Trip Down Memory Lane Pt. 4 - Vacation Stage 1 - The Preparation

For the three of you that were wondering, the reason I haven't "puked" in awhile is because I was on vacation.   I had every intention of doing one before I left, but I think we all know how the week before and the week after your vacation is.  You don't feel like doing squat, so that's exactly what I did.  SQUAT!!!!  I'm amazed that I'm sitting down now to do this because I'm still on vacation mode mentally, but I need to go ahead and get this done before I forget what I was going to "puke" about.  After all, I am old, and I forget things pretty quickly now. 

As I was laying in the pool wearing my Speedo, I'll let you drink that image in like a fine wine,  I began to look back on how the whole vacation experience has changed since I was a kid and figured that this would be a perfect topic in the Trip Down Memory Lane series.   I will bring up some memories from past vacations, while making some observations as to how things have changed today.  So grab your Atlas, highlight your route, and join me on another Trip Down Memory Lane!!!  This time, we are GOING ON VACATION!!!!

When I was a kid, back in the 70's for those that are curious, vacations were always such a huge event in our lives.  We couldn't wait for the summer to roll around because we knew we were going to load up the station wagon and head to either Long Island, NY to see my Uncle and Grandma, or to Stuart, Fl to see my Uncle.  Both destinations held their own enticements.  New York meant Fire Island Beaches, use of the neighbor's above ground pool for the duration of our trip, and a visit to New York City.  Florida meant beaches, hotel stays, and a visit to Disney World in Orlando.  It was win/win as far as I was concerned.  However, the destination wasn't the only part of what made it an interesting trip.  There were so many components that made up this thing we all called VACATION so I'm going to break it up into these four different stages:

1.  Preparation
2.  Traveling
3.  The Destination
4.  The Trip Home

*Authors note*  I will probably break this into four different "pukes" also, because I just finished the first stage and realized that if I did all four stages in one, it would be the size of War and Peace.   I'm doing this for your own good, trust me!!!

Let us start with the preparation.  Days before you ever pulled out of that driveway, there were so many tasks that needed to get accomplished.  As a kid, I found it in my best interest to stay the heck out of my parent’s way during this time in fear that they would either kill me or send me to the neighbors to stay and then forget to take me with them.  Hey, I've seen "Home Alone" so I know it could happen.

Now in my family, my Dad was a worrier so he would spend the prep time by spouting different scenarios that would all end up in the loss of everything we ever owned. Here are a few examples:

"If we don't have the neighbors pick up our mail, the entire world will know that we are gone and someone will break in and steal all our stuff."
"I need to make sure that I turn off the pilot light on the water heater, or our house will burn to the ground and we will have NOTHING to come home to."
"I need to stare under the hood of the car and act like I know what I'm looking at making sure the car is safe to travel because I don't want to break down in the middle of nowhere."
"We need to stop the newspaper from coming, or a bunch of arsonists will know we aren't home and break in, steal all our stuff, and THEN burn our house to the ground.  Then once I return home and see it, I will wreck the car due to the shock of it all."  (This one covered all the bases in the doomsday prophecy)

Mom, however, would worry more about the trip itself and the things that the family was going to need.  Here are a few things that you could hear come out of her mouth:

"I need to make sure I pack enough sun block.  I don't want my kids getting burnt to a crisp at the beach."
"I need to go to the grocery store and pick up lunch meat and snacks to make sure everyone doesn't starve to death on that 8 hour trip to New York."
"We need games!!!   I need to find games for the kids so Fred (my father) doesn't get so mad at them making noise that he actually DOES pull the car over and KILL all the children.  How would I ever explain that?"  (Trust me.  There were plenty of times I thought this was going to happen.  I was just praying that it would be either my brother or sister so I could have more room in the car.)
"We can't forget the kids pillows because either they will use them to sleep in the car, or Fred will have me place them over the kids faces to shut them up while he drives."

Dad's priorities = Car safety and House safety
Mom's priorities = Kids safety and packing.

Each parent knew their role in this and neither was going to step on the others toes during this time.

Packing was such a huge part of this stage, and it usually tended to fall on Mom's plate as her responsibility.  So being a good leader, she would try to delegate the packing duties to each child.  Now I don't know about you, but I have found that telling a young kid, say under 12, to pack for a trip is the most useless thing you can do as a parent.  I can remember my Mom telling me to go pack myself and I would grab my little suitcase and get it done in like 42 seconds because I was efficient!  Of course, I would end up with 2 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of dress pants for church, 3 shirts (none of which went with my dress pants), 2 pairs of socks (not a one would match), 0 pair of underwear (because I knew I was going to have one pair on when we left and I only needed those to get me through.  Wear them normal for half the time, and then turn them inside out for the rest of the time.  Genius!!! I would also only have one shoe and an assortment of useless crap that I wasn't going to be able to live without during my time away.  This was all supposed to last me for the 10 days we were going to be gone.  And to make matters worse, I wouldn't even bother to grab clean clothes.  I would just grab them off the floor because those were my favorites that I wore all the time.  Of course, Mom wouldn't check my suitcase until the day we were leaving to discover that my packing skills resembled that of the "special" kid that lived down the street that you didn't make eye contact with unless you wanted your leg humped.  She would end up yelling at me asking me, "Just what I was thinking?" and end up doing it herself anyways.  HEY!  She should have known better than to ask a kid to pack their selves and done it herself in the first place!!!

All this preparation was such a stressful time because everyone just wanted to leave, but you had all this crap to do before you could even pull out of the driveway.  So when the actual day of the departure would come, I would usually just run to the car and sit there to stay out of the way of the whirlwind that was about to take place.  Mom would scream directions at us kids and Dad would be in charge of packing the car.  Talk about a dictatorship!!!!  I made the mistake once, only ONCE, of putting my little suitcase in the car on my own.  You would have thought I just broke into the house, stole everything, torched the place, while wrecking our car, by the reaction of Adolf Sweitzer the Communist Packing Nazi.  Every square inch had to be placed by Dad, and I do mean HAD TO.  It was like a live game of Tetris to him.  We would hand him a square suitcase and a rectangular cooler and it became his task to place them next to the L shaped chair and the kids pillows so that there was not ONE INCH of wasted space.  You could watch him stand back and stare at the packing like he was Einstein trying to figure out E=MC2. 

"If I move the chair 2 inches to the left, I can place the cooler right next to it at a 40 degree angle which will leave me 6 extra inches on the left side of the pillows so we can put the camera bag right there.  If I put the camera bag on its side, I will still have 2 inches to put something else." 

It was such an exact science to him and God bless the soul that screwed with that design.  Heaven forbid if Mom would try to sneak something in at the end. This would cause Dad's forehead to turn red and make him have to redo the pyramid of items so he could fit the thermos of coffee between the camera bag and the pillows.  My Dad never cussed, but it was during these times that if he did, I would have learned a whole lot of interesting words to take back to school with me in the Fall.  Dang it!  Missed opportunities!!!!

With the prep work out of the way, the car loaded, the kids in their respected 6in x 6in spots, Mom in the passenger seat, and Dad behind the wheel it was surely time to leave on vacation right????  WRONG!!!!  You would pull out of the driveway and Dad would ask Mom if she remembered to unplug EVERY appliance in the house because he didn't want there to be a short which would cause a fire and burn everything to the ground. (Doomsday prophecy)  Mom would usually say yes, but would hesitate just long enough to throw doubt into the air.  Dad would say, "Are you sure???" and Mom would have to say "I'm pretty sure I did, but I can't remember if I unplugged the toaster."  So now just 35 seconds up the road, Dad would slam on the breaks, let out a noise that sounded like a growl, turn the car around in your neighbor’s driveway, all to go back and check the stupid toaster.  We kids knew better than to say a single word during this time because we would end up DEAD if we got involved.  Mom would rush in and recheck every appliance and then come back out and confirm she did unplug the toaster.  I'm pretty sure she had forgotten to unplug it, but there was NO CHANCE she was going to admit it to Dad because then he would have to double check all the appliances himself. 

With Mom now back in the car, every appliance unplugged, certainly it was time for the vacation to begin . . . right?  WRONG!!!!!  Once that car was put in reverse, your sister would spout out those 7 words of doom that would set the tone for the remainder of the trip.  "I have to go to the bathroom."  Oh, the bane in my father's ears. Anytime a trip was interrupted by a trip to the bathroom, my father would die a little bit inside.  I'm guilty of this today myself and I have a rule.  "You will only eat when the car has to eat and you will only have to go to the bathroom when I have to go to the bathroom!!!!!!"  Alas, women have bladders the size of a peanut, so I have felt Dad's pain time and time again over the years in my own travel adventures.  I have learned that to a woman, 1 cup of water equals 14 gallons of urine.  More on this later though.

Once my sister said those 7 words, we would wait for my Dad's head to split open and watch the fire and brimstone spill out of his head engulfing my sister in flames until all that remained of her was just a small pile of ashes.  I would then open the car door, blow her ashes off the seat, and then scoot my little cute behind over so I would have more room during the trip.  Instead of this wonderful mental image, we would get the whole, "I told you to go before we left!!!"  Followed by, "I didn't have to go then."  My Father would then lower his head on to the steering wheel and tell her to hurry up.  Alice would run into the house and take care of her business while we would just sit there in complete silence knowing that whoever broke that silence, would surely die.   Alice would then run back and get into the car which would prompt Dad to ask everyone in the car, "Does ANYONE else have to go?"  By that time, even if I did have to go so bad that my eyes were watering, I would have just peed myself and sat there in my own urine soaked Wranglers for the next 8 hours because there was NO WAY I was going to be the one to hold this trip up any further. Out of sheer terror, no one would object, so it was finally time to really leave and Dad would announce "WE'RE OFF!"  Which would take us to our next stage in this adventure . . . . . . . . .  

Traveling

(to be continued in the next "puke")