The Amazing Race, Episode 12 Awards: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

The first award of the week goes to Quitter… er, Hayden. She gets The Teething Rattle of Peace for making a baby cry on a train in China. Let's hope she learns how to deal with children before she and Aaron have any.

Hayden also gets The Flo Pesanti Pink Bike Helmet of Resignation, previously awarded to Adam. She gave up on the Roadblock and, in turn, gave up her chance at a million dollars. Even Flo never went so far as to actually quit The Amazing Race, but this is the most appropriate award for Hayden the Quitter.

Aaron, on the other hand, receives The "Money Can't Buy Happiness" Change Purse. Resigned to the fact that he and Hayden might not win the million dollars, Aaron told her, "There's more important things in life than any amount of money." Some people say that at the beginning of the race, but at what was going to be his end, Aaron recognized that winning isn't everything.

Adam is the recipient of The Broken Light Bulb of Bad Ideas. Throughout this season of the race, I've given out some Incandescent Light Bulbs of Good Ideas; Adam gets the opposite. He probably shouldn't have insulted Rebecca just before they embarked on a 17-hour train ride. You'd think that he would have figured that out from spending so much time with Rebecca on the previous legs of the race.

Freddy and Kendra were the winners of the race, and I'm going to give them an award as well. They get The Pinocchio Growing Nose of Dishonesty. Kendra and Freddy both lied during the final leg of the race - Kendra told an airline ticket agent that she had a sick child in Honolulu, in an attempt to get there faster, and Freddy told a police officer that he needed to get somewhere quickly because he had an emergency. The lies didn't get them anywhere, and they wound up winning anyway, but do they really want people to see them lying on national TV?

I'll wrap up this season's awards with a big one for Kris and Jon. They get An Honorary Check for $1,000,000. In my opinion, they deserve the money, and they should have won the whole race. They can spend the Honorary Check in any way they wish, and I'm sure they'll enjoy everything they get with it. And isn't it heartwarming to know that they're probably happy even without the real money?

See you all in three weeks!

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