How we got kicked out of the Mall of America

The last time Derek, Scott and I got to travel together without female supervision was 12 years ago. The boys wanted to go to a summer Bible camp at Lake Poinsett, near Watertown, SD, and I agreed to accompany them. We stopped in Aberdeen overnight where we ate Chinese food and then went north of town to explore the Wizard of Oz figurines in a park. At the camp, we were introduced to Monty Furball, not his real name but the hairiest man we'd ever seen, and a couple of little rugrats that we would never forget. One was a hyperactive one-man destruction crew named Austin. The other was Ross, a "sad sack" ne'er do well who had a huge man for a daddy. At dinner, the little boy ate every minuscule piece of meat off a chicken back. When the boy was asked if he wanted another piece, the dad replied. "my son doesn't like chicken." Very odd.

So with that as a common background, the three of us set out toward Minneapolis on the morning of August 19 to see three major league baseball games in the Twins' new ballpark, Target Field. We had seen the Twins play before but it was always indoors...in the Metrodome. This was our first chance to experience outdoor baseball in the Twin Cities. Plus we would get to see the Yankees, who were in first place, play the Twins, who were struggling because of injuries to key players and inconsistent pitching.

We stayed at a Days Inn a few miles from Target Field because Derek had a free night's stay at that particular hotel chain. The distance from the ballpark wasn't a problem, we thought, because we would take the light rail (think subway) to and from the ball park. However, the light rail is not near the Day's Inn, so we took their shuttle, which dropped us off at the corner of 6th Street and Hennepin Avenue. From there, we walked around downtown, ate a leisurely supper under the old Dayton's store and then walked to the ball park.

The Yankees beat the Twins on Friday night and the weather couldn't have been any better for outdoor baseball. However, just as the game ended, the clouds began to sprinkle a light rain on us. We walked to where the shuttle was to pick us up and even called the hotel to let us know we were waiting. But alas, there was no white van. So we waited, and called the hotel again, still no shuttle. So we waited, and called, and waited and called again. About 45 minutes passed while we were rained on and talked to by hookers, drug addicts, pimps, pushers, partyers and other forms of humanity that we normally don't pal around with.

Finally, we saw a white van from the Day's Inn, but it stopped kitty corner from us. By the time we tried to run and catch it, the shuttle left. So Derek called the hotel again. Only this time, he didn't use his nice voice. The clerk at the hotel said the shuttle would circle the block and come get us. The shuttle did no such thing. So Derek called again. This time we heard that the shuttle would be back to pick us up after it made a stop at the light rail. So we waited...while a diesel bus pummeled us with stinky exhaust and the passengers stared at us like we were crazy for standing on a street corner on Hennepin Avenue at this time on a Friday night.

Finally, we hailed a taxi, which took us to our hotel. Upon arriving, we were reimbursed for the taxi cab by the hotel clerk who apologized for the lack of shuttle service.

Thus ended our first day in the city. The second day would be no less dramatic. We started the morning at Belinda's cousin Lisa's home south of Minneapolis. She made a wonderful breakfast and we got to soak our feet in her warm outdoor pool. From there we made it to Hopkins, MN, where Derek and Scott each bought some soda, candy and cookies from a Brazilian restaurant. After that, we went to the Mall of America to shop and eat at Bubba Gump's. After a tasty meal and a few miles around the mall, we decided that for "old time sake" we should take the log ride at the amusement park in the center of the mall.

I climbed in the front of the log at the request of my sons so that my clothes could absorb most of the splashing water. Behind me were Derek and Scott. The log ride is a lot of fun. It's kind of a combination roller coaster and boat ride. Plus you get a little tour of Minnesota folklore as you see Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe as you go through the mountainous terrain. Toward the end of the ride, you get your picture taken at the same time your log heads straight down a hillside. It was at this moment that I heard Scott say, "Is that a nipple I see?"

I didn't think much of it until we were out of our log and walking to where they sell the pictures. People were standing there and laughing at us. One old guy said, "I guess you don't know what was going on behind you?"

I did not, until I saw the picture of Derek holding up his shirt to expose his left nipple on the photo. I took a picture of the electronic preview because I certainly didn't want to buy the photo...until the boys talked me into it. Derek went up to the lady and asked to buy the photo for $10. When it popped up on her computer screen, her face turned ashen. She collected her thoughts and then turned toward us and started berating us about behavior, family values and a few other well chosen phrases and sentences meant to demean us. In the end, she wouldn't sell us the photo. No skin off my nose, I thought. I didn't want to buy it in the first place, and with her mad at us, we decided to leave the amusement park and the mall. So, no we weren't escorted to the door by the mall police, but we knew we were no longer welcome...especially on the log ride.

The photo of the log ride

In the evening, we saw the Twins beat the Yankees and after the game, we grabbed a cab and skipped waiting for the shuttle to arrive at the corner of Sixth and Hennepin.

The next day we were invited to church in Roseville by a young lady who had once or twice been the babysitter for our boys in Mandan. After church, she treated us to a delicious buffet brunch that was second to none. When we left her, we thought we would head to the ball park for the afternoon game but first we needed some gasoline. It was at the gas station near the stadium that I asked the boys if either one of them had grabbed today's tickets off the TV set back at the hotel. Both said they didn't see the tickets so no they hadn't grabbed them.

It was at that moment that my heart started pounding. Derek threw the car into gear and we raced back to our hotel. Derek told me to calm down as the cleaning crew had probably not been to our room yet.

When he reached the parking lot, I jumped out of the car and went straight to the desk. A clerk there made a key to our room and asked me to check it out myself. While I was racing to the room, I heard him ask a lady who was head of the cleaning service if our room had been cleaned. I didn't hear her answer because of the hum of the elevator.

Running down the hall to our room, it looked like nothing had been cleaned, but once inside our room, I could see that the beds were made and the tickets were missing from the top of the TV where I had left them. So I ran back to the elevator and eventually back to the front desk. There the clerk stood by himself. But he told me that often the cleaning service will keep things like tickets on their carts and that the lady had left to see if she could find the person who cleaned our room. In that instant, my heart sunk. We were in Minneapolis with no tickets. It was my fault. There was no one to blame it on and the boys were going to be very disappointed.

Just then, the lady came from around the corner and, lo and behold, she had our tickets. All three of them. I could have kissed her.

I ran outside to find my boys ravaging through my luggage, double checking to make sure that their father wasn't so stupid to take the tickets out and leave them on the TV. When they saw me and saw that I had the tickets, they began to smile again. And then started laughing as we piled into the car to head to the game.

Derek, Scott and I on Sunday

Then Scott let loose with the family cheer from the backseat of the car. "Steve Van Dyke...OY, OY, OY!" The cheer is held in reserve to highlight the most egregious of errors.

We went to the game, the Yankees won and we were back in the car driving home to Mandan. The only odd thing that happened on the trip home was the million of bugs we hit outside of Jamestown. We had stopped at a gas station, not only for gas, but also to clean our windshield in Jamestown, 100 miles east of Bismarck. Now, five miles out of town, our windshield was covered with bugs.

Splat, splat, splat..."that bug won't have the guts to do that again"...splat, splat, splat...."you know what the last thing was to go through that bug's mind? His feet".  Suddenly, splat, splat was replaced with swish, swish as we tried to get rid of the bug guts with blue washer fluid and our windshield wipers. By the time we reached home, our white Impala was the color of tar from all the dead bugs.

Still, it was an adventure...one that all three of us will never forget. We didn't have Monty, Ross or Austin, this time around, but we saw enough characters at the corner of Hennepin and Sixth to last us a lifetime.

Funny memories of the natural gas bill stuffer

Years ago when I worked for MDU Resources Group, Inc., I was in charge of the bill stuffers that went into the monthly bills of Montana-Dakota Utilities Co.'s energy customers. Once a year we had to put a "scratch and sniff" stuffer into the natural gas customers' bills so that they knew what natural gas smelled like in case there was ever a leak.

For those who don't know, natural gas is odor less in nature, and so the utility mixes it with an chemical called mercaptain, and it smells worse than rotten eggs.

You then can imagine what the mailroom of MDU smelled like every January when a quarter of a million customers in four states received the bill stuffer. The mailroom contained a very large metallic green monstrosity that held the bills, the return envelope, the mailing envelope and about four stacks of various bill stuffers. There was just enough friction caused by the envelope stuffing to release the mercaptain smell every time a bill was mailed. Over the course of eight hours, the room reeked, and after a month, the mailing room almost required a gas mask just to enter. So it wasn't a pleasant place to work in January.

The two people who worked in the mailroom were a couple of characters. It was an elderly man -- who liked to drink at the Paper Dollar bar in Bismarck on his way home from work -- and a nosy middle-aged lady, who was forever trying to win something off the radio. The lady was a shirt-tail relative of my father-in-law, but that's another story.

Anyway, I walked into the mail room one January day, and the old man is tooting right and left...almost in time with the mailing machine as it chugged along stuffing envelopes. He smiled at me, and I guess I smiled back at him...as a person does when they are sort of witnessing something that is a little "out in left field."

Anyway, the old man came up to me and said, "I love this month. I can pass gas and no one can tell because of the stink from the bill stuffers."

If only we had also been given ear plugs, I thought.

But the strangest thing was a letter I received from a distraught mother of a teenager in Dickinson. Her letter read: "Dear MDU, Recently I received a bill stuffer that smelled like natural gas. I'm wondering if you could send one out that smells like burnt marijuana. I'm suspicious that my son is smoking grass, but I don't know what it smells like."

My reply was that the company purchased the natural gas sniffer stuffers from an outside firm and that vendor only makes the ones that smell like natural gas because it's mandated by law. However, if she wanted to know what marijuana smelled like, she should either go to a rock concert or take a trip (no pun intended) to the Dickinson police department and ask an officer to burn some contraband for her.

I''m reminded of these stories every January when I open my MDU bill only to find the stinky natural gas sniffer stuffer. The old man has since died and the lady's retired....but the stories -- like the smell -- continue to linger.