*Hanson, heights, and humiliation*

8:00 am, Sunday September 27, 1998

In order to get home on Sunday I had to catch a connecting flight from Tulsa international airport to Houston, where I would get on another plane that would take me to Boston.  This grueling series of flights was nothing to look forward too, but while I was visiting Jess I had heard that the next Hanson concert was taking place in Houston on Sunday night. Somewhere in the back of my mind a little, overly hopeful voice was whispering "how much would it rock if they were on your plane?" I didn't think much of it, though, until I was waiting in line to check my bag at the Continental desk.

There were two people dealing with an employee in the row next to where I was waiting in the practically empty airport. One was a gargantuan black man and the other a small, dark haired woman, both of whom were were busily informing the airport employee that the bags they were checking were high priority. Their luggage consisted of matte gray boxes with chrome trim… sort of what you'd expect musical equipment to be stashed in.

As I stood and waited, yawning mightily with my need for caffeine, I found myself scrutinizing the big guy. He looked so familiar, but I couldn't quite place his face. I spent the next five minutes staring quizzically in his direction, but didn't realize why I recognized him until it was finally my turn in the line next to the pair. I had to get out identification, and as I did I noticed the black and orange specter of my MOE card prominently stashed in my wallet. Then a flash of memory stuck,  and I have to admit that I got just a little teenie. In less than two seconds I was attempting to subtly yank the bag I was checking away from the menacing man who was about to put it on the conveyer belt that ran behind the ticket counter. I dug around, keeping an eye on the black man and the woman, until I found the disposable camera I had brought with me.

The man, I had realized, was Rumpelstiskin, the same guy who let us backstage at my Great Woods Hanson concert. At this point I figured that Hanson had were probably either flying out on a private plane or this was merely their flanking guard heading out for the show, but I still wanted the camera with me just in case.  After shooting a sheepish smile at the vaguely befuddled Continental employee I proceeded to check in, all the while attempting to subtly flash my much-chipped MOE card in hopes the burly guardian of Hanson would randomly decide they needed some company on their way to Houston, and who better to take than a MOE girl?

Being something of a pessimist, I thought seriously doubted that I would be seeing Hanson in the near future. My luck, I was sure, wasn't anywhere near that good.

8:15 am

I stumbled my way through the airport before finally finding my gate, where I got some OJ and a muffin and proceeded to wait for my flight to be called. I sat with my back to the main entrance to the airport, surrounded by chairs and facing down the major corridor along which the terminals were arranged. Yawn. I tried to do homework, but it was hard to concentrate; I wanted desperately to be roving the halls in search of the boys, flexing my long neglected teenie muscles. After a few moments of this I heard an oddly familiar voice a ways down the hall, one that was quite loud and somehow seemed to be speaking in an manner I can only call all-capital letters.  I began to give myself a silent lecture, the gist of which I will, because it is indeed late and I am indeed in an odd mood, attempt to capture here: "okay, llamagirl. That's it. You've been reading way too much fanfic. When you get home no more Hanson stories! Hey… look at Zac's hair! It's cool. So fanfic is evil…wait… ZAC'S HAIR! That's Hanson! Agh! Agh! Agh! Camera! Camera! Camera!"

Even the lightening fast reflexes of a llama were not, however, enough to save the day. But then again, it didn't help that the entire Hanson entourage, all of whom walked right past me at a distance of less than three feet, were apparently Olympic quality speedwalkers. The woman seated next to me raised one gray eyebrow in my direction as she watched me hysterically fight a losing battle with my conscience. "They want their privacy," screamed one third of my brain. Another third was busy hyperventilating, and the remaining bit was wailing repeatedly "once in a life time opportunity! Once in a life time opportunity!" Bet you can't guess which train of thought won out, can you?

8:15:01.01 am

I arose with all the grace of a U.S. Postal service employee dealing with a package marked "caution, fragile" and began to less than slyly make my way down the wide, sunny hallway in Hanson's wake. It was like a slice of Tulsa, Tokyo, and the Middle of Nowhere, but I had the special privilege to be the only Hanson groupie within several hundred yards. Most of the people in the airport were adults, and I could see them checking the large group of Hanson folks out, but they didn't really seem all that phazed. One supposes this sort of thing happens frequently in Tulsa, but for a Vermonter to just randomly be in the same airport as Hanson within the same month is probably a relatively large statistically improbability. Let's just say the odds against it are so high that I'm expecting to be eaten alive by a great white shark in the bathtub in order to even out my kharma a bit.

I trailed Hanson at a safe distance, clutching my cruddy little Kodak disposable camera in one hand, for the length of two terminals, where they finally ended up entering this private room. "Drat! Foiled again!" I silently lamented, suddenly finding great fascination in the Tulsa World disposal machine that was placed across the hallway from Hanson's hideaway. The door didn't have any windows, merely a little vent, and while eavesdropping has just never in recorded history seemed quite so attractive the stay in the state penitentiary didn't seem worth it, so I backed off and headed back to my seat.

8:17am

"You dropped something, honey," the woman who was sitting near me in the terminal sympathetically informed, gesturing to the scattered receipts and plane tickets on the tackily patterned carpet before my bag. No kidding, lady. My pride. It's back there, by the metal detector. I figured I wouldn't be needing it anymore if Hanson would be wandering around the airport. I hastily gathered my belongings and sat, for some reason unable to stop my Thumper-esque leg movements. I had a nasty decision to make. My plane would be leaving soon, but Hanson were within striking distance. Did I really want to spend more time in Tulsa because I missed my flight? After quickly reminding myself not to answer that question, I finally decided a llama has to do what a llama has to do.

8:17:05 am

There I was, standing, dejected and alone, mere feet away from Hanson. The lady who was manning (hmm… interesting, very interesting..) the shoe-shine booth down the hall from the ivory tower in the airport had begun to curiously eye me, and I finally decided to abandon mission: impossible and return to where my backpack awaited, stuffed to overflowing with 70 pounds of biology book. On the way, though, I checked all of the terminals nearby. Santa Fe, Dallas, Los Angeles, none of them appeared to be going to Houston except my plane. Maybe I hadn't lost my chance after all. This new awareness was quite comforting, but I, being the skeptic that I am, still doubted that I could be quite so lucky as to spend an hour long flight on the same plane as Hanson. I also doubted my sanity, having just realized that I had long since passed the boundary from normal, well respected, law abiding citizen to teenie stalker. Away went the camera, and down went llama's heartbeat, thanks to a handy breathing technique taught in scuba class.

8:20 am

"All fist class passengers prepare to board," the voice of the sullen little man behind the Continental ticket desk rang throughout the area, and I sat comfortably back, knowing that I, back with the rats in the economy section, would not be boarding any time in the near future.

Instants later, though, a flurry of activity disturbed me from my pretense of studying. It turned out to be the Hanson camp, all in a row. I saw them coming and threw every good intention about being a grown up out the window as I lunged for my camera, beginning to use up what little film I had left. First came Isaac, dressed in a green tee-shirt and jeans. His hair was up in a ponytail and on his back he was wearing a precariously full looking backpack, as well as toting one of those little gray boxes that I had seen when I checked my bag earlier that morning. Immediately afterwards, and once again moving at the speed of light, came Mr. Hanson, looking a wee bit frazzled. Behind him were Zac and Taylor, both dressed in dark shirts and pants and toting backpacks.

I'm not entirely sure, and believe me when I say that at that time it was the last thing on my mind, but it almost looks in this picture like Taylor is wearing a shirt that says "michelob" on it. That would, needless to say, be hugely out of character for the Hanson set so I imagine my eyes must be playing tricks on me. Zac had his hair down still, and this was pretty much the identifying feature. We all may chortle at the thought of Taylor presuming to think that a little hat like the one he was wearing that morning would be a sufficient disguise, but I have to point out that I wasn't even sure who he was for several seconds; I knew Zac was there, though, so I figured Taylor couldn't be far behind. The woman I had seen downstairs came along behind them, closely tailed by Rumplestilskin, backstage gatekeeper man.

The meager little flash my funsaver was equipped with didn't warm up in time for my first shutter-happy picture, and so Isaac came out looking a little worse for the wear. By the time that Taylor and Zac were walking past, though, the flash had caught up to me and I almost wished it would stop; I only had a few shots left on the camera and each one I took was being announced by a brilliant flash. The rest of the people who were waiting to board the plane alternately watched Hanson and I, smiling indulgently. Neither Isaac nor Taylor seemed to notice me at all; they calmly walked past at their warp speed without so much as batting an eyelash. Zac, however, looked a little confused by the flash and checked around the room of calmly seated adults for its owner. "Yup. That would be I," I sheepishly admitted to myself as his eyes finally came my direction and paused on me as I, with wild abandon, turned the annoying little crank in an attempt to wind the film. Zac looked at me for a second, slightly befuddled, but them smiled a closed-lip "ugh, another fan" kind of smile and proceeded to board the plane after his father and older brother.

8:25 am

After the entourage had disappeared I was left with a room full of about twenty-five people speculatively watching me. I will, to those on flight 1650 to Houston, always be known as "freakshow Hanson fan." It seems rather odd that Hanson were the first people to board the plane, even if this one of those assumed privileges of the mighty-first class passengers. When they finally got around to calling the rest of the plane's passengers I realized that we would all be walking right past the entire group in order to get to our seats. Not that I minded, but if I had been a true teenie I probably would have been crying and attempting to handcuff myself to their seats or something. There is, I suppose, also the possibility that they checked the passenger manifest before they would allow Hanson to get on the plane, realizing that anyone under about 17 could cause some serious problems. Of course, they wouldn't take into account your odd 21 year old teenie!

As I made my way onto the airplane I walked extra slowly and vowed to look around first class to see the seating arrangements. The first person I saw was Ike, who was sitting patiently, talking to Rumpelstillskin about, I believe, how he had "wanted to go [to the blues fest] really badly but been too busy." Isaac and Zac were sitting together in one row of plush, leather seats my right, while Rumplestillskin and the random woman were sitting across from them on the left. Mr. Hanson was sitting behind Ike and Zac, I assume, with Taylor. Truth be told, I didn't actually see him when I was getting on the plane, thanks to the surging horde of people who were trying to get on board. In retrospect I should have ignored the aisle thing and just been the last on the plane; perhaps then I could have even hit them up for an autograph before filing, herd beast like, back to my seat. As I looked around Zac caught my eye. I'm trying to decide who smiled first, but I'm relatively sure that he was watching me as I got on the plane, grinning slightly goofily at me all the while, no doubt waiting for me to humiliate myself. Well, he was sorely mistaken! I wouldn't humiliate myself for, heck, almost an entire hour yet! "Smile," I reminded myself, in some semblance of shock, and did so, earning an even sillier smirk from Zac who appeared to be pretty tickled by the huge amazon woman who was walking past his family with a look that must have been flirting with sheer adoration smeared across her blotchy face.

As I continued back to the 14th row, which I had to myself, I pondered what other people would have done in my situation. I really think that the weeping and wailing that is seen during many Hanson appearances is simply the mob mentality taking over. In the 1600's teenaged girls got together and declared their neighbors witches under it's guise, but today the maliciousness has faded and the worst thing anyone would imagine doing was violating a Hanson by pulling some hair. Not that this isn't bad enough, but you must admit it's better than stoning them or something. I think that given a situation like mine, just happening to be in the same place as Hanson, basically everyone would have remained calm; it takes a mass of equally excited people to cross that boundary to critical mass. So I simply sat, leaning far forward in my seat so I could monitor Hanson activity. I was on the opposite side of the aisle from Ike and Walker, and I could see the top of both of their heads as they chatted away with their seatmates. Isaac seems to have been worried about his hair because every few moments he would raise a tentative hand and smooth it back into the ponytail it had been gathered into at the nape of his neck.

8:45 am

This situation carried on for quite awhile, until after take off a stewardess pulled the hateful little curtain over the portal between first class and the rest of the airplane. The major skirmish with my conscience was once again picked up as I reflected on the possibility of getting an autograph. After more than a half an hour of going back and forth I finally decided to just politely ask a flight attendant if she could get me one. I flagged one of them down, of course the one I deemed the sweetest and most motherly in hopes of appealing to her maternal instincts, and asked her if it was possible to get her to ask Hanson if they would sign something for me. She explained that she wasn't supposed to, but apparently the slight twinge of desperation in my voice was enough because she promised she would ask her supervisor. I suppose that I should have trotted out the whole sob story at that exact instant, telling her that I had flown all the way from Vermont just to see Hanson play, that I had every single CD they'd ever released, that the weight and balance of the airplane was probably thrown out of whack by the 200 pounds of Hanson merchandising I had purchased during my four day stay in Tulsa. I didn't, though, and instead sat hopefully on the aisle, waiting for her to return with news. She walked to the back of the airplane and asked a considerably less mommy-esque looking woman about it, gesturing towards me. I waved sheepishly, smiling. The other woman's face instantly hardened and I could see her shake her head "no" even from halfway down the plane. I suspect that she thought I was just some random person who had seen someone famous on an airplane and wanted to get proof, as opposed to an obsessed teenie, whose decade would have been made by an autograph, in the body of a prospering adult. The original flight attendant came back and apologized to me, saying that I should try and catch them in the terminal when we landed and ask myself.

I vowed to do so, and sat back, slightly frustrated. Apparently everyone on the plane heard about what I had thought to be my incognito attempts to get an autograph because when I went to go to the bathroom a random man in the last row stopped me and asked if I had gotten the John Hancocks. Turning what I imagine to be quite an impressive shade of red I told him that I hadn't.

9:45 am

When it came time to land the stewardess opened the dark blue curtain, once again allowing me a view of the Hanson camp in their good seats. Nothing was going on, unsurprisingly enough. Finally we touched down and people began disembarking, at which point I realized that the boys would have a huge head start on me and probably be half way to baggage claim by the time I made my way into the aisle. I grabbed my bag and did my best to get out of the plane quickly, but I figured that it took me far too long. As I walked by the spot recently vacated by Taylor I saw a can of Dr. Pepper, yes, indeed, at soda at 10 in the morning, shoved into the seatback pocket. Visions of the Mmmbutt girl's story flooded my mind, and I paused for an instant, wondering just how low I was really prepared to go with this one. Not that low, I eventually decided, stepping away from the seat and continuing out of the plane.

The woman who had been sitting in front of me on the plane, a dead ringer for Ginger Spice in her red hair days, smiled at me as we walked through the antiseptic tunnel from the plane, holding the hand of a child I assumed to be her daughter. "They're still there," she whispered as we came into the bright terminal, and we walked over together. Much emboldened by another person with me I walked right up to where the Hanson group where messing with their luggage and getting settled before they began the trek out of the airport.

"Could I have an autograph, please?" Desperate, needy, teenie that I was Taylor walked right up to me, smiling sadly. I'm not entirely sure, but I honestly suspect the boy is what Seinfeld would call a close talker, because it seemed like he was standing about a quarter of an inch away from me, shaking his head. I actually had an urge to step back, feeling somehow like my personal space was being invaded. Bizarre response, I know. Depressingly enough Taylor had, by this point, donned a pair of sunglasses in addition to his white hat, and I was denied sight of either hair or eyes.

"I'm sorry," he told me, sounding genuine. Taylor's voice was scratchy and pained sounding, and I wanted to grab the boy and give him some herbal tea. I'm really impressed with his behavior, after all, here was this sketchy fan pleading for an autograph when all they wanted to do was get the heck out of dodge before a scene started. He looked at me for a second, then turned to where his family had already began to head down the corridor, following the signs that read "baggage claim this way."

"Do you have a sore throat?" I think that's what I said, I'm not even sure. I had just officially gone from superteenie to supergeek as I stood there, mere inches away from the inspiration for hundreds of pages of my writings. At least a superteenie would have had the presence of mind to do something constructive: propose, or scream, or something. Anything other than inquiring about his health, and let me assure you right now that if I hear about any turn your head and cough rumors going around the Internet heads will roll! Taylor didn't really respond, so I'm hoping that he didn't even hear me. Instead he smiled and shrugged his shoulders apologetically before breaking out into an almost run in order to catch up to the others.

"Good luck at the Houston show," I called after him. Now, I have this amazing luck when it comes to Hanson. I've been seventh row, I've been tenth row, I've been backstage. I've ridden on their airplane! Yes, I think fate is involved in this somewhere. Mostly because it just seems so right, I mean, without it how could I quite so thoroughly humiliate myself in front of pop's it boys? Yep, yep. I see Hanson a lot, so I have all the time in the world to embarrass myself. This time might be forgotten, as might the last, but sooner or later they're going to put two and two together and realize that this flaky blonde chick they keep running into is trouble, pure and simple.

9:47 am

Fortunately enough the gate I needed to go to to catch my next plane was in the same direction that Hanson was heading, so I was able to watch them from affair until they turned off the hallway to get their baggage and I had to continue on. I was left with two plane rides to sit through, one for four hours, one for one hour, kicking myself all the while. Reviewing my old concert reviews I realize that they may indeed be working psychically for me. I wanted to go backstage in my Montreal review, and at my next show I did. In my Great Woods review I mentioned that I wanted to have a conversation with Taylor Hanson. At my Tulsa concert, I did. (Okay fine. Sort of.) Now I have merely one request from whatever god of Hanson shows that has been smiling upon my llama hide: I want to have an intelligent conversation with Taylor Hanson which volleys back and forth for more than three words. It's not to much to ask… is it?