I Heart En WHY???

I love going back to the east coast during the holidays, even if there's never any snow on Christmas. There are certain things about the people in Philadelphia that shake the Utah dredgery right off me, and here's why.

A la David Letterman (even though I'm a Leno fan), the top ten reasons I love leaving Utah and heading to Philly:

10. Slathering your face with moisturizer eleven times a day gets old. It's nice to go back to the humidity.

9. Nothing clears your sinuses like the smell of urine on the subway and watching another human being taking a dump in the corner.

8. I got goosebumps laughing, crying, yelling, and standing up and applauding at the end of Rocky Balboa along with the rest of the packed theater. Also the look on my step-mom's face when Rocky takes off his shirt was priceless. Her comment: "Oh wow."

7. Being reminded that you don't have to be 5'1", blonde, and 100 pounds to be considered attractive. It's refreshing to see that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes when you step outside Utah.

6. Running up the steps of the art museum (the Rocky steps) at 2:00 a.m. with a crowd of overweight, sweaty, drunk Flyers fans.

5. Gorging myself on greasy, runny, soggy mushroom cheesesteaks from Pat's. Cheesesteaks so greasy, runny, and soggy that the cheese dripped out onto my shoe. And yes I used my finger to lick it off.

4. Listening to the crack heads yelling their prophetic insights on the street corner. My step-mom's comment: "What's a crack head?"

3. My parents, who try so hard to be cool. Dad's comment: "I want to go see that movie about the CIA, the one with Ben Affleck?" Or, "Let's go see that new Ben Miller movie!". Or my step-mom, who refers to DVD's as CD's; and insists on whispering questions to me during movies. Her comments during Dream Girls: "Who's the actress that plays the lead girl? What's her name? Bee-yond-say? What kind of a name is that? Is she an actress? Is she famous? Why does she bob her head so much? She's a good singer! She should be a singer instead of an actress..."

2. Being back in the land where people talk normal - ahrange, farhead, farest, wooder, harrible, yeeah, salat, etc. Also being around the people who never left, and who still think its fashionable to wear a pony tail on the northern-most point of your head, and have florescent pink acryllic nails.















1. My dog Sampson, who after all these years, still lays down and plays dead when I point a fake gun at him and say "Bang bang!". It also helps to have cauliflower in my hand at the time.

In other news, as much as I loved going home, it's never been so much trouble to get from Salt Lake to Philly. My original flights through Denver were cancelled thanks to Huge Storm '06, and so I paid triple the price to rebook through Delta at the last minute.

Getting to Philly wasn't the problem, unless you consider being stuck in the middle seat for 4.5 hours while trying to keep your love handles from oozing over the arm rests a problem. It's the getting back to Salt Lake that made me want to gorge my eyeballs out with a dixie cup wooden spoon.

Now, until this point, I've never had a problem with Delta. But right now, the best thing about Delta is Erin's mom. My return flight was to take me through JFK and then on to Salt Lake, getting me in around 11 pm on Saturday night. The plane was supposed to leave Philly at 3:00, putting me at JFK by 3:45, and then leaving for SLC at 7.

I thought a three hour window was a safe enough bet, but for some "unknown" reason that neither the flight attendant, pilot, co-pilot, nor gate attendant had any idea about. All they knew was that we sat on the plane for three and a half hours before finally taking off at 6:30.

I understand that things happen beyond the airline's control, but couldn't they at least keep us informed? After the first hour of sitting on the plane, with the German guy next to me growing increasingly more ansy and irritated, no one said so much as "boo" to us to let us know what was going on. When the flight attendant was asked any questions, her response was to roll her eyes and bob her head while snapping, "I don't know!"

After we finally took off, Mr. German next to me, (I knew he was German because he kept flipping me in the face with his scarf and saying "Yah") asked the flight attendant what our estimated time of arrival was. She replied, "Probably 20 minutes." Mr. German explained that he didn't have a watch, so could she tell him what time we would land? She, who was wearing a watch, responded, "Whatever time it is now, add twenty minutes, and that's when we'll land. I can't see my watch right now." Customer service at its finest.

I missed my connection by ten minutes. Delta was kind enough to put me up in the Ramada Inn, and rebooked me on the 7 am flight Sunday morning. They also graciously gave me a $7 food voucher which paid for exactly 1/3 of my dinner at the hotel. I think $24 for a veggie burger is reasonable.

There's nothing quite like standing in line for an hour at the JFK Ramada, listening to the redneck in a tank top behind you rant about Delta's conspiracy theories and how he's going to call Geraldo to crack open the case. He was convinced that there was no real reason for all the delays and cancellations, and that it was a scheme to make money for the Ramada.

But I think my favorite part of the experience was the birds that nest in the JFK Delta terminal. How did I find out there were birds? By finding the bird crap on my luggage.

The only thing that made it all worth it was the hot pilot that I followed through the airport.



I have no shame.