Hilly hates on Southwest Airlines.

So last night, I was chatting with my sister Hillary online...she was telling me about a wedding she attended in Chicago this past weekend with my parents. Now, my folks drove from Cleveland; Dad's got a pimp, Northstar V8-equipped, Cadillac Seville with front and rear buttwarmers, so there IS no coach section in his ride. It is a First Class Vehicle all the way, and whisked them down Interstate 90 in comfort, class, and style. Tell you what, it makes the five-hour drive much more tolerable, especially when you deal with all those goddamn Michigan drivers who don't know what the hell they're doing (kidding...Detroiters always complain about Ohio drivers). Hilly, however, flew Southwest Airlines out of Cleveland's newly-refurbished Hopkins International Airport, and had to deal with the Unwashed Masses that utilize the Public Transportation of the Skies.

As she drove home last night, she called and left two messages for me. Now, Hilly speaks a very fast dialect of Clevelandese, which I or anyone else from the Great Lakes region have no problem understanding. It sounds similar to the Chicago accent, but since we're closer to New York (and share the time zone) we speak much faster than the average Chicagoan, and people from Buffalo speak even faster than we do.

However, as people in different parts of the USA speak differently, and most of the world speaks different languages other than English, the Cleveland Dialect can sometimes be difficult to understand. When my sisters are speaking amongst ourselves at Full Cleveland Yammer, merging entire sentences into single words, swapping vowels, and dropping consonants left and right with wild abandon, it tends to be somewhat unintelligible and rather obnoxious to people from the South (or so I've been told).

I've transcribed her messages below for everyone's convenience.



BTW...when Hilly came to visit me last summer, she grabbed my camera while I was taking a nap or talking on the phone and went up to my roof for some self-portraits. Give that woman a camera - or a microphone for that matter, she's worse than a drag queen...she even has her own karaoke machine - and you aren't going to get it back anytime soon.

So here is the first message, which you can hear by clicking here.

Okay. So, can anyone tell me when you're about to get on a flight on Southwest, which is a cattle call, right? And you get A, B, and C Group, right? Can you tell me why everyone shuffles and pushes to get to the front of the line? Who gives a rat's ass? It doesn't matter where you sit! What, "OOO, YA GOTTA GIT, YOU SIT UP FRONT, YOU GOTTA GIT A BETTER VIEW!" It's like, who gives a shit? It was one-hour flight to Chicago, okay? It's a ONE-HOUR flight. EVER-BODY PUSHIN. Uh...pointless! And then, when ya land, you, people stand up, and then they gotta push and they gotta be in the center of the aisle. Uh, that'll get you out of the plane faster, ding-dong. Ya know what I mean? And then they stand and then their ass is like right in your face and you're like, "How ya doin?" AND...SCENE. TOTALLY unneccessary. Ya know, it just makes no sense to me, why EVER-BODY PUSH. Becuz, it's not like you're gonna get out of there five seconds faster and that's really gonna...ya know...WHATEVER. It's so...hillbillies, I'm telling you. Anyways, so, aah...okay. AND SCENE. Bye-bye.



But Hilly wasn't done. You see, she's a woman who speaks her mind, and quite loudly. When she was a kid, we called her "Foghorn" because you'd always hear Hilly's voice on the playground, carrying over all the other kids. When she and my dad watched Indians and Browns games in the TV room, everyone in the neighborhood could hear them in there hollering (and if you know anything about Cleveland sports, we do a lot of hollering, mainly from frustration and disappointment).

She was driving down a road I know is crawling with Cleveland Heights police, parked every 20 feet, bathing you with 24.15 GHz K-band love from their radar guns. As a result, people have been browbeaten into submission, and poke down that stretch.

So, she called back.

Okay, this is another thing. Um, can ya tell me why when you're in a hurry, everyone seems to go fifteen miles [per hour] in front of you? And they're always in a Buick Century or a LeSabre? And they always seem to be like, "OOOHHH! LOOK AT THAT OVER THERE!" and they're like, pointing? I'm like, uh what are ya pointing at? Stop light? Stop sign? Not quite sure. Uh...really annoying. And I left another message before, but I'm not sure - I didn't - I FERGOT TO PRESS "POUND" so I don't know if it went through. Because I don't follow directions because I'm A Horse's Ass. Uhhhmmmm...okay bye bye.



So there you go. Every time she leaves a message for me, I save it...she kills me.

She sent me some photos she took at the wedding...was she taking shots of the bride or groom? No. How about the cake, or the party? Come on, now...we're talking about Hilly here. She was playing around with her digital camera and just doing her thing. She actually has a pretty damn good eye, and is one of the photographers where she works. Now that I think about it, my mom is one of the Cleveland Heights city photographers as well, and has had some of her work published in a book (but she didn't get credit), city publications, and on the city's website.

Hey, it runs in my family. What can I say?

So at the reception...a cool self-portrait:



The candle on her table:



Decorations:



They're cool photos! I like them.

Of course, my mom grabbed the camera and took this picture of my dad...just being...well, Dad. He's doing his Bill Cosby dance there, not because he was imitating Bill Cosby, oh no. You see, he actually dances like that. I'm NOT KIDDING. He's the kind of guy who doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks, and does his own thing. I've never seen anyone in my life so comfortable with himself and who he is.

So here's my Pop...62 years old, almost 6'5" tall, tearing it up on the dance floor:



Hey, the guy's got style. Class, too...notice his tie is tied, his shirt is tucked in, and he was wearing his sport coat.

So there you go...now you know what it's like in my family.