The Hyperion Chronicles

The Hyperion Chronicles
“Did it have to be Miss Congeniality?”

#387 The Worstest/Bestest Birthday Ever (Part II)

{Continued from Part I}

I was so close to home I could taste it, and I wasn’t going to let xenophobic tensions bring me down. When the old guy next went to the bathroom I stood up and addressed the crowd.

“Excuse me, folks.” I said. “Can I have your attention? Today is my birthday, and I am having a very bad day….”

I went on to tell them about the horrible feeling in my stomach, about throwing up on the tiny plane and having everyone mad at me, and how I had talked to the old guy in Salt Lake while we were waiting and he had dialysis and had to go to the bathroom a lot and I didn’t think he was a danger.

I finished up: “People, I know we’re all nervous the last few months, but we have to use common sense. If people keep whispering among themselves you just know this situation will escalate, and I really want to get home. My friends and I are having a birthday party tonight…if I ever get there.”

There were several nods. I think people also realized they were being silly, letting paranoia scare them into something they’d look back on and regret. As I finished up some in the crowd actually clapped, and a few sang me happy birthday.

All was well.

Or so I thought.

@@@

The plane landed in Atlanta without incident. I was cutting it close on time, so I used my airline ID to exit the jet-way and go down the stairs to pick up my bag personally. What I should have done then is hitch a ride over to the terminal concourse.

But like nine kinds of idiot I went back up into the jet-way. I guess someone saw me come in and didn’t know what was up, and called security. Atlanta is a huge airport, but by the time I traveled to the terminal the Army was looking for me. (At the time they were still patrolling the large airports).

A soldier with an M-16 approached me. (I’m not that hard to describe.) “Sir, please give me your bag.” I realized pretty quickly what happened and tried to explain, talking about as fast as possible. The M-16 had other ideas, and I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.

The sad part was that my airline ID was with my bag, and they separated me from it, which could have cleared up the entire mess. So it was another 20 minutes until I could explain to security. I told them the whole story too (by now I was getting kind of good at it), and they felt sorry for me. Instead of waiting for a bus to head over to the airline parking lot (another twenty minutes), they drove me over in a military humvee. Good times.

I met my friend Bear and we headed off to meet Koz and his wife Teela, and D and his wife Pebbles at a restaurant called Fogo de Chão. This restaurant is a churrasco, and now they are pretty common-place, but at the time were brand new and exciting. Everyone was dressed up for New Year’s, and the place had a classy feel.

First there was the salad bar. It was huuuuuuuuuuuuge. You’ve never seen a bigger salad bar in your life. They had many things I’d never seen, and a few I’d never even heard of. You could easily have a wonderful meal just with the salad bar.

But you don’t want to fill up on salad. In fact, as great as it is, you must go sparingly. That’s because of a main course. A churrasco is how the gauchos (Brazilian cowboys) prepared their meat.. The waiters walk around dressed as Brazilian cowboys, each holding a spit of meat. There are 15 different varieties every night. We’re talking steak, pork, chicken, sausage, prime rib, turkey… and they had such great names, like picanha, costela, cordeiro, frango, linguica, alcatra and fraldinha. I can’t even think straight just writing about it. I know I had 15 different cuts of meat that night. (That isn’t to say I had only 15 helpings. It’s just that I had 15 different kinds of helpings.)

The meat is cooked on the spit slow all day, and then carried around on the skewers. You get this coaster-sized thing, green on one side, and red on the other. If you have your coaster flipped to green, they just keep bringing meat. The meat is also cooked in a way that you can get the doneness you want too, from bloody rare to well done.

Ohhhh, I’m getting full just thinking about the meat. It was all soooooooo good. See? I can’t even tpye rihtg I’m so excited.

We ate for hours, simply stuffing ourselves. Then it was off to Dave and Busters for adult games. I don’t mean “key parties” or anything; it was an arcade, where they kicked the kids out at night. The most fun: a racing game that let us all sit and compete against each other, and a photo booth that allowed you to combine your pictures with your friends to see what your baby would look like. (Koz and I had a daughter, truly a hideous Bayst.)

Best of all was the robot game. We had to get on a two hour waiting list just to play, and then watch a ten minute video on how to use the controls. (You knew it would be good just by the build-up.) You sat in this closed up machine, with controls EVERYWHERE. Your job was to stomp around in your robot (virtual reality), and kill the others. Sort of like Robo-Tech or something. Every time you “died,” you went to heaven and fell back to earth. This took time, though, and cost you points.

It was just about the most fun game I’ve ever played. Almost as good; after the game they give us a print out with a ridiculous recap, using our crazy robot names. I still have that recap somewhere. (I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure Koz was "Superpenis.") It sounded like a cross between Marv Albert and Blade Runner. I’m not doing justice to how much fun this was, but if you ever see one, bring your friends.

So, a day that started out so bad turned out to be a pretty cool night.

And it was only going to get so much better. More than I ever dreamed.

The next evening I was on the phone and Koz drives 45 minutes to my house, wanting me to come to dinner at his house. This was odd, but I didn’t think too much of it at the time.

We get to his house and he says he has a birthday present for me: 12 packs of playing cards. We played cards often (our favorite game was Paseo Dos), so that was useful and cool. I collect cards.

I was all happy about a meal and a present, but that was just the appetizer. Koz made me close my eyes, and he brought out…..a computer.

I have to pause the story here to tell you that on September 22, 2001, my laptop was stolen with over 3000 pages of writing on it; none of it backed up.

With my computer gone my column stopped, my academic writing stopped, my book was gone; everything. It was my life, and I was devastated. I tried to make the best of things, still sending out the column to addresses I could track down on library computers and such, but it all felt hollow.

So, when Koz showed me those big bulky computer boxes, it was unbelievable. He and his mom had gone together to get me this. My parents knew about it, which is why they pushed me so hard to go back to Georgia. My joy was indescribable. (It's getting a little dusty in here just talking about it.)

In front of me was a computer, an actual computer. The rest of the night was sort of a daze. We watched MISS CONGENIALITY and I laughed all the way through it. Before you condemn me, I want you to remember that I HAD JUST RECEIVED A FREAKING COMPUTER!!!!!! In fact, I wouldn’t have put it past Koz to give me the computer for the sole purpose of making me laugh at Sandra Bullock.

But I’ll live with that. All in all it was the worstest/bestest birthday ever.

April 26, 2006