Spring Break

Spring break was last week. Since it's been kind of a crazy year we decided to go low-key and drive to Memphis to see my family.  Both my parents and the RM have birthdays that fall during that week so we thought it would also be fun to have a big birthday party, plus we wanted to celebrate the fact that my mother is cancer-free. Sounds potentially festive, yes? It turns out that our plan was inherently flawed in that it included bringing the children.

The trip was snakebit 2 hours in. Just as we're passing through the most fearsome part of Alabama, AD starts talking about how she thinks she's going to barf. Really, seriously Mom, like now, I am not even kidding. So we pull up to the first gas station we can find and I hustle the girls inside while JHP soaks in the atmosphere. Whoever decorated the place has an obvious zeal for both the Confederacy and Big Johnson apparel; there was something to appeal to the racist vulgarian around every corner. The bathroom was a filthy one-holer, and since the RM has recently declared herself the Quality Control Officer for all public toilets in the tri-state area she immediately hops up on there, leaving AD's barf options limited to a very suspect trash can. I'm holding AD's hair back with one hand, willing the chlamydia to stay in the garbage and not jump up on her face, and trying to keep the RM from getting sucked into the potty with the other hand. The RM is tiny and wiggly and somehow activates the automatic flush so it's on an endless loop which is bad for two reasons: one, her personal dogma requires that she vigorously protest loud noises, and two, she's mad because she can't see the poop she's so competently produced. She's wailing and yelling "bye bye poopies!" each time the toilet flushes, AD's moaning and gagging, and I am trying to remember why exactly I didn't have my tubes tied. Business finally complete, we head out to get AD a Sprite and there's JHP, hiding between the Krispy Kremes and the hillbilly humor souvenirs, eyeballing a terrifying group of blood-soaked hunters (I hope. I need to believe they were hunters.) while mouthing "I AM NOT COMFORTABLE." We beat it on out of there, and upon our exit the portal to hell closed and that gas station disappeared forever in a cloud of sulfur. Roughly 74 potty puke breaks later we roll into town.

Readers Digest version of the rest of our break:

Fortunately we managed to keep the illness confined to the four of us; AD's since recovered, but I still have stuff coming out of my head that looks like Halloween. The upside is that we provided endless vindication for Mom, who we had steadily mocked over Christmas for being so tired and boring because of course that's what you do to someone who's getting chemo. Lazy ass woman.

Next year I'm going skiing by myself.