A Karri Hour from inside Karri Hour

Like many people, I have been hesitant to send in my Karri Hour stories. Somehow we feel that it “cheapens” the good deed if you then go online to brag about it. We have to remember that this isn’t the case, and sharing these stories reminds others to do good and offer comfort to karri’s family. So let’s scream it from the roof tops in as unabashed a manner as we can stomach. If you look at the attached picture (it is a screen shot from the karri Hour Facebook page yesterday) you will see I had extra motivation to get this one done.

I administer www.karrihour.com and the Facebook page and am on vacation for a couple of weeks with my wife and kids doing a tour of Southern California with all of the requisite stops. With Karri Hour having such great traction these days – stories coming in every day, sales of the Karri Hour jewellery going strong – I wanted to make sure I spent a little time each day to make sure this page and the Facebook page were kept current. Unfortunately, running the site, posting stories, finding pictures, tracking jewellery sales etc… is a little more time consuming when I have to do it from an iPad/iPhone combination with spotty internet grabbed from a hotel room or local Starbucks. So while Karri Hour is portable, it’s ironically more time consuming during time when I am not supposed to be working.

“So is there a Karri Hour story in our future, or are you just going to whine about your iPad and bad internet?” Yes, there is, and here goes:

So I’m standing in the blazing heat at Disneyland, in a 45 minute line to get onto some ridiculous “Pirates of the something” ride, after paying more than $300 for my family of four to get in, and $8 a shot for a hot dogs (not cool Oktoberfest brats or smokies, just Oscar Mayer in a wonderbread bun) and my phone is going “ping” every few minutes and it’s people looking for me, and more Karri Hour stories pouring in, and all kinds of stuff adding to my stress level while I am at the supposed “happiest place on earth”. So I make a deal with the wife that I will take the kids off to do a few more things and then later, she will take them to the pool so I can have a few minutes alone with the crappy hotel internet to get caught up on some stuff including editing and posting about 6-7 backed up Karri Hour stories. I know that if I can get through this then maybe, just maybe, there is a cold beer in my future ($12 at the bar in the Disney sanctioned hotel but at this point, who cares).

Everything goes as planned and we are back at the room and the quick turn around to get kids into bathing suits and family out of my hair, and I realize that my 9 year old had unplugged my charging iPad so that he could plug in one of his video games (It was too much trouble for him to just pick one of the 23 other available outlets, he had to unplug me). So now I know that instead of sitting casually on the bed and tapping out my business on the convenient iPad, I will have to double pronate myself over the back corner of an overpriced hotel room bed just to keep it plugged in. I’m ashamed to say I kinda snapped and laid into my son and called him an unappreciative little brat and some other choice words that no 9 year old should have to hear… some real “father of the year” type stuff spewing out of my mouth loud enough to make the failed actress portraying Minnie Mouse out by the pool blush in my shame.

After my blood pressure comes down a bit, I look up to see my family standing at the door, holding their pool towels, my son has a little tear rolling down his cheek, his upper lip is quivering in fear after my tirade, and it hits me like a ton of bricks. I think of the irony that this came about because I was so eager to get the Karri Hour stories online. Then I think about what Pete and Tracy wouldn’t give up for the opportunity to be annoyed at Karri for something as trivial as an unplugged iPad. Before getting swept up in a wave of self-loathing I drop the iPad and run across the room, hug my kid, then rip off all my clothes to get into my bathing suit so as not to miss out on pool time.

Alex Hugessen
(written from my iPad on some pretty decent Palm Springs internet)