The kids are still sleeping so I will continue sans photos. Tuesday, June 12: Up and ready out the door. Our beautiful chauffeur picked us up, took a photo, and off we went. We arrive in Chicago with no hiccups, except Kylie. Todd has traveled to so many airports so often that he has become a connoisseur of airport cuisine. Chicago is memorable for its caramel popcorn. I'm sure it is straight butter and brown sugar and a little more butter. I bit of heaven for sure.
The kids think it should be famous for its toilet seat covers. What were you to do after having sampled from every snack shack, rode the escalators and people movers for three additional hours due to a plane delay but play in the bathrooms. The kids raved about the high-tech experience so I had to try it myself. Now, these toilet seat covers were impressive. Gone were the half-ply recycled tissue paper that you had to carefully punch the center out in order to keep it in tact while you gently lay it down on the seat positioning it oh so carefully as to not let the tongue touch the water while you quickly make a 180 to 360 degree rotation, depending on your skill level. This is done to ensure that you still have a cover to sit on, that it hasn't ended up on the bottom of the toilet, or plastered against the wall by the velocity of your turn all while the bottom half of your clothing is pinched between your knees because we all know what is worse than your bare behind hitting the toilet seat that half of humanity has sat on - your clothes resting on the floor that the other half of humanity has walked on.
I won't even complicate the process with extra kids in the same stall. That is some sort of weird carousel ride I'm glad I don't have to do anymore with small children. The worst part of that was when you were taking your turn on the ride and a child decides to get off the carousel, crawl under the stall and see what the lady next door was doing. The lady next door was never happy about this, trust me, I know from experience. They need to install pull down seats inside the stalls. That's my next invention. I got off topic, shocker. Back to Chicago's invention. The toilet seats came with already installed durable plastic covers that moved like a snake shedding its skin with a wave of your hand over the porcelain god. I almost felt like saying abrah-kadaborah. Presto, a new plastic sanitized cover would move into place, hands and knees free. I could spin around so many ways, so fast, landing one cheek sideways having done a split gainer (reference to a gymnastic move paying homage to the upcoming Olympics) in between with children running laps and still be covered. We could have the whole family in the stall, sans Todd - he is not up for these experiments, we usually try this when he's not at home; all finish in record time, no visiting neighboring stalls, leaving with only the germs we entered with. This alone makes you want to get out and see the rest of the world and we haven't even left the states yet. Who knew! Note: London has no seat covers, neither does Rome.