My parents give my sisters and me a nice, big, generous Christmas every year. Mom loves Christmas, and they still play Santa (and we still like it) even though we are waaaay too old. The family always jokes, because it's always some little trinket that generates the most excitement from the recipient.
This past Christmas, it was my travel Yahtzee game. It's a tiny blue barrel with tiny little scorecards and tiny little dice and tiny little pencils inside. It also acts as a keychain.
I love that thing.
I'm constantly asking Neal to play with me. Now, Neal and I are very, very different people. One of the key differences is that I constantly need to be involved in an activity. I like to be doing something. Neal can just... sit. He can just sit and play video games by himself, or something. For hours. Sometimes I feel like the cruise entertainment director, trying to get him involved in a game or activity.
Anyway, you can see why this has caused some issues with the Mini Yahtzee. I want to play Mini Yahtzee ALL THE TIME. I want to host tournaments. I want to play Strip Yahtzee and Drinking Yahtzee. I want to participate in the Mini Yahtzee Winter Olympics. Neal is constantly being begged to roll tiny dice and write tiny scores on tiny little pieces of paper he can't even read.
Now, all this time, I've known the trip this past weekend was coming up. I knew we'd be on a plane together, for several hours. It was the perfect opportunity for Mini Yahtzee, and we both knew it. It was why the tiny game was created, for the love of dice. We didn't talk about it, but the upcoming "Mini-Yahtzee No Excuse Zone" was there. Oh, it was definitely there. We could feel it. We were scheduled to leave Friday.
Neal woke up before me on Friday. He crept into our bedroom so he could gently wake me up. I still needed to pack.
Neal: "Sweetie?"
Me: "Nnnrgh."
Neal: "Sweetie, it's time to get up. You still have to pack, and we have to leave in two hours. Wake up, honey."
Me (half asleep): "Hey, Neal?"
Neal: "Yeah?"
Me: "You know what?"
Neal: "What?"
Me: "I'm really looking forward to flying on the plane with you today."
Neal: "You are? Why is that?"
Me: "Mmmm. I'm really excited to play Mini Nazi."
No, that's not a typo. Half asleep, I called Yahtzee, Nazi. I have no idea why, and we've never called it that before. Man, Neal and I giggled about that all day.
My big, sloppy mouth caused all kinds of laughter on the trip to Ohio. The other notable incident was during our first flight, from Ft. Lauderdale to Cleveland. Neal and I were a little late for this flight. We underestimated the time commitment involved in the Park N Save. We've always been garage people, but last time, it cost over $100 to freaking park. I was determined to switch to Park N Save.
Now, the Park N Save signs make it look like you just go right over there, and there you are, all set to park, and yes, save. Oh, no. You're driving 5 miles away, feeling more and more creeped out the whole way, looking at the clock tick along and thinking fondly of the parking garage, even though you and Neal got lost in it once and missed a flight. Park N Save takes a long time to achieve. But finally, you're there.
Anyway, we were late catching the shuttle, and late to the ticketing line. The airport guy pointed us to the new-fangled touch screen check-in system. I'm sure it was very nice, but I spent my time muttering "Come on, hurry up you motherfucker" over and over to the machine, willing it to spit out a boarding pass FASTER. It asked us to double check some things, like flight times and seat assignments. I breezed through those parts, knowing that I'd already made all those decisions when I booked the tickets online.
We hurried through, made the flight, and went to find our seats. There were six seats across, with an aisle dividing the rows in half. Neal was in the middle on one side of the aisle. I was in the middle on the other.
I was pissed.
We start doing that thing were you're looking all around, watching where people sit and hoping there's a good place to move to. And after I'd sat there a moment, I realized what had happened.
I leaned around the line of people standing in the aisle addressing their overhead compartment issues.
Me: "Hey, Neal."
Neal: "Yeah?"
Keep in mind, we're yelling across the plane now. Dozens of people are privy to my commentary.
Me: "I know why we're in the wrong seats."
Neal: "Why?"
Me: "Well, I chose our seats online, so we'd be next to each other. And then we were in a hurry and they made us do that touch screen thing and I wasn't really paying attention, trying to make the flight. So they switched our seats and FUCKED us over!"
Neal turns kind of pink, and at that moment, I realize that the entire line of people waiting to be seated are snickering at me. I don't embarrass easily (duh), but I have to admit, I felt the blush creep up some. Even though the lady who's ass I was shouting around kind of gave me a "That's right, honey" after I'd finished screaming profanities across the aircraft.
But you know I was really pissed because Mini Nazi was definitely out of the question.
