Fanagrams

My meeting downtown finished early, and so I arrived at O’Hare hours ahead of time for my evening flight to Atlanta.  I settled in to read, and then deep into my novel, I became irritated at the flashing lights above me.  As I got up to move my seat, I realized that I had been at the airport so long that I was now in the midst of an entirely new weather system, and what I had assumed was the malfunctioning flicker of fluorescent lights was really a tremendous thunder storm.  I was disenheartened to realize that I was in for a long vigil at the airport.  No book can be that good, and lets face it, it is just too hard to get any work done.  I immediately began to ponder my professional and ethical obligation to attend this all day Saturday meeting.  Did my commitment to attend really extend to an all nighter at the airport?  I was just one of many, would they really miss me?  Just as I concluded that the answer to those questions were unfortunately yes, the departure board twitched and my flight came up CANCELLED!  And then in a fit of due diligence I confirmed that there was no later flight that evening, and no early AM flight the next morning that could get me there on time.  I was free!  I called the conference organizers to relay the sad news and also ask them what to do with the ticket.  The ticket was nonrefundable, so they told me that it was mine to keep.  I was free and had a free ticket!

When I got home the house was dark, as Nick had made other plans in my presumed absence.   As a NetFlix subscriber, a couple of movies were awaiting me, one about an immigrant who tries to eke out an existence by being a drug mule, and the other was about a hardworking 1950s British housewife who was an abortionist on the side.  When I established my movie queue on NetFlix, I clearly had put myself on too high a plane.  I had selected a steady diet of movies that were supposedly thought-provoking, unsettling, unflinching, tragic, long-suffering and ennobling.  Not a guilty pleasure among them, just the ticket for the end of a long tiring day.  Therefore, I turned to network and cable TV, a vast wasteland since we had cancelled access to the movie channels in lieu of NetFlix!  

I despaired as I scrolled through dreary options, but then joyfully stumbled across the Wizard of Oz, and I thought this would be a perfect evening to relive my childhood.  Before the days of cable, VHS or DVD, you had but one chance per year to see the Wizard of Oz on network TV, and it was an occasion you really didn’t want to miss.  I remember that it always seemed to be on at the beginning of November on a late Sunday afternoon.  You would be horsing around outside, playing in leaf piles or playing touch football, when someone would announce, “Hey isn’t the Wizard of Oz on tonight?”   We would rush inside, trailing the fresh air inside and get cozy in the TV room, still slightly feeling the autumn chill.  My most salient memories of the Wizard of Oz were the flying monkeys which always scared the Beejeezus out of me, and that I always got misty eyed at the end when Dorothy said goodbye to the scarecrow.  Now I would get to see the movie again after a span of about 20 years.

My first discovery was that I don’t think that I had ever seen the very beginning of the movie before; I think I missed the part were the farm hands Hunk, Hickory and Zeke clearly established themselves as the future Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion.  All these years I thought that I was a most clever girl to figure this out at the end; it was something that I always kept to myself as my secret insight.  I also never stopped to wonder whatever happened to Dorothy’s birthparents, which would certainly be a ripe topic for a prequel, given Hollywood’s formula for creating movie franchises.  Additionally, Auntie Em and Uncle Henry are quite old enough to be her grandparents, so it would seem that an entire generation of relatives got wiped out somehow.  Perhaps a prior tornado, which would certainly be ironic, since Dorothy’s last name is Gale.

Apparently in one of the earlier stage versions, Dorothy was accompanied not by a dog, but by her pet cow Imogene.  While Toto is an upgrade over a cow, I admit that I find common ground with the crabby Almira Gulch – Toto is yappy and annoying, albeit loyal.  As I watched Dorothy pop Toto into her little wicker purse, I realized that she might have been the original trendsetter for toy dogs as fashion accessories.  I am not proud to admit that I indulge in People magazine from time to time, but this is how I know about those wretched anorexic starlets whose little hairless dogs are peeking out from their oversized Birken bags. 

Of her traveling companions, I think that I was most mystified about the lion, mainly because he walked on two legs instead of all fours.  But it must have been something more, because if I was willing to accept a man made of tin, I should have been able to accept a bipedal lion.  And now I think I figured it out.  As a child at the zoo, one could not help but be impressed with the manly attributes of the king of beasts, not only his glorious mane of hair, but his readily apparent male anatomy.  And so, when the lion emerged from the woods and stood up, something was missing, the full frontal as it were.  And if we may succumb to the obvious stereotype, perhaps that was why he lost his courage.

My respect for Dorothy grew enormously as she moved on down the road.  In the sepia world of the Kansas farm, she was helpless, frantic and casually dismissed.  In her fantasy world, she became a better version of herself, formulating and sticking to a plan, and developing a mentoring and equal relationship with men.  She was a brilliant role model clearly ahead of her time. The original actress slated for the role was Shirley Temple, who charmed audiences with her perky cuteness.  How fortunate to have a plucky and confident Dorothy instead, a picture of undaunted and competent courage.

Was the Wizard of Oz the first movie to use the ticking clock?  This race against time is certainly a staple of every single James Bond movie.  Perhaps 007 owes a debt of gratitude to the Witch, who inexplicably doesn’t dispatch Dorothy forthwith.  While the special effects of the grotesque flying monkeys are clearly very primitive, I don’t think that I have seen a better death scene than the melting witch.  Brilliantly nonviolent.  How many times has this been reenacted in community theaters and school gymnasiums?   What fun to scream out a tortured, “Help, I’m melting,” and then slowly slip down through a trap door.

The good bye sequence at the end always left me teary, though I tried mightily to conceal it, perhaps pretending to scratch my eye, or attending to an itch along the side of my nose.  This time as I listened to Dorothy’s earnest explanation of the key to returning home, I realized that it was basically incomprehensible.  Here are the verbatim words, “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”  What?  Somewhere there is a starchy grammarian who is shuddering at the triple negative: “won’t look/isn’t there/never lost it.”  Try as I might, I can’t decipher this, but fortunately, by the time she clicks her heels together, she has condensed this to the more memorable, “There’s no place like home.”  I think that from time to time, we can all agree with that.  

The missing words in the following poem are all anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, stop, post) and the number of asterisks indicates the numbers of letters.  One of the missing words will rhyme with the preceding or following line.  Your job is to solve for the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem.  Scroll down for answers:

Why Dorothy is a Good Role Model

Dorothy was not really scared as she was tossed and turned in a tornado ****

And when she landed amongst the Munchkins she was briefly nonplussed

Forthwith she became a problem solver, and headed to Emerald City in competent style

Relying on **** and brians instead of the more typical coquettish smile and guile

She  made true and equal friends with men like the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Lion,

And her farewell to them at the end **** at my heart and makes me feel like crying.

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 answers:  gust, guts, tugs

I was over 30 years old by the time I finished my college, medical school and residency training.  One of the most joyful aspects of this feat of endurance was the realization that I would no longer be subjected to standardized tests.  The guiding philosophy of the medical school I attended was not to train you to be a good doctor, but instead to train you to pass the medical boards on the first try.  Therefore, all tests were in the style of the medical boards consisting of a dreary procession of multiple/multiple choice questions on isolated medical factoids. 

And with all this testing came the periodic nightmares that have achieved the status of urban legend among college students, who just refer to “The Dream.”  The dream consists of some sort of variation of anxiety over the final exam.  A frequent version is the panicky realization that you have forgotten that you had signed up for a course and are totally unprepared for the final exam.  My anxiety dreams tended to be more organizational.  For example, I would dream that I had a pencil box full of No. 2 pencils, but none of them would have an eraser, or all the pencils would have jumbo erasers but be unsharpened.  In other instances, I would be rushing around dark unnamed corridors desperately trying to find the right classroom, or there would be some sort of veil over my eyes so that I could not find my way through the corridors.  Anxiety about public speaking was an odd variation of the dream, where my mouth would inexplicably accumulate some sort of debris.  In the dream, I would attempt to discretely scoop all the material, and then struggle to find someplace to dispose of it, all the while the debris was accumulating again.  With the formal end of my academic career, I thought that these dreams would vanish.

But my anxious dreaming mind quickly found a new anxiety theme – getting to the airport on time.  I would dream that I couldn’t find the correct suit case, or my clothes or the ticket would be missing, the car didn’t have any gas, the keys were gone.  Perhaps these dreams were built more on actual experience, since each one of these events has occurred in isolation.  But then one day last summer, all aspects of the dream came true in one epic trip to the airport to pick up Ned and Susie.  I knew this airport pickup was going to be slightly more complicated than usual in this post 9/11 age, since neither of us had cell phones, but I felt confident that I could get to the airport, park and meet them in baggage claim. 

At the appointed hour, I went to the garage to get into the car, and was aghast to see that both of our cars were gone.  We had recently moved into the neighborhood and I did not feel comfortable in asking for this somewhat aggressive favor from our swanky neighbors.  I then hopped on my bike and madly pedaled over to my father’s house, assuming there would be an idle car, particularly since he no longer drove.  As I huffed and puffed into the driveway, I was stunned to see a totally empty driveway and house.  I was seriously running late at this point, so I took a big gulp and decided to call my parents’ life long neighbor Mrs. Reed.  Now I have come to know Mrs. Reed as a generous and loyal friend, but growing up, she was a figure of imposing authority, and somewhat persnickety in her tastes.  I was afraid of her then and those feelings had lingered for over 40 years.  I remember once saying to her, “Mrs. Reed can I ask you a favor?” and her response was, “Well you can always try.” 

Mrs. Reed immediately responded to my plight and minutes later I was on my way in an immaculate Volvo.  I wanted to return the car to her in the exact same condition, so I mentally noted which radio station was on, the position of the seat, and the gas gauge.  My perilous situation seemed to have righted itself – until I reached the first toll booth and realized that the Reed’s car did not have an EZ pass and I did not have any change.  Now normally I would just blast through the EZ pass, which I have done several times in my mother-in-law’s car, but I did not dare to do it in Mrs. Reed’s car lest she get a ticket in the coming months.    I then resorted to a strategy that I had often used with the kids.  I figured that no matter what I did, I would always be an embarrassment to them, so why not do something that truly deserving of their embarrassment?  Therefore, whenever we were at a toll booth, I would stop, open the door and pick up the loose change abandoned by people whose errant toss had missed the toll booth.  I would point out to the kids that some people were willing to just throw money out the window, but not this family.  The kids would roll their eyes and slink down in the seat as I picked up dimes, nickels and the occasional quarter.  Now this strategy came in handy.  The toll at this booth was about a buck, so I had to park the car at the side of the road, and scrounge at several different toll booths until I got enough change.

I breathed a sigh of relief as now I was in sight of the airport, and only about 15 minutes late.  As I drove toward the parking lot, I was horrified to see that for the first time ever, the parking lot was full, and all cars were being directed to remote parking, which required taking a tram back to the terminals.  I had erupted in a nervous sweat at this point since I had no way of communicating with Ned and Susie, and decided to try my luck at the international parking, which was much closer than remote parking.  However, mine was not an original thought, and I joined a competitive sea of cars jostling and milling around trying to nab the first open spot.  I almost got side-swiped in the precious Volvo as someone aced me out, so I decided to try a more focused strategy my mother had once used.  I drove to the spot where people were exiting from the terminal and spotted an overburdened and bleary eyed couple and offered to give them a ride to their car if I could have their spot.  Success!  I raced into the terminal, wild eyed, sweating, and disheveled, to find Ned and Susie peacefully waiting for me.  I relaxed as well, and we turned around and headed back to international parking.  However, as I stood on the sidewalk, I suddenly realized that in the rush of getting to the airport, I had neglected to notice the color, style or license plate number of the Reeds’s car nor could I remember what row I had parked it in… 

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (like spot, post, stop) and the number of asterisks indicate the number of letterse.  One of the missing words will rhyme with either the preceding or following line.  Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem.  Scroll down for answers. 

If you have a huge gap between what you need and what you’ve got

You might not care if your tossed coin misses the toll booth ****

But for **** of people, throwing money out the window is the epitome of waste

And typical of Americans whose wanton excess is in such poor taste.

So if you want to participate in a most lucrative **** and found

Just open the door next to the tollbooth to find coins strewn upon the ground

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Answer:  slot, lots, lost

I greeted my first assignment as snack mom with undiluted pleasure.  Like many of my contemporaries, I had delayed childbearing into the thirties, and had only two children.  Now was the time for commitment to participate intimately in the life of my children and to bear witness to every school pageant, field trip and sports event. And if the new system required snack moms, then I was going to be one kick-ass snack mom, with creative and healthy snacks.  The initial enthusiasm quickly soured by the second semester; instead of hand baked goodies, like everyone else I rushed to the store to get a box of just-in-time sugary Teddy grahams (who came up with that genius marketing idea) and a jug of sugary juice.  I didn’t want to buck the system right away and become a pariah amongst the other attentive moms, but it did seem to me that children could bring their damn snack, thank you very much!

 Snack mom is also very akin to the Halloween greeter, who must sit by the door for several hours and dispense candy to waves of unknown children.  In one of the neighborhoods we lived in, our street consisted of houses that were fairly close together with short driveways, a very efficient street to trick or treat on.  As the years went by, I realized that carpools were arriving on our street from adjacent suburbs, where I guess the trick or treating was less fertile.  I would see a car pull up at the end of the street and disgorge six or seven kids with barely a token costume on.  The car would wait while the kids made their way down our block, where they would then be picked up and moved to the next block.

Trick or treating was a two adult job, one to escort the kids, another to man the homefront.  For several years in a row, Nick managed to be out of town for Halloween, so I had to juggle both responsibilities.  I didn’t want our house to get egged, so I put a bowl of candy on our doorstep with a note asking children not to be greedy and take one candy each.  When I came back after about an hour, all the candy AND the bowl was gone.  The next year, I simply spread the candy out on the porch on top of some newspaper.  One year I got home from work a little bit late, and Vashni, our babysitter from India, was fielding the first trick or treaters.  She was entirely unfamiliar with the traditions of Halloween, so was quite perplexed when children came to the door asking for candy.  She rushed around the house to find something to give the children and ended up putting a popsicle in each of their trick or treat bags!   

I think that my mother shared the same frustrations, but she got very inventive about venting them.  I remember that she would take a piece of raw liver in her hand, and ask all the older trick or treaters to shake hands with her.  They would be left with sticky calf’s blood on their hands.  I can’t imagine that this would be tolerated in this day and age, and would expect a summons from the police or children’s services.  There was also a group of boys that mother particularly disliked, because they always took large handfuls of candy without any words of thanks.  One year she got a whole bowl of tapioca and dotted some decoy candy on top of it.  When the boys showed up, she offered them the bowl, and said, “We have too much candy this year, so just dig in as deep as you can!”

I thought that I would outgrow snack mom responsibilities as my children got into middle school, but then came the list of snack moms for all the soccer games.  There were two snack moms for each game, one to provide the cut-up oranges at half time, the other to bring juice and a cookie at the end of the game.  Some of the parents went whole-hog and arrived with a cooler on wheels lugging it across to field 13, or wherever we were.  The kids would dig into the snacks, and then litter the ground with orange peels, water bottles, candy wrappers, etc.  We then got an announcement asking the snack moms to stay after the game, since if there was too much garbage on the field, the team would be assessed a fine by the city.  As the home team, this meant that we also had to pick up after the visiting team.   I frankly snapped at this point and my revenge is recounted in the fanagram below: 

The missing words in the following poem are all anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like post, stop, spot, etc).  The number of asterisks indicates the number of letters and one missing word will rhyme with either the previous or following line.  Your job is to solve for the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem.  Scroll down for answers.

I resented the concept of soccer snak mom, but the real coup de grace 

Was watching greeding kids *******open juice boxes or throwing garbage on the grass

There were no thank yous – each one seemed a rapacious *******

I was so annoyed,  I immediately began devious plans to retaliate.

My resolve was like ******* as I planned my counter attack,

Should I spike the juice, or perhaps give them a moldy snack?

When I found some lemons my plan began to crystallize,

I mixed them in with cut-up oranges for a ******* surprise!

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Answers:  tearing, ingrate, granite, tangier

This spring, on an ill advised impulse, I signed up for a ladies’ ice hockey league, where random teams were formed based on the self ranking of the players.  I originally had no interest, but then I was contacted directly and urged to participate.  This was the first time I had ever been pursued athletically and I fell for the cheap compliments.  In reality, the league was short on goalies, and they knew that I had access to pads and a helmet.  At the first game, our “maroon team” was asked to sign a roster, which included recording your birthdate.  When the sheet came to me, I was horrified to see that most of my team mates were born in the 1980s, and I was at least 20 years older than everyone else.

As we got on the ice, everyone was trying to size up both team mates and opponents, and it quickly became obvious that there were a couple of very experienced players on both sides, a few serviceable players, and a smattering of deer in the headlights.  The ringers were wheeling, preening and making theatrical stops that sent sprays of ice chips aloft.  As they passed me with their well muscled crossovers, I could hear the ice succumb beneath them with a deep seated knuckle-cracking crunch.  I quickly realized our ringer was the short girl with the buzz cut and the tattoos.  Since she played defense, she was my new BFF.

In my previous league at the Winter Club, shots rarely were airborne, and my basic and somewhat successful strategy was just try to take up space in the goal, not get hurt and not do anything stupid (aside from playing hockey in the first place).   During the warm up, I was getting peppered with shots all over my body; one ricocheted off my helmet.  Although I basically felt adequately padded in swaddling/waddling clothes, there were two vulnerable spots; my pubis bone (there is no built in padding in the pants since men always were cups) and my neck.  I had gotten hit in the pubis bone once before at the Winter Club.  While it stung at the time I forgot about it until I noticed an angry bruise in the shower later on.  I initially thought that a big leech had taken up residence in my near nether regions.  I motioned over to my faithful husband Nick and asked him to find me some protective equipment.  I turned down his first offer of his Forbes magazine and sent him scurrying off to the locker room to find a ratty old “Jill” cup from my hockey equipment.  When he rushed back to the ice, the game had started, so Nick gave the cup to the startled ref who delivered it to me in the nets, where I quickly shoved it down my pants.  As for my neck, I just had to keep my chin down.

In one of our first games, we were totally outmatched, and while I know that it is poor form to complain about your team mates, the phrases, “fish in a barrel,” “sitting duck,”  “hung out to dry,” “left twisting in the wind,” and “thrown under the bus” all came to mind.  When I saw that girl in the white pants gather up the puck at the other end of the ice, I know that I was in trouble.  She steamed up the ice, while one by one my defenders evaporated like (you pick ‘em) 1. a popsicle on a hot day; 2. New Year’s resolutions by the following week or 3. cash in your wallet; 4. promises from children to keep their rooms neat; 5. socks in the dryer.  And there I was, a 50+ AARP candidate with limited goalie experience, face to face with a large 20 something Canadian farm girl who had honed her power game by playing hockey on the backyard pond with her brothers.  And all this happened within the first minute of the game. 

While the margin of victory quickly mounted and neared the double digit mark, I am pleased to report that I did not do anything stupid, given what I am willing to do as a goalie.  My skills, such as they are, are very limited by the fact that I make it a point not to fall down on the ice, for the simple reason that it is very difficult and time consuming to get up.  And I did do one good thing, which is recorded in the fanagram below.

The missing words in the following poem are all anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, stop, post) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters.  One of the missing words will rhyme with either the preceding or following line.  Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem.  Scroll down for answers.

When I joined the ***** of women hockey players I got in over my head,

 I found that I couldn’t stop or turn so I offered to be goalie instead. 

With all the padding I wore I didn’t think that I would fear what I faced,

 But with each onslaught, I went weak in the knees and my heart always *****.

 In one game, the slapshot from the point ***** toward me faster and faster,

 I trembled and put up my glove to avoid the oncoming disaster.

 But then I heard that wonderful thunk and a thud that all goalies love 

 If I had ***** to open my eyes, I would have seen the puck in my glove!

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Answers:  cadre, raced, arced, cared

For the past 50+ years I have celebrated Christmas in exactly the same way – family get togethers and toting casseroles from suburb to suburb, trying to make sure that everyone had the same quality and quantity of gifts and filling up stockings with crappy little
shit.  Two years ago as I was gathering stocking stuffers I noticed the exact untouched pile of deodorants, socks and ramen noodles on our son’s bureau from the previous year, so I just scooped them up and recycled them.  As teenagers, all the kids really wanted was some money, but it was just too crass to hand over a check on Christmas morning, so for a couple of years I made up a Christmas Jeopardy game – Family pets for $10, please!!
But even that was getting stale.  It was time to get out of town and put Christmas behind us.

So with great foresight, researching and planning, we arrived at O’Hare airport as 6:30 AM on Saturday, December 23^rd to start the first leg of our trip to Ecuador.  It had never occurred to me that this was possibly the busiest travel day of the year, but as we entered the airport, we were greeted with an absolute seething mass of people.  It was an overwhelming morass of gridlocked families, huge baggage carts trying to pick their way through braided lines of jostling people, all encompassed in an atmosphere of frustration, panic and weary resignation.  Everyone realized that there was no way that you could get through the sequential bottlenecks of baggage and security to emerge free in the golden land beyond toward the beckoning gates.

And there we were the four of us, feeling absolutely doomed and helpless, witnessing the first domino tipping and slowly falling.  If we missed our flight to Miami, we would likely be a day late to Quito, in which case our guided trip would have to leave without us, and we would probably only be able to catch up to them via an airlift to the Amazon basin.  But one thing that I have always told my kids is to make sure you are in the right line and best line, and not to just stand meekly in amongst the other herded masses.  So I told them to stay put in the doomed line while I reconnoitered.  In some airports there is a secret check in counter around the corner that is ostensibly for checking oversized baggage, like a bass fiddle or bicycle (please don’t tell anyone else).  One year when many flights were cancelled, I was able to triumphantly break through the clutter and successfully rebook to San Jose, saving a weekend trip to San Francisco.  But no such luck here.

The clotted crush of people and merged lines made it hard to notice, but I spotted one line that had only four or five people in it.  As I approached I saw that it was marked “For Airport Personnel” only.  But I also noticed that one young woman in this line was clearly not personnel.  She was wearing tight fitting jeans, some sort of abbreviated top displayed her taut midriff adorned with a belly button ring, and was saying, “Like when I get to Cabo, like I am really go to get tan.”

“Do you work for the airlines?” I asked.  her.  “No, she said,” someone just told
me to stand here.”    “Well guess what,”  I said, “That the same person told me to
stand in this line next to you.  Could you please save my place so that I can find the rest of my family?”

She was clearly unwilling to commit to saving my place, since we both knew were on the knife-edge of disaster, and she, understandably, did not want to be responsible for the
downfall of our vacation.  But I hurriedly corralled the rest of my family and established our undeniable and resolute presence in this line.  Although I was still as tense as a tick, I now had a plan that had some chance of success, and I felt a moment of superiority as I surveyed the scene.  It occurred to me that this barely controlled airport chaos represented the foundation of democracy.  Democracy can only work when there is some respect for the law and for rules.  As I looked around I realized that my fellow Americans were by and large willing to follow the rules and meekly stand in futile lines waiting their turns.

And then with horror, I realized that one of the American airlines service representatives was escorting people to cut in line ahead of us.  He looked at us and said “I’m sorry, these folks will be late for their plane unless they check in.”   At this moment, I realized that this guy was tugging at the very fabric of democracy – bribery.  Clearly these desperate and
clever families had slipped the airport guy a $20, $50 or $100 to skip ahead of the line.  Yes perhaps I had stretched the rules a little bit by finding a better line, but bribery was clearly breaking the rules.  There was now only one person ahead of us in the line, and I knew that we had to make it the finish line quickly before our little democracy collapsed into chaos – at any moment this line could be over run with people claiming that they would be late for their plane.  And certainly the majority of us were well-heeled vacationers and not a desperate people trying to escape the icy grip of Communism, but a scene like the last plane out of Saigon came to mind.

And then we were through.  Last step security.  If could have hoisted this heft, I would have done a cartwheel though security in my stocking feet, but I settled for a grateful jig.  We made it to our gate with 20 minutes to spare, and I became the Mom Who Saved Christmas.

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. share the same letters, like spot, stop and post) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters.  One of the missing words will rhyme with the preceding or following lines.  Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem.  Scroll down for answers.

The airport was jammed and without a ——– plan I knew we’d be late

Unable to check our bags, get through security and get to the gate.

Unless there was some sort of miracle and the  line magically diminished,

I knew that our Christmas vacations was totally ——–.

I should have just —— — my wallet to find money to give to the counter clerks,

Because now I now that bribery is the best way to grease the works.

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fiendish, finished, fished in