The Hols of Chrimbo

Happy Holidays my friends! I can still say that right? Hanukkah is still going on. New Years hasn’t happened yet. Our sad, dried out Christmas Trees are still shedding dagger-like needles into our carpets. Yeah, I can still say Happy Holidays.

This Christmas was one I have been anticipating for a while. My very best friend in the entire universe (including Pluto) came to visit for Christmas. We ate lots of treats, watched every episode of The Office at least once, ate more treats, moaned about our sick tummies, and decided the only cure for sick tummies was more treats. Treats that were tainted by the overpowering taste of Chloraseptic Throat Lozenges. Eating a Chocolate Chloraseptic Peanut Butter Cup is not nearly as tasty as it sounds… Allow me to elaborate:

Tuesday: T minus 24 hours until arrival of best friendy. I notice a slight scratchiness in my throat. Immediately go to the grocery store and buy the following to combat potential sickness:

Echinacea
Chloraseptic Throat Lozenges
Chloraseptic Throat Spray
Robitussin
Vitamin C
Airborne (this crazy new fizzy pill thing that supposedly keeps you from getting sick)
Nyquil
Dayquil
Advil
Tylenol Cold and Sinus
Orange Juice

In combination I call this barrage of cold fighting medications Operation Shock and Awe.

Tuesday evening: Take one of each of the above listed cold fighting remedies. Shock and Awe round one.

Wednesday morning: Wake up with a full-blown sore throat. Can hardly swallow. Immediately take round two of Shock and Awe. Go into full party planning mode, as I am hosting the party of the century Thursday night.

Wednesday afternoon: Convince myself I have bird flu and look up symptoms on the internet. Oh Lord. I really do think I do have bird flu now. Main symptoms are: fever, cough, sore throat, sore throat, sore throat, muscle aches, eye infections, pneumonia, severe respiratory disease... Stop reading at this point. Feeling faint. Round 3 of Shock and Awe. Take 4 hour nap.

Wednesday evening: Pick up Ang from the airport. I feel like a giant piece of poo. Like on that movie Weird Science when the main character's mean older brother gets turned into a giant pile of poo. This is how I feel. Get home, round 4 of Shock and Awe. Add gargling of warm salt water to Shock and Awe.

Thursday morning: Trouble breathing through swollen throat. Drink lots of water and suck down about 14 lozenges. Shock and Awe round 5. Add hot water with Lemon and Honey to Shock and Awe. As this is possibly the most disgusting thing I have ever had to drink, this only lasts one round of Shock and Awe.

Thursday afternoon: Getting house ready for party. Shock and Awe seems to be having a positive effect.

Thursday right before party: Round 6 of shock and awe. Add many glasses of wine, martinis and lots of treats to Shock and Awe at this time. Best I’ve felt in three days…

I wake up Friday morning after a sleepless night. A little known fact. The average person swallows every fifteen minutes while sleeping. I know this because every time I swallowed in my sleep I would sit bolt upright in bed, feeling like someone had just punched me from inside my throat with brass knuckles. This happened all night, every fifteen minutes. Like clockwork. Sleeping sitting up was slightly better. This extended the sleeping time to roughly 45 minutes between throat grenade episodes.

I decide to go to the Doctor, and he adds Codeine and Naproxin to Shock and Awe. Come home and sleep for about 3 hours. Wake up and decided Shock and Awe may not be doing me any good so I stick with Chloraseptic Throat Lozenges, Icy Cold Diet Cokes, Codeine and holiday treats. I had at this time become convinced the sore throat was being caused by an evil little gnome living in my throat, poking me with little gnome forks, shards of broken glass, dried pine needles from my Christmas Tree and various other sharp objects. I also had the distinct impression the evil little Gnome, let’s call her Paige, was collecting the codeine I was eating like candy and building a little codeine palace with the pills, as they had zero effect on the pain living in my throat. I tried to placate her with endless consumption and variety of holiday treats, but nothing worked. The only refuge from the pain was constant sucking of lozenges followed by sips of frosty bevies.

Needless to say, I was sick the entire time Angela was here. Evil Paige the gnome did her best to ruin the Chrimbo Hols, but I am proud to say she failed. Even though I felt like I was swallowing broken lightbulbs for the majority of Ang’s visit, we still had a blast. We ate lots of good food (mine seasoned liberally by lozenges), watched good movies, went shopping, did a little snowboarding. We also uncovered our secret desire to become Geisha. I secretly think Ang fashioned a Kimono out of her bedding while I was sleeping and practiced being Geisha in her room late at night. We learned that eating our weight in chocolate is fun for no one. Discovered that sending each other instant messages while sitting on the same couch was way more hilarious than actually talking to each other. Most importantly we learned once again that the true Spirit of Christmas is this: She who gets the most preeeesents is the winner.

Dancing Queen.

Friday marked a first for me in a very long time. I went dancing. For those of you who know me, you know I hate to dance. It’s not that I can’t dance, I just don’t enjoy it. At all.

Friday night proved a hypothesis I had been testing. Give me 2 martinis and I can be talked into anything. Including going to a dance club. We ended up at some club in Salt Lake. The name of the club is not important, since they are all pretty much the same. Dark, musty, smoke filled spaces with thumping bass, writhing bodies and flashing lights. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all.

I was with Sho, who is a true dancing queen. She can do things in heels I can only dream of doing in sneakers. As we were paying our cover charge, she was shaking she was so excited to dance. Once inside, she made her way directly to the dance floor to shake what her momma gave her. Myself, I found a table on the edge of the dance floor to keep an eye on my group, and settled in for a night of people bumping into me on their way to the dance floor. A night full of, THUMP followed by “Sorry dude.” Not exactly how I had hoped to spend my Friday night. At this point I am checking out the other patrons of the club, and judging them accordingly. Girl in pink should not be wearing a tube top. Mr. Back Hair needs to put his shirt back on. Is that girl doing yoga on the dance floor?? I typically have rude commentary running through my head. Like a stock ticker, only much funnier. However, when I am forced to do something I really don’t want to do my judgmental gene kicks into overdrive.

I glance back to the dance floor, scanning for Sho and see her making her way up onto a stage. I notice that the ugliest woman I have ever laid eyes on has offered her a hand. Sho takes the proffered hand and proceeds to dance her little heart out, next to the very ugly woman. As I am watching them I notice something disturbing. Something I would have noticed much more quickly if I had not followed the two martinis with two rum and cokes. Said very ugly woman has an adam’s apple. From what I’ve been told, women do not have adam’s apples. Realization dawns on me slowly. My eyebrows raise, my mouth drops open. Sho is dancing with the worst, most obvious drag queen you can imagine. Even worse than football players dressing up like women for Halloween. Now I don’t have any issues with drag queens usually. But honestly, if you are going to dress in women’s clothing, at least do it well.

I start waving my arms frantically to get someone’s attention. This situation is not one I can mock all by myself. This requires the mockery of a group. Something this hideous must be shared with friends. Michael sees me flailing about and comes over to where I am sitting.

Me: Uhhhh, who on earth is that dancing with Sho?
Michael: HOLY HELL! That is Tragica!
Me: Tragica?
Michael: Well I think he/she goes by Candy, but we all call her Tragica. She is infamous in Salt Lake City.

As it turns out, Tragica (so dubbed by my friend Spencer) is a 40 year old construction worker by day, drag queen by night. And I can’t stress enough how poorly done up she was. Frizzy blond wig that kept slipping down revealing male pattern baldness. Tight black tights. Short, white pleather mini-skirt. High heels, naturally. And what drag queen would be complete without a 5 o’clock shadow. Tragica was a walking disaster.

I’m afraid that Sho has been dethroned as the dancing queen of Salt Lake now. She must pass her scepter and crown to the one and only Tragica. Long live the queen…

When you gotta go, you gotta go...

Today marks the opening day of skiing and snowboarding at Sundance! As part of my job I was forced to go out and investigate the current snow conditions. This was a great sacrifice for me. How cruel to make me snowboard when I should be sitting in front of my computer working. I’m sure you feel my pain. And I hope you can detect my sarcasm.

While out snowboarding today I was reminded of an experience I had a few years back. It was again opening day, and again I was out “doing research” on the slopes. While riding the lift I saw a mother and child skiing down the mountain toward us. Watching them, I felt an anxiety common to all skiers the first day of the season. You just want to be on the snow! The conditions were unbelievable! Fresh powder. Sunshine. No wind. In a word, perfection. The kind of day you pray for all season long. The mother’s skis were making the noise every mountain sportsman loves. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, as she carved down the mountain, Little Billy behind her in a matching Spyder outfit. If we were filming a promotional video, this is the image of Sundance we would want to capture.

However, Little Billy had another idea. They were about 30 yards from where our chair was slowly creeping up the mountain, and the little boy stops. His mother stops about 15 feet downhill from where he is now taking off his jacket. She calls up to him, “Honey? Are you hot?”

The little boy replies, “Nooooo Mommmy. I have to pooooopy.” Off comes the jacket, followed by the hat, gloves and scarf. And then he starts going for the pants.

The mother at this point is frantically trying to ski uphill, screaming, “Honey NO! NO! Wait! WAIT! Oh shit, oh shit.” I didn’t know uphill skiing was possible, but this mother was giving her all to prove me wrong. She was still about 5 feet away when the pants finally met the snow. In one fluid motion, the little boy squatted and defiled my perfect mountain. Right there under the lift line, on the perfectly white snow, Little Billy pooed.

The mother redoubled her efforts to reach Little Billy, and made it to him just as he was finishing his business on the mountain. She frantically pulled up his pants, grabbed his clothes from the surrounding snow and looked around. The only people who witnessed this event were creeping slowly by, 30 feet above where she was standing. She looked up at us, gave an embarrassed smile, and proceeded to bury Little Billy’s crap! After the land mine was completely covered, she picked up her son and skied out of sight.

I turned and looked at the friend sharing the chair with me and said, “Uhhhh, let’s maybe avoid that run today…”

“Yeah,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “Maybe even for the rest of the season.”

Glossary of Chris

Here are some of my favorite acronyms and phrases.

The S: This is short for saying sex. Ex: Don’t have The S with strangers.

J: Jewish. Ex: My friend Shoshuna is J.

Less Active: A guy you can tell is gay, but is in denial. Derived from the Mormon use of less active which is someone who is a member of the church, but not practicing. So a less active gay guy is a guy who is gay, but not practicing. You can also use the phrase Pink Elephant.

Triple D’s: Triple Details. Nothing to do with boobs you pervos! Ex: Give me the Triple D’s from your date on Saturday.

Nervy B. Nervous Breakdown. Taken from my favorite series of books. Ex: I am going to have a Nervy B if someone doesn’t shut that kid up!

F.T.L.: French Toast Look. We came up with this after a friend asked a waiter at a nice restaurant if they served breakfast. He said yes, and she asked to order the French Toast. He gave her a look like she has just announced that she had a dead baby stuffed in her purse. Turns out they only serve French toast during breakfast hours, not for dinner. So anytime someone says something particularly dim, or is just being plain old stupid they get the dreaded F.T.L.

Doll: I use this word a lot. It comes in handy because I don’t have to remember anybody’s name. Ex: Hey Doll, pass the salt. Hey Doll, I can see your undies. Hey Doll, you have a bat in the cave! Bat in the cave!

Hamburger Soup: Someone who is in a particularly bad mood. Courtesy of Angela. She had a Nervy B one day because all she wanted to eat was Hamburger Soup. Legend has it she had a total meltdown, so now anytime someone is a very bad mood they are considered to be Hamburger Soupy. The only rememdy to hamburger soup is cupcakes.

Missy: Stupid girl with big poofy blonde hair, lots of makeup, no brains and tight pants. Mainly found on college campuses. Ex: That stupid missy almost ran me over with her VW Bug.

Bizzo: Cross between bitch and ho. Ex: That old lady is a bizzo.