Wow, what could be more riveting that looking at pictures someone from their car using a $35 mini digital camera?!

The drive to Baltimore on Friday was pretty easy and uneventful. It’s been a while since we went out that direction though so it was pretty pleasant from a scenery perspective. We didn’t give ourselves much time to stop though because I wanted to stay home with our cat for as long as possible on Friday–I am such a spaz when it comes to her being alone.

Maryland.

The sky was crazy dark. We must have just missed the rain though because when we got into Baltimore, there was a rainbow and it was consistently on idiot Henry’s side of the car so I couldn’t get a SUPER GREAT AWARD-WINNING SNAP with my Kodak Charmera.

Me trying to take a picture of a murder of crows from a speeding car over a bridge.

Baltimore.

OH SHIT I DID GET THE RAINBOW!!!! I didn’t even notice until now and almost deleted this picture. Wow, maybe now I can win an award after all.

When I say “nothing other than the concert happened while we were in Baltimore,” I’m really not exaggerating. UNLESS! Unless you count the ELEVATOR INCIDENT.

Guys, you know how the smallest thing implants itself into whatever groove in the brain controls our sense of humor? And then I take that small thing and spin it into this HUGE MOMENT that becomes an instant core memory? And then I try to share this HUGE MOMENT with others and they stare at me like I just arrived in town on the Trump Train?

OK well one of those things happened! We had just arrived at our hotel in downtown Baltimore and had parked in the connecting garage. When the elevator doors opened, a man stepped off and in that short amount of time, the doors started to close right as Henry was in the middle of entering. The doors closed on him so aggressively that the motion of its clenching jaws propelled him forward so forcefully, that he looked like he was going to head-butt the other side!

This alone was hilarious to me as I stepped in after him, his big man girth causing the doors to open back up fully in anticipation of my grand entrance. But then I noticed that in the process of being yeeted into the elevator by the gnashing doors, his phone had flung out of his hands while he was frantically trying to right himself. When he crouched down to pick up the phone, he made a series of “it hurts” grunts and gasps and I was COOKED at this point. First, the laughter came up soft and throaty. Guttural, even. Then, it hitched in my lungs and I started to SQUEAL, my ability to speak GONE. Ripped right out of my throat by the hands of THE DEMON GIGGLEFIT.

Henry gave me a searing glare, thinking he could silence me with I guess what he thought was a domineering MAN LOOK. Bitch, try again! This just made me crack up harder.

When the elevator dropped us off in the hotel lobby, I thought I was going to be OK. But then!

Henry TRIPPED OVER NOTHING in the middle of the quiet lobby and his shoes made an ear-piercing squeak and a squawk in succession, like they were possessed by the ankles of a basketball player from 1925, causing the man at the front desk to look up from his computer. That was it. I was back in the broiler for another cooking.

Henry whipped his head around and shot me another silent STOP IT look as I was practically crawling on my knees through the lobby now, trying not to pee. I could feel it in my face that I had reached the ugly zone of giddiness, where even though I was experiencing so much joy and mirth, I most definitely looked to others like I was experiencing a psychiatric break, like I was crying from pain and not just crying from laughing at someone’s ELSE’s pain.

We made it to the elevator bank and I saw an old lady get inside just as Henry was also stepping in. I caught my reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall there and I looked exactly like how I thought: my face was red and contorted, I could feel sweat beading along my hairline, my eyes were SEEPING with wet mirth. I could not in good faith get on this elevator with another stranger so I hid in a corner.

“Are you coming?” I heard Henry call out from inside the elevator. And then, “Jesus Christ” as he leapt out before being masticated once again by savage sliding panels of death. Then he stood in front of me with his arms raised in his patented, “WHAT THE HELL???” posture. If ever there were to be a statue made of Henry…..I’d definitely want it placed somewhere that TONS of birds would shit on it daily. And also, molded into that stance.

I tried to wheeze out an explanation that I was seriously on the precipice of pissing my pants and I could not share that tiny space with some poor old woman who was probably on her way back to her room to take a nap after a few rounds of Edgar Allen Poe Bingo.

Henry looked like a very displeased dad at this point and was straight up steaming in percolating fury while we waited alone for the next elevator. Right as the door opened, SOMEONE CAME FROM DOWN THE HALL AND SLIPPED ON WITH US. I was trembling inside my skin, trying to hide behind my hair curtain, pretending like I was looking down at something VERY IMPORTANT ON MY PHONE so that she couldn’t see my face all twisted up like Sloth’s chopplegänger crying at a screening of Baby Ruth commercials at a Weight Watchers meeting. Oh, sweet street-sleeping Tyra Banks, I clearly laughed away some of the only brain cells I have left.

It was the longest 12 floor ascension of my life. Especially because she had interaction with Henry who was busy being Mr. Fumble Fingers with his phone, trying to log into the hotel’s guest portal to access the electronic room key which we needed to get the elevator to close so the lady had to use hers AND OF COURSE SHE WAS GOING TO THE SAME FLOOR AS US.

I could feel the PISSED OFF-NESS coming off Henry in WAVES. He was STEWING.

FESTERING.

This woman could not wait to get off the elevator and flee. We trailed behind her, me doubling over in fits of silent laughter, my body flailing like a mattress company balloon guy.  SHE WAS IN THE ROOM ACROSS FROM OURS.

After struggling to get his key to open the door because naturally why not, Henry pushed me over the threshold like I was just another one of his sister wives. I dove onto the bed and gave permission to my muffled laughter to unleash in SCREAMS. Oh, the glory of being able to cackle in privacy!

“DID YOU GET IT ALL OUT??” Henry asked in a huff after a few minutes.

Whewwwwww-weeeeee!!! That was the most fun ab workout I’ve had in a minute. After I texted the whole story to Chooch and changed into my concert fit, we had a small bit of time to kill so we took a walk around outside.

Waiting for the elevator. Nothing outrageous happened this time except that Henry let a huge gloop of hand sanitizer fall straight past his hand and onto the floor.

A blurry monument thing.

Water stuff.

Here is where I switched from my Charmera to my phone CAN YOU TELL.

I really liked this photo.

I actually took this one from the car on the way in, I think.

I spent way too much time analyzing and obsessing over this name. At first, I thought, “Oh. That’s creative. I like that.”

But then, I was like, “But you wouldn’t pronounce the ‘s’ in apropos so they could have just named this Apropoe, why did they make it possessive?” I mean, I was going round and round over this out loud to Henry who was like, “I BARELY PASSED 6TH GRADE ENGLISH, PLEASE STOP.”

And then we went back to the room so I could grab my light stick and fix my laughed-off make-up before walking to Nevermore Hall for the Ten concert!!!

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