This is when I went into bullshit mode.
“A passport? For what? To travel to a third world country?”
“To travel to any country, Ms. Handler.”
“Really? When did this start?”
“Since airlines were created, Ms. Handler.”
“Would you mind not calling me Ms. Handler? I’m not in my eighties, and I resent the implication that I’ve never been proposed to.”
“Okay, Handler,” he replied. “You do realize your passport is actually necessary in order to land in another country. Even if I were to allow you to go through security here, which I will not, you will have to go through customs when you land, and they will send you right back on the next plane.”
“You can settle down,” I told him firmly. “I’ve got the picture loud and clear.”
I moved away from the counter and then went back to him for another attempt. “You do realize I’m not a terrorist? I’m not going to blow up a plane. I have a television show. That would be a really stupid thing for me to do and think I can get away with. I’m pretty easy to find.”
“I’ve never seen your show, but congratulations.”
I moved away from the counter to call my assistant and find out why my passport hadn’t been packed. She informed me that my passport was indeed packed inside my toiletry bag inside my carry-on bag—information that had all been sent in an e-mail the night before for this very specific reason. This is exactly why I’m unable to travel alone; the minute I walk into an airport, it’s like someone has given me a full-blown lobotomy.
I remounted the ticket counter, put my leg on the luggage scale, and exposed my passport to Hot Pants.
“Here we go, little man. I’ve got the passport right here.”
He looked at me askance, read my name off the passport and tilted his head to get a better look at me. “You’re a lot smaller in person,” he announced, before handing me two boarding passes and informing me I’d have a layover in Frankfurt.
“Come again?” I asked him.
It would be an understatement to say that this particular man took pleasure in delivering this news to me. And this was someone who had no idea what even merely passing through Germany meant to me.
Only a month earlier my cousin Molly and my aunt Gaby (Molly’s mother) had tagged along with me to Berlin to film the show Who Do You Think You Are?
Who Do You Think You Are? is a genealogy show that traces your heritage and flies you to wherever your ancestors made the most noise. In my case, it took me straight to Germany to research my Nazi roots. You don’t find out where you’re going until you actually get on the plane that day, and I was secretly hoping I’d end up in a country I’d never been to—like Russia. I know Russia isn’t on everyone’s hit list, but I’m less upset with Russians than Germans, because at least they have good literature.
When we got to Germany, Molly suggested we go to a concentration camp. Sachsenhausen was an hour outside of Berlin, and we had the entire next day off from filming.
“Yes,” I told her. “I suppose you are right. Being a Jew, it is kind of embarrassing I haven’t been to one yet. But, it’s not like I haven’t read about them.”
“I bet all the people who were forcibly taken to concentration camps wish they had only read about them,” Molly replied. “You do realize that if you come to Eastern Europe and don’t go to a concentration camp, you’re an asshole?”
After spending the first day in the hinterland, where my mother was born, we were off to Berlin, and I was excited to be going to a real city. The first day we saw the Berlin Wall, the Tower of Terror, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and by the time dinner rolled around, I was suicidal. I woke up the next day feeling overwhelmed with sadness. The hotel we were at felt like a bunker, and the air-conditioning in my room was drying out my eyes, causing me an unusual amount of restlessness.
The three of us met for breakfast in the hotel restaurant.
“I really don’t think I’m in the mood for a concentration camp today,” I revealed to Molly and Gaby. “I think I’ll get superdepressed.”
“I really don’t think anyone was in the fucking mood for a concentration camp, Chelsea. Do you?” Molly asked, slamming down her orange juice. I was taken aback by her aggressiveness.
“I’m just saying, it’s fucking freezing out, and this sounds like it’s going to be a mostly outdoor event.”
“Yes, it is cold out, and it was even colder out when Jews were forced to work all day with no shoes and shaved heads and sleep in human stacks. I think you can handle an hour or two in your wool coat, pashmina, and Uggs.”
“Okay, Molly. I get it. Obviously, I’ll go. And for the record, I would never wear Uggs.”
“It’s not really about you, Chelsea.”
“I said I fucking got it!” I told her.
“And I’m warning you ahead of time, there probably won’t be a bar.”
“Perfect!” I replied. “A concentration camp without any cocktails. Sounds like another fantastic day.”
I have never had a positive experience in Germany or Germans, except my mother—she was very sweet.
I asked the ticket counter man at the airport if there were any other possible cities that would connect me to mounting Negroes. Reflecting on this exchange, I firmly believe he wouldn’t have told me if there was.
I wasn’t going to let this little prick get me down.
I consider myself to be quite independent, but only independent in the way that I am always able to find someone else to do something for me. My assistant had planned ahead for what is called an airport greeter—someone who assists a mentally incapable person through airport security and directly to the lounge, then babysits the person until the plane is ready to take off. The greeter then walks the baby to the assigned gate, exchanges a look of pity with the gate agent, and then escorts the baby to the assigned seat. Then flight attendant comes over and offers a set of pajamas.
I had to go to the bathroom and asked my personal greeter if it was okay for me to urinate. He informed me that the first class lounge was only around the corner, but I insisted on using the “people’s” bathroom in an effort to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.
I walked into what looked exactly like what a public airport restroom is supposed to look like—a bathhouse.
As I happily trotted up to the girl at the end of the line, she very loudly asked, “Are you Chelsea Handler?”
It was very early in the day, and as I was sober; I decided that yes, I was Chelsea Handler.
“Can we take a photo after you’re done?”
“… Going to the bathroom?” I asked, wanting her to hear her request out loud.
“We can do it now,” she said.
“No, let’s wait until we’re done and step out of the bathroom,” I suggested.
I waited patiently for my turn and when it came, I walked into the bathroom stall. It was a shambolic tragedy. There was urine everywhere. Everywhere. On the wall behind the toilet, on the floor, on the toilet seat cover… and on top of all that, there was a fully soaked paper toilet seat cover also stuck to the toilet. What on earth was the point of pulling one of those paper seat covers out to sit on if you were just going to squat, anyway? It looked as if this criminal used the actual seat cover as the toilet paper. How could something like this happen before 1 p.m.?
First of all, if you are female and leave a toilet in that condition, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions:
What is wrong with you?
Seriously. What is wrong with you?
I’m fully aware this is coming from someone who lost control of her bowels in a kayak. However, I would never in my entire life leave a public restroom in the condition I saw it in that day. I wouldn’t even do that in the privacy of my own home. Well, maybe there, but I wouldn’t let my cleaning lady clean it up—not if it came out of one of my orifices. I have thrown underwear out in the garbage in order to prevent my cleaning la
dy from seeing them in my laundry. I have wrapped underwear in a plastic ziplock bag, put it in my purse, taken it to work, and thrown it in the trash in my office bathroom in order to avoid my cleaning lady from seeing any of my misconduct.
I wasn’t about to walk out of that stall just to have a stranger walk into it and think I was the culprit responsible for what had gone down in there. A rhinoceros would have made less of a mess. After I closed my mouth, I got down on my hands and knees to clean up another woman’s pee-pee in order to avoid the next female who used that stall from telling five of her friends, who in turn would tell five of their friends that Chelsea Handler pees standing up. What I needed was a mop, at the very least a Swiffer. Just one hour earlier, I had been standing on Hollywood Boulevard giving a speech to honor one of the most beloved actresses of our time, and now I was on my hands and knees cleaning a public restroom—like a janitor.
I walked out of the stall, washed my hands, and soldiered outside to take the photo that had been requested of me. I was hanging on by a thread.
The greeter informed me that I would be traveling on one of the new airbuses that had two stories. This information excited me. I was also excited to try a new sleeping pill my doctor had given me called Sonata.
Once on board and sitting on the upper level of the airbus, I checked my e-mail and read the first three messages.
The first e-mail was from my sister Shoshanna:
If you know any celebrity moms who would be interested in an endorsement deal and probable infomercial like Leah remini or similar person for all natural chemical free lice products to both treat and prevent lice (which is becoming a bigger and bigger problem) let me know—everything in the drugstore is filled with very strong scary chemicals and this is organic and extremely effective—this lady is trying to go national and needs a face to help get things moving—sorry I promised someone very sweet I would pass this on but ignore it if your annoyed—don’t mean to bother you with it :) SHOSH.
My reply: “Consider this igonored.”
A text popped up from a number I didn’t recognize:
Hello! My name is Mike Arancini. I just moved to West Hollywood by way of NJ 3 days ago… and got your number from your brother Roy he said if I moved here you might be able to help me with a possible job… I have a bachelors in marketing and can do pretty much anything asked of me… I’d even be willing to work for FREE for a month or more just so you can see that I’m not a deaf, dumb, retard… Do you have ANYTHING available or maybe someone I can call? I’m sorry to even bother you but I’m desperate and don’t wanna have to move back to jersey… Thank You so much!!! Mike.
P.S. Also, I’m starting a new charity for Cancer, and I know you’re mother died from that. Let me know if you want to MC an event.
My response: “I’m opposed to doing charities for Cancer, mostly because I’m a Pisces.”
I loathe bad grammar. I know this is an oxymoron, since I’m not the most terribly gifted writer or any sort of grammatical genius, but at least I double-check my work.
My day was getting worse by the minute.
The difference between a regular alcoholic and myself is that when I receive disappointing news or alerts, I withdraw from alcohol. I had a therapist once tell me to “sit with my shit,” and I believe that to be a necessary evil of being constantly disappointed. I would rather be bummed out for a day than to party like nothing happened and be bummed out for a week. I sat back in my seat and reiterated what my therapist once told me. “Welcome the pain,” I said out loud, gripping both armrests. “OK, motherfucker. I will.”
A gentleman sat down next to me, so I very perceptibly craned my head around in an attempt to guide him to the knowledge that the entire first-class cabin was empty, and the obvious move for any normal person would be to take one of the other seats rather than have the only two people in first class sitting next to each other.
“I think the plane is empty,” I told the man in what I thought was a very pleasant tone. “I think we have the entire cabin to ourselves, so you don’t have to sit here if you don’t want to.”
“This is my seat,” the man responded firmly. “1A.”
I would be the one changing my seat after takeoff.
I continued reading my e-mails, and I opened up the next one from my sister.
Attached was a letter from the assisted living residence that my father was calling home these days. The letter pointed out that he had made “blatant sexual remarks” to and “improperly fondled” some members of the staff. Further, since it was clear he was not seeing the error of his ways, he would have to leave.
I scrolled down to the bottom of the e-mail to my father’s response to learn of his thirty-day eviction: “I guess being an independent man is some kind of joke around here,” he told the staff and my sister after they gave him the news. “None of this will hold up in court,” he added.
“You need to shut your phone off,” the man next to me said, repeating the announcement.
“Excuse me?” I asked him, more than slightly irritated.
“You heard the announcement. All electronics need to be shut down.”
“Sir, I’m not sure how frequently you fly, but the notion that anything electronic is actually interfering with the radio frequency of the FAA tower is a fallacy.”
He looked right through me as he rang the call button.
“Are you going to tell on me?” I asked him, to which he didn’t reply. “I asked you a question, sir. Are you going to tattletale on me? Is that what’s happening right now?”
The flight attendant came over and looked sympathetically in my direction as the man informed her that I refused to turn off my electronics.
“Are you a Scientologist?” I asked him pointedly.
“There are rules for everyone,” he said, staring straight ahead. “Who do you think you are, Alec Baldwin?”
“Please stop speaking to me or at least stop breathing when you talk,” I said, shutting down my phone. “Your breath is hot.”
The flight attendant reassured me she’d be switching my seat as soon as we took off. Until that moment came—which was about twenty minutes later—I stared at the man next to me. He never once looked at me but kept his eyes set on the bulkhead in front of us. He was definitely a Scientologist. I looked in my bag for my sleeping pills and couldn’t find them anywhere; someone had forgotten to pack my new prescription.
Three hours later I was wide awake in 5C watching Blades of Glory and found myself pissed at Will Ferrell. I bet Will didn’t have a family like mine. Will probably sits around with his family eating cereal, playing soccer, and going for bike rides. Everyone gets along fine. No one gets caught sexually harassing others; no one asks him to ask his famous friends if they want to do ads for dandruff. But you are not Will Ferrell, I had to remind myself. You’re not even Alec Baldwin.
I had about eight more hours to fly, and I had to decide how I was going to accomplish that. Alcohol would be pointless, because my body is so inured to it that unless I am on a completely empty stomach, it is impossible for me to get drunk. I had already had two meals.
If one is to pull off falling asleep in broad daylight, one must shut of any and all electronics, pull one’s eyeshades over one’s eyes, and imagine only undulating waves and dolphins sliding up and down one’s body. I tried this three separate times.
I slouched in my seat, punishing myself even further by depriving myself of any entertainment or reading material. I just sat there fulminating about my family, my flight, and my forgetfulness in bringing sleeping pills.
I tried to figure out why I couldn’t just let little things slide. Why did I have to let the minutiae in life affect me so? It wasn’t the man at the ticket counter, or the passport episode, or the girl who wanted a photo in the bathroom, or the shambolic stall, or the three annoying e-mails from my family, or even the man ordering me to shut off my phone. It was his breath.
His breath was what sent me over the edge. Bad breath ha
s always been my Achilles’ heel, and being able to smell someone’s breath is a pretty good indicator that it’s bad. For some reason I seem to come up against it more often than the regular Tom, Dick, or Harriet.
I got up and walked over to his seat, where I found him sleeping peacefully. I learned in closer than I wanted and announced, “I don’t mean to sound like a hairdresser, but you need a root canal.” He shifted a bit in his seat, and I hurried back to my own before he woke up and another confrontation ensued. Once safely back in 5C, I mused about my never-ending battle with halitosis.
I had someone who once worked for me who had a severe case of Type 1 halitosis. I spent hours a day deliberating with other coworkers what the best approach to this issue would be. We talked of leaving an industrial-sized case of Chiclets on his desk and then upon further discussion realized they wouldn’t be strong enough. We went from Chiclets to Altoids to tongue scraping. Was there new technology in tongue scraping? How does one approach another regarding that very matter? Who would be in charge of confronting this person if it came to an actual conversation, and how did one avoid encountering his breath during said conversation? I offered three different coworkers five thousand dollars to have an honest, caring conversation with this employee, and after serious contemplation, I was denied by all three. None of my other staff members had the guts to show up to work with either a Dentyne Ice truck or a surgical mask and have a frank conversation. The memory of this made me madder. Why was I the only one willing to take action in the world? Even Obama had become useless.
Needless to say, the rest of the trip was a disaster, and by the time I arrived in Montenegro, I had not only stopped speaking, I had stopped responding verbally. Couple that with learning that Montenegro was not in fact two words and had nothing to do with mounting anything, and you could describe my condition as going from bad to worse.
The intimate birthday of my boyfriend’s “close friend” ended up being attended by fifteen hundred of his other close friends. Where I was seated next to an African king who couldn’t geographically describe where his country was, and two Serbian prostitutes on the other side. I found out that the birthday boy was some rich banker my boyfriend had met twice. That was for whom I had traveled fifteen hours. A stranger. I broke up with Montenegro the day I left there, and I broke up with that boyfriend shortly thereafter.
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