Dear United Airlines Customer Service Representative

Hi! How’s your day going? I imagine it’s not so great, I picture your job as 8 hours of listening to people whine about crap like not receiving a second bag of pretzels despite asking FIVE TIMES or yelling at you for the thunder storm that ruined their monthly trip to Cabo. I also imagine that United doesn’t pay you enough to deal with this crap – they don’t pay me enough at my job either, if they did I would own a private jet and could thus have avoided the weekend of woe that United has subjected me to.

It all started on the evening of Thursday May 10th, I boarded my flight (United 0509) from New York’s La Guardia Airport bound for Denver at 5:00pm. The skies were clear and we pulled away from the gate on time so all seemed to be going well. While in the terminal I had heard rumblings of canceled flights to the Midwest due to thunder storms but I figured this was someone else’s bad karma coming to call and would not affect me in my travels to Las Vegas. As I’m sure you’ve already anticipated – I was wrong. We spent 3 hours sitting on the runway waiting for the ok to take off – the pilot didn’t give us much information but I was later told that the main cause of this delay was an air traffic control problem. I don’t really know what that means but I suspect that it’s airline lingo for “Screw you.” I’m sure the 3 extra hours of time spent in an airplane seat was no picnic for anybody on the flight but my time on the runway was made especially memorable by my neighbor, Judy. Judy was very chatty. She’s from Portland and works as a consultant and seemed very interested in impressing me with how important she is at her job. She is also one of those people determined not to take any crap. As a result she felt obligated to bitch endlessly about the injustice of our current situation. This made it very difficult for me to maintain the Zen-like patience that I was hoping would prevent me from giving myself a stress headache.

The 3 hours with Judy on the LGA tarmac caused me to miss my connecting flight in Denver. I was still working the sunny attitude when a robot voice informed me (via a voice message) that I had been booked on a 7:30am flight to Las Vegas. This was obviously bad news. I deplaned and looked around hoping to find a United representative to help me figure out what to do with my evening in Denver. Unfortunately the gate attendant was already busy boarding Denver passengers onto my old plane and had no intention of talking to me. It was after 10:00pm and, despite how the city is represented on The Real World, Denver must not be much of a party town because the airport was dead. There were no United representatives at any of the near-by gates (and no drunken 22 year olds being filmed while prancing around in tube tops, cargo shorts and indignant pouts) so I decided to look for the customer service center while Judy busied herself screaming at other passengers, the janitor, and the soda machine.

My quest for help did not go well. I couldn’t find an information booth with anyone manning it and the United ticket counter was a ghost town. I decided to call United but the only number I had was for reservations where a nice Indian lady told me that she could not help me with anything other than booking future travel with United. Since I couldn’t imagine willingly purchasing another United flight anytime soon and since sleeping on the cold tile of the airport baggage claim area was fast seeming a likely scenario I asked to speak to her supervisor who offered to transfer me to customer service. I agreed to this and was greeted with a message informing me that United lets their customer service reps go home at 7:00pm (much like all of their American employees it would seem – I imagine you too were snug in bed or out at some late night haunt drinking away your troubles). I’m a latte drinking east coast liberal so I’m all for workers rights including letting everyone go home in time to spend an hour pondering how Ian Zeiring turned into such a hunk-a-roony while watching Dancing with the Stars (seriously, Luke Perry can eat it, I’m signing up for a hearty dose of Steve Sanders booty.) so I tried to suppress my anger, but by this point even a heavy dose of Paxil wouldn’t have put me into a mellow mood. I decided that I was defeated and had no choice but to go to a hotel and return to the airport in the morning. I located the bank of hotel phones and started dialing… 3 calls in I found out that a huge convention was in town and all hotel rooms were occupied. This is when the last vestige of my optimism jumped ship. Because I am, perhaps, a bit stunted in my emotional development, or because I am just lucky enough to have been born with awesomely supportive parents who totally want me to call them when shit like this happens I decided to call my mom. In retrospect this may have been a bad decision. I think I would have been able to resist bawling in the middle of the deserted baggage claim area if I had not had my mom on the line telling me how angry and worried she was for me. Once I got off the phone and stopped my crying I was able to locate one lonely late night United employee in the lost baggage department. She gave me a voucher for a discounted hotel stay and pointed me to the courtesy phone where I found out that the only hotel with an opening was in some town called Parker 30+ miles away and did not have an airport shuttle. Despite the sign above the courtesy phone claiming rates as low as “$37/night” I would be paying $89+tax.

I found the taxi line and began my long journey to Parker Colorado with my Kenyan cabbie friend who did not speak much English but was able to inform me that there were no cabs in Parker so come morning I was going to be screwed (again). Luckily he offered to come back at 5:45am. After about 45mins on the road we arrived at the hotel where I shelled out my first monetary payment for United’s travel fuck up.

CASH LOST SO FAR: $75

This was, of course, quickly followed by paying for the hotel room – unsurprisingly “discount” in United speak means “still very expensive.”

CASH LOST SO FAR: $175

I slept for 5 hours before the cabbie arrived 30mins early and called me. I was annoyed but I tried to be nice since he was kind enough to drive back out to the middle nowhere to get me to the airport. So back we went and again I paid an insane amount because United is incapable of providing me with the services that I paid for.

CASH LOST SO FAR: $250

I did finally make it to Vegas and was rewarded with some good times. Lest you think that I am a dirty dirty sinner bound for Vegas to further bring down the moral fiber of America let me assure you that I was headed there to visit family, not to gamble, drink and paw at strippers. The picture on the left should serve as proof of this claim – I’m on the right wearing my bathing suit. I look pretty hot but can hardly compete with the insane cuteness of 21 month old Delanie. After my very bumpy transportation experience the trip was a success. My dad fed money into poker machines for me and I managed to win $50, I tried Ben and Jerry’s Wavy Gravy ice cream for the first time and declared it too busy but still ate the entire scoop (for it is a great sin to waste ice cream), my cousin Miquela successfully graduated from UNLV and I successfully completed two crossword puzzled while marveling over the speed at which the sign language translators had to move their fingers while signing the names of over 1000 graduates. All too soon I was back at the Las Vegas airport waiting for my flight home.

The May 13^th morning flight from Las Vegas to Denver passed in a fog; I fell asleep on the runway and didn’t wake up until the captain announced our decent into Denver. I deplaned and went in search of sustenance in the form of a Wolfgang Puck spinach, mushroom and gorgonzola pizza. I called a friend in New York and arranged to visit her new home after landing. All was well. I had a good hour and a half to kill so I headed to my gate with the intention of catching up on some work. As soon as I arrived the gate attendant announced that our plane was still stuck in Portland due to mechanical problems and that United was looking for a replacement plane, in the meantime passengers should sit tight. Twenty minutes later the flight (United 0894) was canceled. Off I went to customer service where I stood in a 40 minute line only to find out that there were no seats on any flights until the next day.

I sometimes worry that as I’ve grown older I have less and less control over my tear ducts. As a teenager I used to laugh at my mother for crying over burnt dinner, cute babies and Kleenex commercials but lately I suspect I might be able to beat her in a sob off. I tried to be tough when talking to the customer service rep, I tried to look angry and mean and important as I demanded compensation for my being stuck in Denver TWICE IN ONE WEEKEND. My bravado was quickly squashed by the onslaught of tears welling from my uncooperative eyes. The customer service representative probably chuckled to herself as I walked away with a hotel voucher, $16 in food coupons which could only be used in the airport (where I would not be), and a ticket for a flight the following afternoon.

I had hoped that my overnight stay would at least allow me the pleasure of getting to know Denver, a city I always wanted to visit. Alas my hotel was marooned deep in the suburbs, and I, without a car, had only the onsite bar and the nearby Walmart shopping center to entertain me. For want of any better option I hiked over to Walmart in search of a few snack items to support my stomach while working from the hotel desk the following day – which reminds me, this hotel charges for internet access which I had to have since United was making it impossible for me to go into the office.

CASH LOST SO FAR: $260

You would think that a Super Walmart would have something worth snacking on. Some cut up fruit perhaps? A salad bar? sushi? Nope, nope and hahahahaha. I was also hoping that Sam Walton would provide me with access to some booze, unfortunately Colorado, like New York, is a blue law state and Walmart was only allowed to sell cheap beer in quantities of 24 cans at a time. I did manage to pick up some Mike’s Hard Limeade (because when it comes to drinking I’m a 17 year old girl who just snuck into her first frat party) and I took a picture of the most awesome product known to man, "Ol' Glory: America's Best Energy Drink". Yes, that is the pledge of allegiance printed on the back of the can, reminding us that GOD loves America so much that he gave to us the sweet elixirs of corn syrup and caffeine. (You should seriously go visit their website for it is hilarious) In addition to the malt liquor I purchased an apple, some baby bella cheese discs, a can of tuna with crackers, and a bag of extra spicy cheetos. I just started reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollen and am currently mired in the section about the evils of surplus corn so I felt obligated to pay special attention to the corn I was consuming. The cheetos (a not spicy enough caloric luxury I only allow myself in times of extreme stress) were of course almost 100% corn. I’d like to think that the apple was corn free but it was suspiciously shiny which I suspect might have been the result of a thin coating of corn based wax. Armed with these embarrassingly unhealthy provisions and a take out menu from a local “Asian” restaurant (actual Asian country unspecified – I should probably be thankful that the word “Oriental” was not used) I returned to my hotel room.

CASH LOST SO FAR: $273

At the hotel I learned a lot about the evils of Paris Hilton from CNN and Nancy Grace who were devoting an entire hour of programming to talking about how ridiculous it is that the media devotes so much time to talking about Paris Hilton. After a couple of much too sweet alcoholic limeades I decided it was time for some Asian dinner. The restaurant would only deliver orders of $12 or more so I was forced to get an appetizer (steamed pork dumplings) and an entrée (kung pao chicken) both of which were uniformly awful –I do not recommend unspecific ethnic food purchased from strip mall restaurants in the middle of the country. I do however, recommend the gin and tonics available at the Red Roof Inn in Stapleton CO which are only $4.50 and which are served by a sweet and funny bar tender who is more than willing to slip a girl a few extra limes. I noticed that my United sponsored food coupons exclude the purchase of alcohol and I’d like to recommend that you change this policy, the only time during the last 4 days that no part of me wanted to march into a United office and throw a tantrum was during the consumption of these drinks. If you were to offer a round of free alcoholic beverages to all stranded passengers I bet you could seriously lower your customer service costs.

CASH LOST SO FAR: $286
(In the spirit of good will I’ve excluded the gin and tonics from this tally)

It’s Monday evening now and after a day of working from the desk in my hotel room (the tuna was surprisingly edible) I’m finally on a plane bound for New York City. Assuming we don’t crash or get diverted back to Denver or fall into a worm hole I should be home by 10:00pm. As you can see, it’s been a pretty miserable trip. Unlike Judy and (I assume) most of the people who call or write to you I have a hard time getting too indignant about little injustices like this. As soon as I start thinking “This is AWFUL! My life SUCKS!” my (perhaps too big) heart reminds me that lots of people (the majority of the world) have it much worse. I eventually arrived safely at both of my final destinations; I could afford the taxi fare and hotel fee so I got to avoid sleeping in the airport; I’m lucky enough to have the kind of job that can be done from a hotel room desk. But when I look back at my experiences over the last 4 days I have to believe that the service that I received is much below the level that United strives to provide. Between work and pleasure I’ve been lucky enough to do a fair bit of traveling in my 29 years and this is by far the worst experience I’ve ever had. I could end this letter with much cursing and threatening to never fly United again but, as you’ve probably gathered, that’s not really my style. I do however, think I am entitled to a free flight to compensate for the monetary and personal suffering that United has caused me. I will also be posting this letter on my blog where I can assure you that it will be read by at least 10 (if not as many as 20) other people all of whom will most defiantly be on my side, maybe one or two will even curse at you for me.

A PSA for the Ladies

Girls,

Can everyone one please stop hovering? Hovering is the bathroom equivalent of driving a huge SUV. Sure, your ass is dry but while selfishly protecting your own tuckus you're spaying pee all over the damn seat. Everyone else is suffering from your self serving ways. You have no aim when you hover. If all of us would just sit the fuck down there would be no reason to hover in the first place.

If you absolutely refuse to let your precious behind touch porcelain at least have the moral character to wipe the damn seat after you spray urine all over it.

Only you can prevent wet butts.

Eating in China Town

Last week, in a bit of a panic over the 4 days of NYC entertainment that I would soon be expected to provide for my mother and our friend Jeanne, I booked an eating tour of China Town through The Enthusiastic Gourmet. (I did hesitate slightly out of a fear that poor web site design might be a sign of poor tour guide abilities but, luckily, decided that those skills are unrelated). China Town has always intimidated me. I'm creeped out by the people whispering in my ear about knockoff purses/sunglasses/perfumes. Much of the signage is in Chinese which leaves me fearful that I will accidentally consume gerbil brains. I mostly tend to pass through (swearing intermittently at the slow moving crowds) on my way to the bus depot (cause there ain't no way to beat $25 to Boston or DC). I'm occasionally distracted by the high quality produce at cheap prices but rarely does it seem worth while to risk being trampled over a few cherries. I expected the tour to be a fun way to pass a Sunday afternoon and was thrilled to have scheduled 3 hours of someone else playing tour guide but was surprised to discover tips, deals and flavors that have me almost eager to fight through the tourists and Asian Grandmas on Canal St. I heartily recommend this tour and expect to force future guests to accompany me on similar exploration of other neighborhoods -- the experience was well worth the $45/person price tag.

A few highlights:

1. Tasty Dumpling at 54 Mulberry has to be the best kept secret in the city. For ONE DOLLAR you can get five amazingly yumarific fried pork dumplings. This is an entire meal! Fuck the dollar menu at McDonalds everyone in the city should be flocking to Tasty Dumpling (if this were to happen I wouldn't even be saddened by the ensuing obesity epidemic, some things are worth getting fat for).
2. At the beginning of the tour the guide warned us that the food in Chinatown is authentic Chinese and is often a bit hard for Americans to adjust to, she assured us that if we didn't like something we should feel no obligation to eat it. I am a huge food snob so I thought, "ha! Boring middle American tourists probably can't handle the food on this tour but my cultured palleted will have no problems. Not only will I taste everything but I plan on loving it!" My snobbery held up quite well (who wouldn't love pork pies, egg custard, spicy beef jerky and fried dumplings?) until we got to Aji Ichiban and I was handed a piece of dried crab. I popped it into my mouth thinking "Here we go, mmmm dried fish! I am so hard core." I have to blame my Wisconsin roots for betraying me -- dried crab was so awful that I wimped out on trying any of the other dried (and often sweetened) fish products. Instead I hightailed it over to the other side of the shop where I discovered that preserved lemon is a great way to cleanse ones wimpy American pallet.
3. Dumplings aren't the only smoking deal in China Town, it turns out that the Chinese have discovered a way to sell almost anything for 50% less than it costs anywhere else in the city. On this tour we saw entire rabbits (the dead kind for eating, not the cute kind of petting) for $4, fish at $.80/lb, mini custards for $.60 each and cooked duck for $8/lb. If I were not so lazy I would immediately start doing all of my shopping in China Town.
4. Even an adventurous veggie eater like myself still has lots left to try. The produce market we visited was stocked with greenery that has not yet passed through my glossy rose scented lips. This will have to change. Luckily the tour guide provided us with a handout detailing the best cooking methods for each of the strange and unusual plant products. ( A note from Mom, who, a couple of years ago, bowed to her own adventurous spirit and bought and cooked a bitter melon. She does not recommend this. The resulting meal was "gross" and (shockingly) also "very bitter." Mom and Dad were reduced to the pizza back up plan.)
5. I am happy to report that Asian communities seem to have finally realized that ice cream is the perfect food. I assume that they would have acknowledged this fact sooner but they probably needed some time to get over being angry that god didn't provide their culture with access to dairy years ago. The last tasting on our tour was an entire bowl of ice cream from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory where I had a half scoop of "Yum Butter" (aka sesame ice cream with peanut butter) and a half scoop of lychee. The experience reminded me of the Bombay Ice Creamery in San Francisco where they serve shockingly good cardamom ice cream. I heartily recommend both places (you can probably assume that I recommend any place dealing in ice cream -- expect for Cold Stone, their ice cream is strangely blah).
6. In addition to the fun of trying new food stuffs we also learned some practical lessons like how to tell if fish is fresh:

1. Smell it -- it should have very little scent (I already knew this one, go me)
2. Press on it -- the flesh should spring back
3. Check the gills -- they should be bright red
4. Look at the eyes -- they should be clear, not milky.

Nobody Needs This

Diet Coke Plus is the newest formulation of Diet Coke. Diet Coke Plus was introduced in April 2007 in select areas for test marketing.
Each 8-ounce serving of Diet Coke Plus provides 15% of the daily value for niacin and vitamins B6 and B12, and 10% for zinc and magnesium. ^[1]


Seriously? Did you people learn nothing from New Coke?


My initial thought upon seeing a coworker chug this stuff like Keystone at a High School tire fire was, "way to go Coke!" Finding new ways to scam people this late in the game really has to be admired. Of course I thought the coworker was a bit of sucker. If your health situation is so starved for nutrients that you need to sneak them into your body via soda might I suggest that rather than drinking some Diet Coke you consider seeing a doctor (And eating some damn vegetables!). After doing a little research I found that the scam goes much deeper that previous thought. The people at Coke didn't even make an effort to include nutrients that their target customers (seems safe to assume that this is adult females in western countries) are typically lacking.

According to the World Health Organization:

The most common and important deficiencies for the health of populations are:

• iodine deficiency disorders
• iron deficiency anaemia
• vitamin A deficiency.

so... no niacin, no vitamin B6 or B12 no zinc and no magnesium. Awesome. Just how do the Coke vitamins of choice fair? I've looked that up for you on ye olde internet! god bless the kingdom of tubes!

Niacin
(via Merek)

• Dietary niacin deficiency (causing pellagra) is uncommon in developed countries.

B6
(via NIH)

• Clinical signs of vitamin B₆ deficiency are rarely seen in the United States.
• Individuals with chronic alcohol abuse frequently exhibit lowered plasma levels of pyridoxal 5'-phosphate, the coenzyme form of vitamin B6.

B12

B12 deficiency seems to be a bit more common and it can cause anemia (which is very common in women) so this supplement initially seems like an ok idea. However, upon further research I found that there are many different variants of anemia and Coke picked the wrong one to focus on (In the United States, 20% of all women of childbearing age have iron deficiency anemia). Next!

Zinc
(via NIH)

• Low zinc status has been observed in 30% to 50% of alcoholics. Alcohol decreases the absorption of zinc and increases loss of zinc in urine.

Magnesium
(via NIH)

• Magnesium deficiency is rare.
• Deficiency of magnesium can occur in alcoholics

So the question of the month: Is Coke just choosing vitamins at random in an effort to scam those among us who want very badly to believe that diet soda is healthy or are the trying to target the burgeoning alcoholic community?

Something Here Will Eventually Have to Explode

If you've ever had the pleasure of riding in a car with me as a passenger then you know that I am perhaps the most annoying person on the planet. I spend most trips sling-shotting between forcing all occupants to *enjoy this song right now* and trying not to pee my pants while quickly reviewing all of the life events that I'll be missing out on after I die in the car crash that is about to happen. While traveling in a car (much like while doing anything) I am incapable of shutting off the background noise of my brain and all spare neurons are so devoted to freaking out about their impending death that I cannot help but occasionally (every 40 seconds or so) grip the door handle, sharply inhale and slam my foot down on the floor in mock brake slamming (the fact that I am alive to write this post proves that all of these are effective ways of tricking the Grim Reaper). Because as a New Yorker with no car of my own I very much do not want my friends with wheels (Hi Joe!) to take away my access to Target I try to hide my certainty that the driver is steering the car and its occupants into the afterlife. This is very difficult because no matter what Disney says I'm all but certain that cars want to kill me.

For the record none of this is my fault (turns out this statement is true about all of my flaws). Growing up my mother was an ER nurse with very little fore site when it came to scaring her children for life. She would come home from a hard day of life saving/bring home the bacon and while frying it up in a pan describe holding some poor schmuck's brain in her hands. This displacement of gray matter was almost always the result of the combination of icy roads, stupidity, fast speeds and God's sick sense of humor. Somehow this resulted in a son who purchases cars for the sole purpose of crashing them into things and a daughter (me!) who cannot get into a vehicle without wondering who will show up at her funeral. This means that in addition to worrying about my livelihood I have no choice but to also put in some heavy worrying time trying to avert my brother's certain death (see: here).

This past weekend I was in a car with a number of coworkers (aka people who I would like to convince that I am sane) and had to work extra hard to hide my fear of the driver slamming the vehicle into another car or the guardrail or that Duncan Donuts up ahead (though in this last case my ejection from the vehicle might be cushioned by piles of fluffy french crullers which would be pretty awesome). This was made extra difficult by the fact that the driver was busy DJ-ing and getting us lost. At one point he suggested that someone jump out at the next light and get the directions that he left "somewhere in the trunk." Because everyone else in the car was apparently not concerned about our eminent doom I was left with no choice but to blurt out, "Oh my god I'd prefer that no one DIE on this trip, pull over like a normal person." I may be insane but at least I'm alive.

Thank God I live in New York City where one can limit her car exposure to once a week otherwise even if I somehow managed to avoid death in a fiery wreck the ulcer from worrying about such things would certainly have done me in by now.

Random Recommends 5

Tropicana Pure Valencia Orange Juice


Last week I invited a friend over for "breakfast for dinner" so that I could practice my sunny side up egg making skills. The eggs turned out lovely but the stand out of the meal what this orange juice. I normally don't find bottled orange juice good enough to bother with the calories but fresh squeezed is another thing all together and I'll happily pay upwards of $4 for a glass. Tropicana's new offering is almost as good as fresh squeezed (but requires neither muscle nor special machinery nor a busting bank account). It's so good, I even had a glass without any vodka.




Rainboots from Target


Target.com has rainboots in 57 different prints (according to my calculations) for $13.99-$19.99 and if you order any two items from women's clothing or shoes you get free shipping! Last Thursday when I woke up to the ticking of rain at my window I could hardly conceal my glee (actually I made no attempts at concealing it but only Mr. Chinchilla was around to see my joyful wiggling and he just gave me that "arn't you gonna gimmie a craisin?" look as usual). A couple of coworkers and I ordered boots together a few weeks ago and so the joy continued all day as we passed each other in the hallways and giggled at each other's cute (and dry!) feet. We've been having a very rainy week and I'm happy to report that even 3 stormy days of rainy gloom is still out wieghed by the excitement of wearing my cute new boots.


Laura Bee Designs

I'm not much of a purse girl but about a month ago I decided that in order to be a proper New York City girl I needed to have at least one cute purse option for those days when my laptop bag (a previous feature on Random Recommends) is too unwieldy. I tend to get stuck on the idea of finding the *bestest* *most perfect* object of my desire which often leads to much searching and little purchasing but luckily in this case I stumbled onto the Laura Bee site fairly early in my quest. This purse may have turned me into a purse girl (if you ever catch me spending $200+ on some bag please look at me in shame and force me to give equal amounts to charity). I have a wedding to attend in two weeks and I'm already planning my outfit around this bag.

While at the site I picked up one of their cute (and fairly cheap!) wristlets as a late birthday gift for Miss Amy and while she may be politely lying she claims to that it is also quite lovely (Amy: if you don't like it give it back! I only buy gifts that I secretly want for myself!).


Emmi Grapefruit Yogurt

(Picture stolen from (at least) one cool thing)

When a coworker recommended this yogurt my immediate thought was, "eww, grapefruit and dairy?" I don't know why the idea produced such cringing since I've long been a fan of lemon yogurt. The Swiss must have made some soul exchange sort of deal with the god a dairy because oh my god this yogurt is amazing. The best part of the experience is that the foil cover tends to get a build up of the fat in the yogurt which, even though it sounds a bit gross, should never be thrown away since it's the yummiest thing in the world. God knows how Emmi manages this with only 1.5% milk fat. Somehow the overall impression of this yogurt is refreshing (not something one usually associates with dairy products). Last week I made a separate trip to a second deli because deli number one did not have this yogurt in stock -- when it comes to glowing reviews not much out does a product that has me willingly participating in such inefficiency.

The Winner Parade: Entry 1

Tuesday night I was out with some girlfriends (for all you can eat mussels and half price drinks at Essex which I highly recommend) where I was asked to tell a few of the boy disaster stories from my past. My friends might just be easily entertained but through the wall of giggles they all insisted that I should begin capturing some of these stories on my blog. I’m not entirely sure how to react to the knowledge that my love life has been so comically awful as to amuse and delight those around me. I’d like to think that I just spin a good yarn but I can’t deny that most of the boys I’ve loved before do constitute a long glorious winner’s parade. I made up the term “winner parade” and expect to see it added to the Oxford English any day now.

Winner Parade [win-er puh-reyd]
-- noun
a continual passing by of people all of whom show some outward sign of a mental and/or physical inability to behave in the normal socially acceptable fashion expected for their age and/or stature. In most cases the parade members possess a "Monet-like" quality as defined in the movie Clueless, "From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess."

Before I begin the process of using my past loves as fodder for this site I just want to reiterate two things:

1. I seriously really liked all of these guys. They were mostly well intentioned sweet boys who could perhaps use a slap with the glove of maturity.
2. Every one of these encounters seemed like a good idea at the time. When it comes to choosing boys to date I probably should no longer be trusted to pick the good ideas from the ticking manure bombs.

Ok, conscious clear! Let's go!

Shortly after graduating from college and moving to San Francisco I met a nice young man on the internet. Ironically I have now used this same tool to locate and spy on him (one stop shopping people.). I have no shame. Let’s call this boy Little Tortured Bunny (LTB). In LTB’s dating profile he claimed a love for Ani Difranco and yet didn’t seem gay so I was immediately sold. We did a decent amount of email fawning over one another before the big meet and greet which for some reason (as usual stupidity seems most likely) we invited multiple friends to tag along on. We went to an Asian restaurant of some sort where you had to sit on the floor. My only other memorable recollection from that evening was that his best friend was only willing to consume white or orange food items (the list of acceptable nourishment was actually restricted by much more than just color palette and essentially boiled down to white carbohydrates, bananas and cheddar cheese). Anyway, LTB seemed charming and effervescent, very in love with life and himself (yeah, I know, red flag) and was cute enough that I couldn’t see any reason not to fantasize about kissing him. And I did and then we did and thus began a couple of months of googly eyes and hand holding.

There were many slightly odd things about LTB but I managed to convince myself that most of these were simply charming quirks. He got so excited about his thoughts that he often interrupted other people. He was choosing to go by his slightly affected (and I suspect made up) middle name for no apparent reason. He had daddy issues that he made sound very grand but refused to actually discuss. He was less than over his ex girlfriend who he apparently had been engaged to – but in one of those pretend sounding “we’re 23 and we don’t need a ring!” affairs that apparently crashed and burned in one fireball of drama involving soap opera like plot devises. One night, only a month into our relationship he choose watching Toy Story over making out with me. The most interesting mystery was his job. It was 2000 and he worked at one of the larger internet companies making bank for all I could tell. I was a programmer at the time and perfectly capable of conversing on geeky subjects like java script, flash and D&D and yet every time I asked him about his job I got an evasive “you know I work for [big web company]” sort of answer. One day I got pushy and insisted on him revealing just what it was he did every day from 11-7:30.

Brianna: I’m interested in knowing more about you. I’m a programmer; I’m going to understand what your job is.

LTB: Ok... You know my friend [Weird but Freakily Smart Guy]?

Brianna: yes, sort of…

LTB: Ok well WFSG wrote this piece of software while we were in college

Brianna: uhhuh

LTB: And one day [big web company] called up WFSG and offered to buy the software and give him and “his people” jobs

Brianna: uh…huh...

LTB: So WFSG told [big web company] that I was one of his people and then they offered to move me to San Francisco and give me an insane amount of stock and a job

Brianna: ok…

LTB: So now I hang out at with WFSG!

Brianna: so you write code?

LTB: oh no… I’m just WFSG’s friend… sometimes I do a little QA…

And people wonder why the bubble burst. I could make fun of the guy but this is pretty much my dream – I wish one of my friends would get rich and invite me on a nice coattail ride. Aside: WFSG went out one day and bought a De Lorean (the car from Back to the Future) and he brought it by so we could see it which was awesome (now I’m trying to figure out why I didn’t throw myself at WFSG…). Anyway, turned out LTB had a lot of disposable income, which was nice.

So we dated, it was fun, whatever. I was going to a family reunion for a long weekend and he was having a friend visit while I was gone. Said friend was a girl who he used to hook up with. (See where this is going?). I am a trusting naïve idiot so I recommended tons of fun things that he could do with her in San Francisco and wished him an awesome weekend of catching up before boarding my flight to family fun time. Strangely they didn't seem to take me up on any of my activity recommendation having apparently made plans of their own. When I got back I only needed one look at him to confirm that he’d slept with this other girl. What an idiot. He did a lot of anguished drama filled apologizing and I rolled my eyes and sighed and thought about how disappointing people can be. So we mostly broke up except we had tickets to Rent and decided to go together as friends (as a trusting naïve idiot I was of course not angry about him cheating on me – let’s hear it for self esteem.). The boy was obviously feeling a bit guilty about being a huge dick so he offered to take me out to dinner at this fancy French place pre-show (obviously I had no objections). We got the 9 course tasting menu with wine pairing. The first 4 courses were amazing (one of which was this fresh pea soup with mint that my mouth still waters over) and if the restaurant had any smarts the last 5 courses were hamburger helper cause after 5 glasses of wine (we got one free starter glass when we arrived) I had no active taste buds left anyway. Half way through dinner this conversation ensued:

Brianna: Do you know where the ladies room is?

LTB: Yeah, down the hall behind you and turn right. But there’s a guy.

Brianna: In the ladies room? Like one of those guys that gives you towels?

LTB: No, behind you.

Brianna: Right now?

LTB: Yeah, he’s going to pull out your chair

Brianna: He’s standing there listening to this conversation right now?

LTB: yeah.

So I stifled my giggles and stood – voila! The chair just eased back without any effort from me. If you’re really lazy, this is the life. This guy stood by the table the entire time I was in the bathroom waiting for my return. How awkward must that have been for LTB? Sitting there, drunk, staring at the chair puller guy… I would have spent the entire time giggling.

I’m a big believer in going dutch but in my role as the wronged woman I made no attempt to reach for the check at the end of this meal – I did, however, take a peek – $400+ (Is this street price for cheating on a girl or was I ripped off?).

LTB all but disappeared from my life shortly thereafter – I’d like to say I threw him out but really he just sulked away and I beat myself up for not being good enough to inspire fidelity. But eventually I moved on…except… I really like spying on people. It’s not related to pining, and it’s not even malicious, I just like knowing what becomes of people who used to be important in my life. So recently I refound LTBs blog (actually blogS). I honestly had no intention of using information to boost my ego but man… he made it awfully easy. Turns out I am really awesome. Not only is the guy apparently in love with some girl who lives like 1000 miles away and who he met on a massively multiplayer game and who has a boyfriend but he doesn’t have the good sense not to whine about it for PAGES on a public blog. Perhaps this is just another post cheating gift to me – maybe in reality he’s happily married to some sexy scientist and working on his fifth novel. Maybe he just made up the blog stuff to make me feel good. Maybe he still feels so guilty that he went out and gained 30lbs just so one day when I stumbled on his flickr page I could think, “I cried for months over HIM? Silly girl.”