1 Bride, 5 Beauty Queens, and a baby that hadn’t pooped for two days

That title could stand alone as a post. It draws the reader in. When I was in high school, I was the yearbook editor and participated in journalism contest. One of those areas was headline writing. It was harder than you think. You have a set amount of space to convey the idea of the story and draw the reader in. I practiced and practiced and I think I ended up placing no higher than third at some rinky dink contest but oh well I did better in other areas. Maybe I can attribute that to my downfall as a journalism major in college.

The above was a preface to the story. It has nothing to do with the story but is more of a warm up if you were, in fact, not quite paying attention yet. See you have to give some light and insignificant stuff at the beginning so people will get interested but not bored and will be primed for the real stuff.

Now back to the story . . . .

A few weekends ago I went with some friends to a wedding in the west Texas, panhandle town of Amarillo. Now some of you may not be from Texas and think that all towns are alike but oh how wrong you are.

We embarked from Dallas ready for the wedding. This means we each looked “cute” in our wedding watching clothes. You may be asking yourself why I’m telling you what we wore but it is an important part of the story.

We interrupt your regular blogging to bring you this important message: The author would like to explain the word “cute” as it is used in context with this story. (insert air quotes here) “Cute” (insert air quotes here) is not in reference to rainbows, unicorns, pig tails or ruffles on your skirt, bloomers, and socks. I know this is a hard thing to understand, especially for boys, since girls tend to use the word “cute” in various situations and it means something different in each one. In this context “cute” is defining a situation where a woman wants to look put together, nice, and dressed in a way to garner some attention. She does not want a cat call from a construction site, that is not “cute”, but a look from a nice gentleman that lasts long enough for him to notice her and that she looks nice is good, a look of slight envy from another woman is good, a comment of how they like her outfit, hair, shoes, or accessories is a plus. So that is the “cute” I am referring to. For your information only we were each wearing slacks or skirts with tops. “Church clothes” would be an appropriate description. We now return you to your original blog.

So we leave the confines of Dallas and arrive at Amarillo International Airport. Yep you heard me international. I’m not quite sure that the good people in Amarillo understand what international means. Here is a quick language lesson (we always need to continue learning): Inter means between and Intra means within. Think of it like Interstate and Intrastate, and interstate goes between states while an intrastate stays within the state. Now I realize this seems irrational since inter seems like it would mean within since it sounds like enter but that is the English language for you, it doesn’t always make sense. Here are some examples of the correct use of inter: International, Interstate, Intercontinental, Interview (well that one doesn’t work so well). So I’m thinking that the airport should be called the Amarillo Intra-national airport, but wait maybe they travel to Mexico so that is why they are International.

You would think with all this international travel that five girls in church clothes wouldn’t cause such havoc but alas it did. See as we walked through the terminal all eyes were on us. I’m not being self-absorbed here; it was like they had never seen five young women in skirts travel in a pack before. Maybe they thought we were some special Dallas gang who dressed up and used our heels as weapons or something similar. So as we walked through the extremely small and short terminal we were getting quite a few looks (and these were not for being dressed “cute”).

Well we get out of the airport and head to our nicely upgraded for free SUV (we were five cute girls in attire that was causing a stir you see so we at least deserved an upgrade). As we left the parking lot we came across the following:

Click me to see picture

And so we looked in that direction and say this:

Click me to see picture

So that is the city, two grain silos and a bunch of farm land. I actually expected more from Amarillo. Well we did find the city and we made it to the church to see my friend Lindsay before she got dressed. She was amazingly tan (Lindsay girl you looked like a Hawaiian Tropics model). We then went in search of food and ended up at Chili’s where we were once again looked upon with some interest. I guess the idea of five girls dressed up on a Saturday afternoon is not a common occurrence in Amarillo (airport or town alike).

One of the girls really wanted a manicure (she had a hot date that night) so we asked our waitress where the nearest nail place was and guess what her answer was: Wal-Mart. Interesting I never placed Wal-Mart, the largest chain of retailers in the world as a place to get a manicure but we thought hey why knock it. So we were off in search of Wal-Mart and a quick manicure (and a razor, one of the girls had missed a spot on her knee and wanted to take care of that – guys you cannot relate, don’t even try). I was interested to see what a nail salon in Wal-Mart would look like and it resembled any average nail salon you would see in a strip mall. I was intrigued by the customers partaking of the manicures and pedicures. Now I shop at Wal-Mart (hello discount prices, 24 hours, and it is EVERYWHERE, how can you not actually go in one in your lifetime) and one of my favorite things to do at a Wal-Mart is people watch and people watch I did at this one in its nail salon on a Saturday in my cute clothes. I was also struck by a set of nightmare inducing she-devil nails that were displayed on fake hands at the check-in counter. The entire sight was a memory I will never forget and it was one of those moments I wish I had a camera phone so I could share with you the sight.

But back to our trip. We made it to the wedding and Lindsay was beautiful, the church was beautiful, everything was beautiful. It was exciting to see her get married to her “babe”. At the reception we were known as the “Bible study friends” actually throughout the entire wedding production (showers, bachelorette shower, etc.). We thought of making t-shirts.

Here is the bride and the “bible study friends”:

Click me to see picture


One thing to know, the six of us and more are friends from BSF (bible study fellowship) and met in October of 2004. We became what I would dare say is the best BSF group ever. These girls are super fun, super sweet, and super friends. We still get together every week to eat before BSF even though we are now in all different groups. I know i was very lucky to be in a group with them and it is fun that our friendship has grown and now we got to celebrate the second wedding in our group. In fact it was another Lindsay that got married first, there must be something in that name.

So the wedding was fun, the trip was fun, and obviously we are fun. Oops I forgot the beauty queens and poop. That makes a fun sentence. So when we went back to the airport to leave one of the nice security people at the x-ray machine (can they check to see if I have any broken bones if I lay down on that conveyer belt?) asked if we were in Amarillo for a beauty pageant. That explains it all, the people of Amarillo thought we were five beauty queens descending on their fair town.

So as we walked through the airport we realized we were the last people escaping from Amarillo. The airport was closing down and it was 4:30 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. 4:30 people and the little chain fence was coming down on the gift shop and the bar/food court (as if people would break into the airport to steal Amarillo memorabilia or nachos). We made out way to the terminal and waited with what must have been half the wedding party, the bride and groom, and his parents.

While there, we noticed one of the bridesmaids was having a hard time calming down her son. He was crying and would not stop. I would like to note that I belief this young boy was 9 months old (sidenote: my mother tells me I walked at 8 months, I know I know I’m an overachiever) and HUGE. Not huge in the sense of a Buddha baby, all chubby and rolls, but huge in the sense of he could be mistaken for a 2 year old. This little boy was a bigun’. When Lindsay (the bride) arrived she asked this bridesmaid if the baby was tired to which she replied, “He hasn’t pooped in two days.” Now this might be a nice tidbit of information shared between friends in a private sense but she practically yelled it across the terminal and our entire group was now aware of the baby’s bowel movements.

We, of course, proceeded to share with each other our own timeline for bowel movements since the flood gates had been opened (any pun perceived by this statement was unintended). We soon boarded our flight and made our way home.

Amarillo by morning . . . . . Dallas by evening.