turns to a great desire to stroke their hair and counsel them through the hard times.
Angry Business Man seems to gain power pellets by yelling into his phone in FRONT of other people, the same way I gain them by using CAPS in randOM places and stockpiling bushels of shwag. Finding an appropriate moment to wear my Butterball Turkey button is beyond the scope of my limited imagination, and yet it’s currently keeping my 10 ugly t-shirts and foot-long pen company in a luggage truck somewhere out on the tarmac. I think it’s on the tarmac. I’m pretty sure my plane isn’t. My airline does not like to give out sensitive information, information like “WHERE ON THIS EARTH IS THE *BEAUTY LUVIN’ PLANE?”
I may post again with more than you ever wanted to know about the conference today since it appears I’ll be making my permanent home on this grey pleather chair with Jenny and Eve.
When it became apparent that I would be making like Tom Hanks and semi-permanently inhabiting the airport, I called home and told Dan to prepare for life as a professional blogger and Laylee and Magoo that they’d better learn how to warm their own spaghetti-o’s. Laylee asked, “What have you been doing in Chicago lately?”
Do you wanna know what it’s like to be a worm’s breath away from Oprah’s ex-apartment building? I’ll keep you in suspense for a moment longer. Right now I’ve got to build a spitting fountain in concourse D for Catherine Zeta Jones and eat some pizza.
*Jenny was recently told that she should wash her son’s mouth out with soap if he keeps using foul expressions like “DANG IT!” This weekend we helped her come up with more positive phrases she could teach him in place of his most heinous language. The best we’ve come up with are MARSHMALLOW PEEPS! PRECIOUS MOMENTS! and Luvin’ BEAUTY Joy! Nicer alternatives, no? May save her little miscreant son from a life of crime and offensiveness.
The only question IS… when will the MOTHER LOVING plane of GOODNESS be here???? WHEN? Not that I don’t love and delight in the airport, but come ON!!
SCRAPBOOKING PANSIES! CHOCOLATY CHUNKY OREO”S IN MILK! AND FLUFFY PUPPIES IN A CHILD’S LUVIN ARMS!
I’m SO SIPPING ROOTBEER FLOATS SICK OF THIS PLACE!
Get the skinny on the Brangelina fiasco and get back to us. Those krazy kids….
I hope you’re home by now.
Isn’t it a lovely feeling to be able to miss the kids?
BTW, your absolutelybananas.com link needs a www. in front of it to work.
I’ve always been amazed at how important people are at the airport. Or just maybe it’s how important they think they are. (The level of their importance being directly related to the volume at which they yell into their cell phones.) And how beautiful some of them are. And how good those leopard-printed pleather pants look below their hot pink sequined tube top.
Hmm…is it bad that when I was reading your post I was kind of wishing I was there?
I think they should just hand out trashy magazines at the doors of the airport. It would make the wait so much more bearable. Hope you get out of there soon!
I’d spend a week in an airport uf I’d have been able to be at BlogHer. You guys all make it sound like soooooooo much fun. 🙁
I had two three hour layovers on my way to Utah. So feelin’ ya, babes.
Marshmallow PEEPS! Precious Moments!
Yup. Those are great. Very satisfying.
I myself have a made up phrase (“Fricken FRACK!”) which is very helpful if used sparingly. But it’s a little too similar to truly terrible words and would just sound very wrong out of the mouth of babes.
I know just what you mean about those magazines. On the one hand I curse our culture’s obsession with celebrities and look down on people who indulge in reading such rubbage. How nosy can you get!
On the other hand whenever I’m waiting at the dentist’s office (which is quite frequently because I have Invisaligns) I secretly sneak a peek to see what cute hairstyle Reese Witherspoon is sporting these days. By the time I’ve finished the magazine I’m wishing I could afford some of that Creme de la Mer and considering a starvation diet.
SUCH a hypocrite!
Hope you get home soon!
Do I even have to ask if you’re stuck in the Chicago airport? It has a CURSE. I’m sure of it. No plane must ever leave that airport on time.
Oh the airport! what a lovely people watching extravaganza! LOVE airports. Your nightmare my heaven on earth!! LOL.
Hi! Found your site via way of AbsolutelyBananas. I’ll be back to read more. I like your style!
Hope you and Erin and Jenny got home safe and sound. I miss my girls too. Hope I won’t get too much of a delay later at the airport (yea, wishful thinking!).
Well, Sweet niblets! I hope you get home soon!
Ahh! this totally explains why I kept calling you yesterday and never got through. That, and the fact that I’m not positive I have the correct phone number. Last time I was stuck in an airport, I did my first crossword puzzle, because we coudn’t get wi-fi. It took me and my cuz hours to do it, and then I went and watched Wordplay, and that one kid can do them in like 2 minutes. CORN DOG AND TATER TOTS!
This actually reminds me of one time coming home from church. Derek and I were murmuring about this teacher and how much she bugged. Cal, in the back seat, said, “Mom, she drives me nuts, bananas, and ICE CREAM!”
I hope you haven’t resorted to saltines and ketchup yet. Airport food is EXPENSIVE!
Do you remember Tom Hanks line from “A League of their Own”? “There’s no crying in baseball!” I got one look at the picture and kept thinking, “There’s no crying in airports!” That picture about did me in. I can’t see you cry without switching into “mother-mode”. I just want to come “where ever the creme-filled twinkies you are” and make things all better. Hopefully by now, you are home and happy again. Love you!
Flying is the one thing that could make me not want to go on vacation, but hasn’t. It can be such a nightmare! Hope you are home and lovin’ your kids today!
On the word replacement, DH and I came up with one way of yelling out in pain when we stub our toe or hit our funny bone, etc. It goes like this: “TOE ON THE CORNER OF THE COUCH!” or “ELBOW ON THE DOOR” or “TRIANGULAR SHAPED BLOCK TO THE FOOT!”
This serves two purposes:
1-You get to scream out in pain without saying any mean words
2-Nobody needs to ask the inevitable “What happened?”
NEVER fly out of Chicago if you can at all help it. It is ALWAYS delayed. It’s the wind. BOYCOTT CHICAGO. Unless, of course, you live there.
Hope you made it home.
Hey, I’m only 5 hours south of you…skip the plane & come hang out on the farm. I’ll even send you home with a chicken, puppy, and kitten for each of the kid-os. Talk about rockin’ souveiners!
Beauty Lovin’…yeah. Have to add that one to the vocab. It’s up there with G’ma yelling “Sugar Beets!” Or my personal fav. “Son of a motherless goat!” (thank you Three Amigos)
Here’s another one to add to the pot… my little one recently chose “Oh cuckcoo clocks” as her version of dang it
Oh man, not only did my flight get canceled, but the next flight was double booked… every friggen seat! It was a “computer glitch.” Uh huh. So I sat standby for hours and hours, finally made it back to New Mexico this late afternoon.
I had a great time at BlogHer, and very much enjoyed meeting you. Thanks for swapping cards with me. I look forward to reading more of your stuff! Big hugs!
My children have picked up “sweet niblets!” and “tarter sauce!” from television and use them frequently. Also, my almost-eight-year-old has been heard to exclaim “Oh, shap!” on occasion. Clearly, we need to get rid of cable.
kathryn–i SO loved meeting you this weekend. your passion and gift for words inspired me. xo
too funny…I hope you’ve made it home by now. I read you blog all the time but never comment. I have recently started my own blog…check it out if you have time
Kathryn,
This is my first time to your blog, but I can assure you it wont be my last. Your blog looks so cool and you are hilariously funny! I especially love how you described all the people in the airport, so true, so true. Anyway, I put you in my Daily Reads section, because I’m sure to be back often.
Please stop by my blog sometime if you get a chance! Thanks!
Haley
Hey, you forgot to mention me in your profile of airport residents (I saw you w/your computer but was very occupied)! I was the mom chasing the 2-year-old around the waiting area, while he twirled around posts, did chin-ups on barriers, and, occasionally, laid down on the floor in the middle of pedestrian traffic, taking off his shoes and socks and wailing. Ah, the joys of air travel with a toddler! (Meanwhile, you and your crew were bogarting the electrical sockets. We found one down the hall for video iPod “Dora” action, eventually.)