The American Adventure - Vol 14

1 - 31 July 98

If you want to go straight to Vol 15, you may do so now!

...

The month of July is an important one in America, not least for the sales in the first week (around the Fourth which co-incidentally is the celebration of signing of the Declaration of Independence by a gentleman called John Hancock. 

(Just a little visual joke for those who have seen a copy of the DoI.))

For us the best part of that week was going in to Washington to witness the fireworks. We were to meet our well-connected neighbours (the ones we are still trying to repay in kind for taking us around Washington in a limo to see the sights) at her (Jill's) mother's house on Capitol Hill at some time around 6pm for the pre fireworks drinks and barbeque. Unfortunately Kajsa had to work so we didn't get away from the house until just before six and, although we had a good run into the city, when we got to their house there was no parking anywhere near. So, despite the fact that it was a bad idea to not offload the booze and the kids at the house and let Tim find a park and make his way back, all of us drove around for almost half an hour looking for a carspot. Eventually we found one about twelve blocks away (but not before Kalle started whinging about never getting to see the boys or the fireworks - in fact from memory that started about sixty seconds after we drove away from the party house!) So we took the spot, got out of the car and lugged the drinks and the kids all the way back, twelve full blocks on a muggy evening. Note that Capitol Hill is at the centre of DC, at the intersection of the four quadrants - NW, NE, SE and SW. SW has next to nothing in it other than memorials, NW has all the Embassies and good parts of town, NE is starting to get a little on the rough side and SE is bad, real bad. Our carspot was nine blocks deep into SE. So, not only were we encumbered with children and esky but we were making our way out of one of the less salubrious parts of town. Fortunately most people are happy on the Fourth of July so we weren't even snarled at.

The function at Jill's mother's house (once we got there, mutter mutter) was very pleasant. Although there were some real bigwigs there, neither of us recognised any of them so, as far as an opportunity to drop names go, it was a bit of a blow-out. Everyone had nametags with both name and details on them, so we were the representatives from Australia and Sweden for the evening. Tim wasn't allowed to put anything silly on his tag.

After we ate and drank a little we made our way through a huge stream of humanity to the northern lawn of the Capitol Building. We found a great spot which, when the organisers turned out a spotlight, would provide an unimpeded view of the Washington Monument and the fireworks above it. You see, prior to the fireworks they have a little concert, in fact just as we were getting there they were starting by playing the Stars and Stripes so everyone was standing up, hands on heart with tears of patriotic fervour in their eyes. The concert is held on the front lawn and there were two big arrays of spotlights set up. We all made the sensible assumption that, as we were all here to see the fireworks and the music and singing were a tolerable extra, as soon as the explosions started the lights would go out.

In the time that we have been here, we have not before wished for the presence of high powered, accurate firearms. Specifically firearms that could be used to extinguish a large array of very annoying spotlights which stayed on for almost the entire time that the fireworks were being set off. Bastards, utter utter bastards. Anyway, despite this minor setback, the fireworks were impressive and it was very special to be able to see them from the lawns of the Capitol after having dinner at a house only three or so blocks away. The trip home was somewhat slower than that into to DC, but with hundreds of thousands trying to exit the city, our escape didn't really take that long - about an hour or so.

The next couple of weeks were dedicated to farewells and work and there were also a couple of new faces arriving at the Embassy. One of the new faces was that of Dave Wakeling (aka Poss, due to his uncanny resemblance to a possum caught in the glare of a torch or as Kalle says a "flashylight"). He brought with him his family consisting of his wife, Leanne, and three children (whose names we won't record for fear of getting them wrong). They left their oldest in Australia (all right, he is actually her oldest from a previous marriage, stop quibbling). Judy and Ed Lawler (who they have replaced) invited them to lunch on the Sunday after Independence Day and invited us along as well. Unfortunately Kajsa was working but the rest of us made it. It seems that part of Judy's plan was to get rid of stuff that she couldn't take back to Australia, by that I do not mean the food which, as always was excellent, but rather the alcohol. Either that or Judy was living up to her reputation of being a Really Bad Influence.

An explanation may be in order - one of the good things here in America is that you can buy prepared cocktails. Some even already have alcohol (like the mudslides that Helena forced us to buy) but others need to be put into the blender with some alcohol and crushed ice. Judy had a few of the latter and offered to make them up. As Tim was driving he declined the full powered version and had a couple of alcohol free strawberry dacquiris and piña coladas. When Dave and Leanne turned up they were asked what they wanted to drink and they took up the offer of some cocktails, Leanne more so than Dave. By the end of the afternoon Judy had got poor Leanne totally smashed despite her protestations of "I don't normally drink, why doncha gimme another dacquiri!" It was probably jet lag.

That aside, the kids had a great time playing together and I think that Kalle will miss being able to play with Callum. He was sad to say goodbye when we finally left about seven in the evening.

Later in the week another bunch of new faces arrived, these ones belonging to Mark Remmers (the big bad teddy bear), his wife, Lynda, and their younger son, Jason. Tim picked them up from the airport and deposited them at their apartment with enough provisions to last until the next morning. The next day he picked them up and showed them around the Embassy while they did all of their paperwork. While that was happening he was also trying to address a little work related crisis that was going on so it was a rather stressful day. On the Friday Tim had booked Mark and Lynda into an appointment at the bank to set up accounts. As a courtesy, Tim went with them to introduce them to Valerie Bloodworth (the Embassy accounts guru) and basically make sure that they didn't get lost. As usual, when walking out of the Embassy they saw a few empty taxis go past, but just as they got to the road, they all evaporated. They must have stood there for close on fifteen minutes waiting for someone who could pick them up. Eventually Tim got peeved and went and stood somewhere a small distance awayso that they could cover two of the six roads which converge into the circle on which the Embassy is situated. After a few minutes they got two taxis, but Tim was somehow able to persuade the Remmers family to come to his. Bad mistake.

Some DC taxis are bad. Some are good. Some are really bad and some are excellent. The taxi we got was beyond attrocious. After the trip (which necessitated the opening of a window) it was decided that not only did the driver live in the taxi but he probably also had a number of rodents and some very nasty moulds living in there with him. It was disgusting. At least Mark, Lynda and Jason got to sit in the back. Tim opened the door for them, made sure they were okay and then went around to the front passenger seat. It was then that he saw everything that was in the front of the cab. Half eaten food, gobs of chewing tobacco, slimy things that he couldn't identify. By this time they were already very late for the bank and it was getting near closing time, plus the Remmers were already in the car. The driver did a bit of a tidy up (meaning that he moved everything about six inches to the left) and Tim got gingerly into the car. The smell was unbelievable. The driving was unbelievable. The fact that they got to the bank alive was unbelievable. The fact that they got to the bank without throwing up was unbelievable. Part of the way through the trip the driver got the end of his tobacco and surreptitiously spat it into his hand. He drove like that for the rest of the trip with the juices dribbling over the steering wheel. Uggh!

Around that time (give or take a day or so) Kajsa came home with a big grin on her face and said "I need to open a bottle of champagne!" She had got a promotion at work. She was now going to be a supervisor and had been given a choice of what department to work in. Believe it or not she chose to work in the Shoe department, one of the largest departments in the store. With the promotion came a raise in pay, transition from part-time to full-time and more regular hours, including every second weekend free. Tim was not overly surprised as he had suggested from the start that she would most likely get to be a supervisor quickly due to her Swedish work ethic. Obviously she impressed her superiors enough to give her not only a promotion but also a choice of where to work! (A bit of husbandly pride, sorry - Tim.) We enjoyed a glass of champagne while watching the end of Good Will Hunting on video - a good movie.

Kalle turned five on the ninth. He was very excited about turning five and talked incessantly about five year olds being big kids. He got a lot of Lego amongst a bunch of things (including a new Batmobile). Kajsa worked late which worked okay, as she also started late. Tim (stressed at work again) had to finally claw his way out of the office to race home to get back in time to take Kalle, Taltarni and Julia to the Rain Forest Cafe. The Rain Forest Cafe may have been mentioned before but for the benefit of new readers, the RFC is a theme restaurant based, yes you guessed it, on a rainforest. It is quite a spectacle but not quiet. Every few minutes they have a simulated thunderstorm or the cacophony of apes or elephants trumpeting. All over the walls and ceilings are simulated vines and trunks and limbs of trees and set among them are animals. We sat under the zeeebra (sic), apparently a very popular animal judging from the comments of all the people who walked past to check out the scene. All in all it is a good place to take the kids but you wouldn't want to eat there too often. That said, it is infinitely better than Chuck E Cheese's.

That Saturday was a busy day, first there was Kalle's Birthday party at our house for about a dozen kids. Kajsa had planned many activities so, while the kids certainly weren't bored, we spent the whole time running around and getting the next stage of the party going. In case you have never experienced one, there is a lot of planning and preparation involved in having so many little ones and their parents over.

The night before was spent making pizza (Julia made two varieties, one kid friendly and one parent friendly), painting for games (one particularly pathetic looking pig and an underwater scene for the fishing game) and blowing up balloons (Tim's job until he got bored with it and decided that it would be better to blow them up the next day - not that he actually had to use his lungs to blow up the balloons or anything, he was using a helium bottle. His excuse was that the helium would escape overnight and he tied up some of the balloons poorly to demonstrate the effect). The pizza was a huge success, with Tasha - somewhat less so with the kids.

During the party, one kid came up to Tim and clearly and distinctly said "You know this pizza, this pizza is really gross. It's really gross for me." Amazing the children were well behaved for the most part, Kalle was only sent to his room once (for hitting another boy) and from memory Taltarni didn't break anything.

After the party, once we had done the absolute minimum clean-up (that is we threw away the scraps and stacked the dishes) we headed off to a farewell lunch for Ed and Judy Lawler. This was a well needed rest! There were some older kids around, plus a video of Mortal Combat and the Mortal Combat III video game which kept both Kalle and Taltarni entertained up until dusk when we finally made our way home. Ed got rather sozzled and they talked Garry Clarke into having the kids overnight so they could have a romantic night at home! Judging by Ed's condition it would have been a quick evening.

Tim picked up and drove Mark and Lynda Remmers around the Northern Virginia area the next day, showing them what sort of houses are available and giving them a look inside some of the Australian houses so that they could get an idea of where they would like to live. In between they came over for lunch which was pleasant if somewhat foreshortened. The Remmers also got to have a look around the house and got an inkling of just how bad plumbing can be in some of these houses.

You see, the night before, when we came home from the Clarke's, Tim had gone down to the basement quickly to check the email. While there he noted that there was a strange noise, a dripping sound that was very close. This is odd because there is no downstairs bathroom or toilet. Tim thought that perhaps it could be the ground level toilet but as he walked to the stairs he was dripped on. The ceiling was leaking. He stood there listening and the very wet dripping sound was directly above him, in the ceiling. After a bit of climbing and twisting of his head around he was able to see that there was about an inch of water up on the false ceiling and there was water dripping down from the next floor. So, to avoid having a huge mass of soggy plasterboard drop down into the basement, Tim did the sensible thing and stabbed the ceiling with a screwdriver a few times (it was quite satisfying actually) and left a big bucket underneath to collect the water. The bottom line was that when we had visitors the following day, the basement looked like a disaster area. Most impressive.

The last house that the Remmers looked at after leaving our place was the first that Lynda had seen in a pile of advertising a few days earlier at the Embassy and is the one that they are now living in. If Tim had only gone there first he could have saved a whole day! In truth, though, getting an idea of what housing is available is very important and it makes you much happier with the final decision, therefore he consols himself with the illusion that the day wasn't totally wasted.

Our next batch of visitors came the next day, Erika and her friend Elin, came to stay with us for a fortnight. They came bearing gifts (including Swedish chocolate and some cheese) so they were most welcome! By the time they got here a plumber had confirmed that there was no problem with the plumbing in the house per se, the problem was with the fridge - the bit of the fridge that specifically needed to be fixed by a fridge repair person. Our fridge makes ice, well normally it makes ice, and to make ice you need water. It was the ice making part of the fridge that had broken and hence our space age twin cabinet auto defrost fridge/freezer with internal icemaker spent a lot of time automatically leaking a lot of water everywhere. So - when Erika and Elin got to our house they were confronted by a beautiful modern American house with a ginormous fridge in the middle of the kitchen.

The girls' visit was quite low key, unlike a lot of tourists they weren't madly running around the whole time trying to see everything, rather they just enjoyed what they were able to see. Due to genetic factors they actually went to Potomac Mills to go shopping two times, but Tim managed to avoid accompanying them both times. Apart from that necessary trip they also saw all the sights in DC (they did the bus trip that we still haven't done and also walked aound one day) and a few trips in the local area. One big event that Tim in particular was looking forward to was the visit to Paramount King's Dominion. There were still a few roller-coasters that he hadn't been on.

Imagine Tim's despair when something absolutely terrible happened. We'll start from the beginning.

Quite a few demands were piling up on Tim (cue violins), for various reasons he was stressed (if there was a type of crisis he wasn't dealing with he'll probably never experience it) and there was no spare time to do anything. Tim's normal response to stress like this is simple ... sleep. This he does well, most of the time. One night he must have done it incorrectly (a sure sign of the need for more practice) because when he woke up his neck was a little sore. No matter he thought, a visit to the chiropractor was overdue anyway, he'd try to go that evening.

Many people like to make fun of Tim's choice to serve the nation in the Navy. They are cruel and unkind. They sing rude songs, often based on an otherwise forgettable song by the Village people. They make little snide comments like "Join the Navy, start at the bottom and work your way up!" and "Join the Navy to feel man!"

They give helpful advice such as reminding him not the drop the soap.

Little did he know what they meant by that last comment. You see, Tim got up one morning, commented on how sore his neck was and went to have a shower. When he was in there he dropped the soap. Quite safe you'd think. No-one around but Kajsa and she's usually well behaved in the morning. So, understandably, Tim felt confident enough to bend over to get the soap. Bad mistake. At that moment a complex of tautly stretched (but well honed and rippling) muscles gave an almighty twinge. There was an audible snapping sound followed by a string of unpleasant Swedish words that Tim had heard Kajsa using at some stage. By the time that he had rinsed off and started shaving, Tim could not even lift his right arm high enough to shave. Doing so was no longer just agonising, it was physically impossible.

You would think that with a husband in such agony and desparation, his wife would be solicitous and caring. Not in this house. There was far more sniggering than compassion. To make things worse, it was Tim's turn to drive to work. During breakfast it became clear that it was impossible for Tim to go to work, let alone drive there, he could no longer turn his head which made the idea of changing lanes a bit of a concern. So Tim bit the bullet and rang Ed, who was supposed to be picked up, and told him that there a bit of problem. Ed volunteered to come over and drive him to the doctor.

That short trip to the doctors surgery was one of Tim's most uncomforable journeys, worse than most trips when traveling as a child with his entire family and worse even than the time when he was at the floor level of a Mazda 200B which was occupied by fifteen other people. He felt every bump and curve of the road. This suffering was exascerbated by that fact that when we finally got the medical centre, it had the indecency to be closed until 9am so not only did Tim have to endure the return trip with no medical attention but the whole trip was in vain anyway. Julia kindly offered to drive Tim to the chiropractor so, after a little session of sobbing uncontrollably followed by a cup of coffee, they set off for Great Falls village.

You never really notice how many hills and curves there are on the road nor how fast people drive until something happens to highlight these facts. Be assured that there are many hills and curves on the way to Great Falls and Julia drives really fast. By this time Tim had discovered that if he held his head with his left hand and the blinding pain had receded somewhat so the trip wasn't that bad.

So they finally got to Great Falls and Tim staggered up the stairs to the practice (very conscious of the need not to fall over and jar his neck). The door was locked and the memory of the fact that the chiro doesn't actually have appointments on Tuesdays and Thursdays came flooding back. Bugger, bugger bugger bugger. Luckily at that moment, saving Tim from serious self-injury, the receptionist turned up. As luck would have it, the chiro would be in soon, in fact if it weren't for shocking traffic he would have already been there and he would be able to see me, please take a seat. Being a professional the chiro didn't laugh when he heard the story, at least not in Tim's hearing. He was kind enough to say that what had happened was going to happen anyway, it was just a question of when.

He connected Tim up to the electric torture machine, put some very very cold ice on his neck, put him on torture machine number one (there are two torture machines - the electric torture machine is actually a feature of torture machine number two) and finally attempted to replicate the earlier snapping sound by violently twisting his neck. Surpisingly this all made Tim's neck better and gave him back some mobility. He suggested that I take a brand of painkiller/antisweller and prescribed at least two preferrably three or four days at home doing nothing. Tim sought confirmation and was told that he could watch TV but working on the computer was out as was cleaning, doing the washing, mowing the lawn and any actual work associated with looking after the kids. Sleeping was also recommended. He also had to go back the next day and undergo another torture session, followed by a massage.

Being the obedient lad that he is, Tim went home and did as much nothing and sleeping as he possibly could. Slowly he got better. The major thought on his mind throughout this was - would his neck be recovered sufficiently by the following Tuesday so that he could go on the roller-coasters at Paramount King's Dominion. In fact when it came to questions of what was and what was not allowed, going on roller-coasters was the first question. The fact that, if he recovered sufficiently, he could try a couple of the less violent rides was instrumental in convincing him to wear the silly neck brace thingy that you see whiplash victims wearing (although he refused to wear it in public other than when driving). In all seriousness, it was lucky that the incident happened in the shower, if it had happened on the first turn of one the coasters, the damage to his neck could have been substantial.

Ed and Judy had another farewell on the following Saturday night, this one was a more open affair with about twenty or so people, rather than the select crowd that we had at Garry and Sherryn's the weekend before. It was held at a Chinese restaurant not far from our place and it had a genuine Chinese menu. On the menu were chicken's feet, five flavoured intestines, fried duck tongue and a list of other things that no-one was brave enough to order. We all had fried rice and sweet and sour pork. The Lawlers had another farewell, the last one (this time with free drinks courtesy of the Embassy Suites hotel) the following Tuesday, their last day in the Washington area. But that day was more important for being the day we visited Paramount King's Dominion (we should be getting a commission from those guys!)

Surprisingly Tim was up early on this day, eager to get everyone going so that we could beat the rush hour. Despite all that unusual activity, we missed the rush hour by going after it rather than before . The delay was due to all the fussing around (a lot of it associated with Tim lathering himself in sunblock). After about an hour's drive (half of which was to the tune of "We're NEVER going to get to Kid's Dominion!" from the back seat) we got to the park just in time to hear the announcements that the weather service had issued a heat advisory for the area, please buy as many overpriced drinks as possible. In fact this day was the hottest of the summer so far and we spent it walking around on a huge slab of bitumen that just sucked up the heat and pumped it back out again. Despite this a good time was had by all. Paul, you can take some comfort in the fact that the Blast Coaster was still not open. Tim was a little relieved too as that will be such an intense coaster that it would certainly be off limits neck-wise. (As of writing this the Blast Coaster is open and ready to take riders. It will be conquered.)

A couple of days later, Erika and Elin had a bit of excellent timing. On Thursday they traveled in to DC with Tim as he went to work and wandered around the city. They had been in before to ride on the bus around all the spots so they knew where they wanted to go. The Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the White House, the National Air and Space Museum and the Capitol Building. This was good timing because the very next day some maniac (actually a paranoid schizophrenic) managed to shoot three people in the Capitol Building, two of whom he killed (two Capitol Police).

A couple of months ago, two boys set off a fire alarm and waited outside to shoot their classmates. This incident was probably reported in Australia (see Volume 5) and led to a little discussion about gun control - along the lines of "You can't let kids blowing each other away interfere with my constitutional right to have the weapons they need to blow each other away lying around the house just in case I need to defend myself from an overly invasive government."

Tim cynically noted that, to get some real gun control action going, someone would need to play the same trick on members of Congress. Either by sparking a bomb or biological scare in the Capitol Building and shooting them as they came out or, alternatively, playing the same sort of trick at some school where there are a lot of kids of Congressmen and -women. When he heard the news that there had been a shooting at the Capitol there was some part of him that hoped that it was someone protesting about the easy access to guns and the lack of real care about the children who die each year from gun related injuries. No such luck, the guy was a standard loony who thought that the Government was reading his mind via satellite and he wasn't going to take it anymore. No lessons about perhaps doing something about all the loonies - like providing some sort of psychiatric care or anything. No no no, just fire up Old Sparky and give him 400,000 volts of re-education. (Sorry, a little more whining about the septics, I do apologise. I also hope that they aren't currently reading my mind by satellite.)

The last weekend was just like every weekend in July - busy. It was also Erika and Elin's last here (this trip anyway!) so Kajsa started getting really guilty about the fact that she had worked so much and hadn't been able to spend as much time with them as she would have liked. (This had an upside for Tim as he got to sleep in an extra day!)

On the Friday evening Tim went to pick Kajsa up from work (the girls were away at the beach with the kids) and they had a bit of a clothes and shoe buying frenzy (note a buying not shopping frenzy, there is an important difference). The reason was that there was a clearance sale on at Kajsa's work and everything was in the order of 70% off (plus Kajsa's employee discount). So ... Tim got a new pair of trousers, two new shirts and a bunch of new shoes. We needed oven mitts to hold the cheque book.

The next evening was a huge rush (as in we were rushing around, not as in "Wow, man, what a rush!") Kajsa worked until fourish. She got back as soon as she could and we all bundled into the cars to go to a pool party at the Swiss Embassy (we took Julia and her friend Amelie as well as Erika and Elin). Kalle spent most of the time getting very wrinkly in the pool and when he wasn't wet he was running around with all the other kids. There weren't any children Taltarni's age so she didn't have as much fun unfortunately. Kajsa and Tim stayed there for a while but they didn't swim because they had another party to go to.

This was another of the set of farewells, this one for John and Christine Neil, which was held at Tony and Shosh's place (they do have surnames but I can only ever remember Tony's). This was another outdoor function, made very enjoyable by the excellent weather and necessitated by the fact that Tony and Shosh live in the only house in Greater Washington without full airconditioning. They apparently have a closet upstairs (which again, for some arcane reason, we were allowed to check out) which is airconditioned and they cower there on the warmest days. Apart from that they make do by wandering around the house wearing next to nothing while hoping that the neighbours don't get too upset (horror and suspense movie lovers will know that curtains don't exist in America (note this is a valid observation, not a whine)).

On Sunday Erika and Elin went home. First though, they went shopping. This allowed Tim to get his sleep in, ah glorious bliss. Their flight was in the early evening and this fact caused many stressful conversations between Tim and Kajsa. Kajsa - "I want to drop them off at the airport." Tim - "What time are the dinner guests coming?" (Yes, we had dinner guests coming the day that Erika and Elin were going - it was unavoidable.) Tim - "You won't get back in time, what if it rains or the traffic is bad? It's better if I drive them." Finally we came up with a logical, reasonable solution, one which worked only because Erika is family and Julia almost so (actually Elin is distantly related to Kajsa also but these things are unavoidable in small villages such as Vrena). Julia drove them to the airport. Kajsa - "Oh, Erika, I'm so guilty that I haven't been able to spend as much time with you as I would have liked. Have a good trip up to the airport, Julia's taking you. Bye."

The dinner party, which was just the two of us and John and Christine Neil, went very well. Unlike some of the locals, John and Christine stayed until after midnight and we went through much more wine than we expected. We even opened up a bottle of port.

The last interesting event of the month was the retirement ceremony for a US colleague of Tim's. Commander Bob Selekman was leaving the USN after twenty some years of faithful service. The USN doesn't follow the usual Australian custom of just presenting a gift that has a few words scratched on it and saying "See you later! What was that bloke's name again?" No, they go beyond even the great honour of getting a few people together for dinner so that the presentation is louder (if somewhat less coherent) - "Ever since Trevor joined the ship ..." "His name is Roger, sir, Roger!"

When the USN have a retirement ceremony they go the whole hog. The person leaving really gets honoured, someone gets up and talks about all the years of dedicated service to the country. The Commander had an Admiral get up and speak about him, an Admiral who actually knew his name. In Bob's case, his family was also there to recognise him and all-in-all he had a great ceremony which really made him special and provided a fitting conclusion to a career which spanned more than twenty years of his life.

While they are over the top in some ways, Americans are unashamedly over the top. Bob also got to get up and thank his family and God for support through the years. The Admiral got to thank him for his service and passed on a signed letter of appreciation from the President. It was really very special and while such theatrics are not Australian and wouldn't be likely to catch on in the RAN, perhaps there is something to be learned about actually putting some of that "People are our most important asset" gumflapping into action.

It could only happen in America ...

Marriage is a serious business (much more so after the wedding than before). In a country where a vast majority truly believe in a god (although not as many as believe in heaven, see if you can work that one out) and de facto is a pair of dirty words, you would think that marriage would be taken more seriously than in other countries, not less. Not so.

You may recall reading about a pair of gibbering idiots on the radio, the ones on the radio station that our neighbour works for. Well this pair of professional mouths managed to get some woman to ring up and offer to get married on air. "Who to?" they wondered. "Oh anybody," she said "you pick someone and I'll marry him." They messed around and got her to promise to marry the person they chose out a range of candidates the following Friday. Then they asked listeners who were interested in marrying her to fax their details to the station. There was a deluge of interest. Many faxes went in, the local TV station got interested. A few names were selected and they got down to business.

Now when she said that she would get married on the radio, it wasn't all a free show. The gibberers had got a group of sponsors to provide a dress, tuxedos, a reception and a honeymoon. It was all set up and ready to go when four days before wedding, she called it off. Utter despair on the show - until two more women rang up individually and said that they would take her place. So, they took all the faxes that were sent in to the first woman and let the two new women check through them. The next day (the same day as we went to King's Dominion) both women were connected up to men that they were going to marry. Two days later both of them had pulled out also.

So, on the Thursday, the evening before the wedding was planned, they were talking about the need for a woman who was willing to marry one of the men on tap and one actually rang up from Sacremento California to say, yep, she'll do it. The show hosts told her that to be fitted for the dress and to sort out all the details she needed to be in Washington the next morning and she said, that's cool. When you consider the fact that California is three hours behind Washington and it is a long flight she would need to get on a plane almost immediately. But they didn't have the money to get her a plane ticket. In a spurt of generosity lots of listeners rang up to offer advice and frequent flyer miles and finally an actual ticket.

Amzingly this woman actually turned up in Washington to get married. Despite the fact that the most important part of the ceremony was in place (the bride), after all that build up, the excitement, drama, excitement, drama and excitement, there were a couple of problems. Firstly, the priest pulled out. No matter, a celebrant was acquired (also one of the hosts had a licence from a church that he got through mail order that made it legal to conduct weddings so they were covered). But the second most important factor was of course media coverage. The hosts had organised for the wedding to filmed and shown that night on local TV. But there was a minor problem, the television crew got reassigned to a little incident in DC. The wedding was scheduled less than half an hour after the crazy man started shooting people in the Capitol Building. There was mass confusion in the streets and on the radio stations. In fact, many people in Washington heard about the Capitol incident first on the Don and Mike show, even though it is a comedy show not a news show.

In spite of all the problems, the wedding went ahead. The couple were happily married for about three days after which they decided that they didn't actually want to be married any more. You see, under Virginia law there is a seven day cool off period - if you aren't happy with the catch before the cutoff point (no relation to Lorena Bobbit, it is just a turn of phrase), you can ditch your new spouse with no legal entanglements (such as divorce).

All of this actually happened and as they say ... it could only happen in America.