Unscrupulous Confectioners

Heading back to Columbus for Thanksgiving, I hit a really pointless traffic jam--no accident or anything, just construction taking it down to one lane. There were like 4 straight miles of warnings, so if people would have merged during any of that distance--booya, no traffic jam. Instead, virtually everyone waited until the last 5 feet so they could merge at 1 mile per hour, causing about an hour of glorious delay. Of course I did the only thing I could do: I turned up the volume and sang along to The Immaculate Collection until I was hoarse. But about midway through I noticed that the two pickup trucks behind me weren't moving anymore, they were just sitting there in the middle of the interstate--then the one in the right lane finally pulled ahead, juked to the left, and started pacing people who tried to move over into the open area. At first I thought, these guys are geniuses of comedy! Then I realized--they're just plain geniuses! They're trying to fix the traffic jam! They were trying to force people to keep to the right for a long enough distance that everyone could start merging again at normal speed and clear out the bottleneck. Holy crap! What was really amazing is that virtually everyone played along, and the left lane stayed almost totally empty in front of the stopped pickup truck until he was out of my field of vision--and indeed, people in front of me were starting to merge over. It's a Thanksgiving Eve miracle!! There were actually a few people who made it past and sped towards the merge point (SUV's, go figure), but to my extreme delight, when I got up there I saw that no one was letting them over. Suckaaaaas! Being in front of the pickup truck heroes, I don't know whether or not they were ultimately successful, but I'd like to think that they were and have since received their just karmic rewards in the form of champagne baths and sensual massage.

Columbus was a blast as usual. Violent video games, happy puppies, adorable babies, and stuffing my face nonstop. I would write about how ridiculously cute my nieces are, but I'd like to keep this entry under 50,000 words, so onto the football game.

We won. That's all I have to say about that.

Ball, Kel and I booked our flight to Phoenix last night, so if by some freak twist of fate the Irish do not get invited to the Fiesta Bowl, prepare to be punched in the face. Speaking of flights and punches in the face, I'll be heading down to Austin tomorrow to visit Lizett and experience the "glory" of Texas for the first time, where I anticipate making lots of hilarious jokes about cowboy hats and firearms. Hmmmm, hilarious should probably also be in quotes. I hear the temp is going to be up in the 80s, so I also anticipate repeatedly calling Kel and Ball in the middle of the night to mock them for being in the icy tundra.

Speaking of calls in the middle of the night--holy crap I am a master of segues--I got a frantic call at about 3:30 the other night from Kel saying that the police had just come to her door because someone had called 911 from her phone. She was asleep and alone at the time, so my immediate conclusion: the police got the wrong address. Kel's immediate and far more hilarious conclusion: a ghost dialed 911. It turns out we were both wrong--she called SBC, and they told her "Yeah, when there's a problem with the line it's set to automatically dial 911." What? Seriously? I mean, I know when I started having problems with my cell, I immediately called 911, but I'm just crazy that way. "Help!" I screamed to the operator "There's something wrong with my phone service!" Meanwhile an 86 year old man died of a heart attack. Anyway, the important thing is that all evidence continues to point to Kel's condo being ghost-free.

I have to do Christmas shopping soon. What should I get Kel?