The Masochistic Adventure We Call the Family Vacation

The time will soon be upon us when families across America will embark on that masochistic adventure we call, The Family Vacation. I remember one such adventure my family took a few years ago when we lived in Branson, Missouri.

The torment began once our vacation plans were made. I mean complete pandemonium broke out in our household. With the hyper of a sugar a junky turned loose in a candy factory, there was running in all directions, bouncing off walls, jumping on and over the couch, leaping over chairs, all with screams of delight—and the kids were even worse!

Of course sons and I were too hyped up with anticipation of our trip to pack early, so we ended up doing the panic packing thing. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the panic-packing technique, it’s when the packers wait until 10:00 pm (or later) the night before they’re supposed to leave to pack their suitcases.

One of the results of this procrastination is the packers, in their blind panic to get ready for their trip, can’t find half of what they need. So what do they do? The instinctively, and desperately, turn to the matriarch of the family for help. Have you noticed this? Why is this? It’s like we think moms and wives are born with this built in radar ( which, incidentally, kicks in the minute a wedding ban is sipped onto her finger) for finding miscellaneous items that we’re to inept to find for ourselves.

It never fails. Whether it’s packing for a trip, getting ready for school or work, whatever, when somebody can’t find something, the first thing the lady of the house hears is, “Mom, do you know where my ____ [fill in the blank] is?” Or, “Honey, I can’t find my ____.”

So there the boys and I were were, late the night before the trip, frantically scurrying about the house, searching for those elusive can’t-find items we so desperately needed to finish our packing, when a hollering contest soon ensued as we vocally competed for the use of the former Mrs. Bagley’s item finding radar.

Finally, just before she got to the point of pulling her hair out by the fistfuls, she made it very clear (the kids and I had no idea that soft-spoken woman could propel her voice to such deafening decibels) that she was going go bed and under no uncertain terms was she to be disturbed. We were on our own.

Finally, everyone was packed and after a few hours sleep we loaded our vehicle and were ready for our trek to Tullahoma, Tennessee, normally a 9 to 10 hour drive . . . unless, of course, you’re on a family vacation.

Just before everyone headed out the door to get into the car, the children’s mother and I asked the pre-takeoff question that’s been asked since the caveman first discovered vacations, that pre-takeoff question that annoys every child to no end (after all, what do we think they are, children?), “Has everybody used the bathroom before we leave?”

And the boys gave us that pre-takeoff answer that children have been giving their parents since they first discovered the right answer meant leaving sooner, “Yeah!”

“OK then, let’s go!” I excitedly announced. And off we went.

Between the light traffic and my lead foot it appeared we were on track for record breaking travel time. Then, not even forty-five minutes into the trip, from the back of the car came, “Next exit we need to find a rest room. My back teeth are floatin’.” We pulled off the highway and stopped at a restaurant.

Foolishly, I thought we’d just run into the building, use the bathroom, run back out and be on our way. But “Miss Manners” of the world of travel (aka, the boy’s mom) insisted it would be rude to pop into the joint just to use their rest room. We sat up to the counter and ordered what we thought would be quick eats.

See, middle son ordered fries, which of course the place was out of. The waitress assured us to cook up a new batch would only take 5 minutes . . . an hour later we were finally on our way.

Sixty uneventful minutes and, “Keep your feet away from mine!” reverberated from youngest son’s mouth, followed by, “Mom, he’s crowding my side of the seat!”

“Am not!”

“Are too.!”

“Am not!”

And on it went.

That problem solved, harmony once again filter throughout the vehicle, yeah right. A few minutes passed by and the peace was shattered by a barrage of declarations:

“I gotta pee!”

“Dad, I’m thirsty.”

“Mom, I . . .”

ARGH!

And parents enthusiastically repeat this masochistic adventure on an annual basis. There truly must be something wrong with us.

Random Thoughts of a Neurotic Man

Why am I always the one on the commode when the roll of toilet paper runs out and the stash of T.P. in the cabinet is depleted? How I hate yelling at the top of my lungs like a Floridian with arachnophobia (now I’m not saying we grow ‘em big here but when you can count each individual hair on all eight legs with the naked eye, you know you’re dealing some BIG spiders!) for someone to please bring me some pooper scooper!

Since we’re on the subject of “poo” paper, I want to give out a loud at-a-boy to the employees at the end of the assembly lines of all the makers of toilet paper for doing such a good job of gluing that last sheet of paper to the roll. Stop taking your jobs so seriously, will you?! Just a drop or two of glue (and I’m not talking “Krazy Glue" here, or any form there of) will do, thank you very much.

Whew, glad to get that off of my chest. On to bigger and better things as they say (ever wonder just who they are? I mean, they get credit for saying so many things we should at least know who they are, just a thought).

Why is it that I can walk into a supermarket that out of 100 shopping carts has 99 new ones and I'll pick that 100th cart with the one wheel that wobbles in every direction like a drunk driving a motorcycle? Or it’ll have the one wheel that is frozen, won’t spin, turn, etc--it thinks it’s attached to the cart purely for decorative purposes.

The bigger question is why did the supermarket stop buying new carts after purchasing 99 of them? Would it have put them into bankruptcy to purchase just one more cart?

One supermarket advertises that it’s your (meaning you and I) store. Well, since it’s my store then I say buy the extra shopping cart! Oh, and I’ll take some of my cash from my registers; Sweetie needs a new car.

Remember when you were just a child and would hang your arm out an open window of the car and your parents would command you to pull it back in because it was a dangerous thing to do? Remember how, to emphasize this point, your parents would then proceed to tell you about the little child who years ago wouldn’t listen to his parents when they warned him of the dangers of hanging his arm out of a car window and a vehicle coming the other way caught his hanging arm and ripped it right off? For those of us whose parents did this, it’s a wonder the first time we saw a one-armed adult we didn’t run up to that person, while shaking a finger at him, and say, “So you’re the one who put his arm out the window of the car after being told not to!”

And as parents we all say other stupid things to our kids, things like what my parents said to me when I acted up, as did theirs to them and I to mine, “You wanna spankin’?”

Now how stupid of a question is that? I doubt there’s ever been a kid who turned his derriere to his daddy and said, as he pointed to one of his rear cheeks, “Yeah lay it on me, right there.”

There are plenty of other stupid things we say, right? You know, like when you hear someone enter the house and you holler from another room, “Mick!”

“Yeah.”

“Is that you?”

Daaarrrrrhhhhh!

Or how about when you’ve been searching for a lost item/items for a while, like your keys for instance, and after you've retrieve them someone asks you, “So where did you finally find your keys?”

“Wouldn’t you know it,” you answer, “I found them in the last place I looked.”

Of course they were in the last place you looked! Nobody keeps looking after they find their lost property.

“Well, they were in the 3rd to the last spot I looked at, but I was having so much fun I just kept on looking, kind of reminded me of a scavenger hunt.”

One time I managed a regional bookstore. We were required to wear these funky bookstore aprons with our manager nametag on the chest. Well one day, at the end of an opening shift, I was carrying three cash register drawers back to the office to balance out that shift’s sales.

I was heading down a book aisle, toward the office, when a lady walking toward me stopped and asked, “Do you work here?”

“No lady, I’m a thief in disguise. Is it working?”

ARGH!

Well, kiddos, these have been just some of the random thoughts of a neurotic man. I hope they keep you up at night as they do me—I could use the company.

Speak English! Oh, You Are

Some people say the English language is one of the hardest languages to learn. And you know what? They might just be right. But I’m not sure if it’s the structure and mechanics of the language as much as it’s the many different dialects that make it difficult, not only here in the United States but around the world.

Judge shows (you know, Judges Brown, Judy, Martinez, etc.) provide one with many examples of the different English dialects here in the States. I remember a case where the defendant was trying to convince the Judge that the complainant tricked him into agreeing to a deal he now was trying to get out of. He said, and I quote, “She nipolated me ya honor. She’s a nipolater.”

On another show a defendant thought she shouldn’t be held liable for wrecking a friend’s car because her, “insurance had collapsed.”

So does that mean if I should faint you could say I elapsed to the floor? Just curios.

I’ve also learned new words and ways of saying old words from these same shows. One woman, who supposedly had a Masters degree (in what I don’t know, perhaps Shoe Tying), kept telling the Judge over and over that part of the problem was the zellerator in her car wasn’t working properly. It took a while, but the Judge finally figured out the woman was talking about the accelerator of her car.

“I borrowed it to him” and, “So we’re irresponsible for paying back the money?” are just two more ways of phrasing and using words in a way I didn’t know existed.

The airlines, now they have their own style of grammar--Third Person Removed. They always say they’d like to thank you but they never do; “On behalf of the captain and crew we’d like to thank you for flying Wrongway Airlines. . .” or, “On behalf of Wrongway Airlines we’d like to welcome you to Peeonya, Alaska. . .”

I’ m just waiting for the day when they finally finished those sentences, “. . . but you’re all a bunch of morons so we’re not going to.”

People on TV news shows also speak a weird dialect of English, where they never complete a thought or even worse, they speak fragmented sentences. These are supposed learned people, skilled in the art of proper grammar, yet you will often hear them say things like, “A hit and run. . .” or “An unusual bank robbery,” just before they go to commercial break, leaving you hanging.

Mix into this whole dialect problem the English-speaking countries outside of the United States, with their own form and vernacular of the language, and one has to wonder how we communicate with each other at all.

While working at a theater in Branson, Missouri I once had a Canadian ask me where the bubbler was. I wasn’t sure if he was asking about a bidet, a Jacuzzi, or a boiling pot of water on a stove. Turns out he was talking about the water fountain.

And a while back I was helping an English gentleman who was looking for an NBA jersey of any team for a gift to a friend back home. I pointed out a Denver Nugget jersey and he was almost insulted. From where he hails, a nugget is a piece of fecal matter, talk about a quick ending to a long friendship.

Well, I could drone on and on concerning this subject, but I reckon I should cut off the TV, carry the kids to Grandma’s so she can keep them, whilst sweetie and I take in a picture show--that, my friends, is Southern English for, “I suppose I should turn off the TV, drive the kids to Grandma’s so she can babysit them, while sweetie and I go to a movie.”

Raising the Odd Couple

When it came to raising our two older sons I felt like the former Mrs. Bagley and I were raising Felix and Oscar from the old television show, The Odd Couple. Weekday mornings during the school year were a prime example.

At 5:30 in the morning the silence in the house would be shattered by eldest son’s alarm clock. As mentioned in a previous post, the alarm on eldest son’s clock sounded very much like the alarm announcing an attempted prison break. It’s loud screeched could’ve peeled the makeup off the face of Tammy Fay Baker, who, as you may recall, looked like she’d spent six months in intensive care at Max Factor.

Now, eldest son was a good sleeper—the kid could’ve slept through Hurricane Katrina—so naturally he’d sleep through the alarm. Of course, this meant someone (meaning me) had to roust eldest son awake.

Feeling my way in the dark to the hall light switch, I’d stumble over my shoes and crash into our dresser before finding the switch and turning on the light. I’d then clumsily make my way to eldest son’s room, where he was sleeping soundly, not bothered at all by the screeching alarm clock sitting within arms reach on his nightstand.

I’d shake him by the leg and loudly tell him it was time to get up, at which point he’d blindly reach for his clock and push the snooze button. That was my signal to leave him for the time being and go wake up middle son.

Middle son was the exact opposite of his brother. As soon as he heard me call his name he’d jump out of bed, stretch, and head to the bathroom to shower and prepare for the day.

Once middle son was up and going, I’d head back to bed and try to fall asleep. Just as I’d start drifting off to dreamland eldest son’s alarm would sound again. I’d shake the cobwebs from my head and meander back to his room. About the time I’d get there he’d stick his arm out from beneath the covers of his bed and, once again, hit the snooze button.

By now, middle son would be out of the shower and getting dressed. Me? I’d be heading back to bed to try and get a little more rest, but just as my eyes would start to get heavy with sleep I’d hear, BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Eldest son’s confounded alarm again!

By this time I won’t leave his room until he can carry on a fairly coherent conversation. The only problem was he could converse in his sleep very well, so I’d head back to bed only to return fifteen minutes later to shut off that annoying alarm clock once and for all.

Next, middle son would begin the countdown. You see, he was known as the “Time Keeper” in our family and for good reason. About an hour before it was time to leave for some event, he’d start counting off the time, minute by minute.

“It’s two o’clock. We need to leave in sixty minutes!” he’d holler. One minute later and, “It’s one minute past two. We need to leave in fifty-nine minutes,” etc.

School mornings, he’d pause the countdown long enough to crank up the stereo to his favorite Rock station, which is all it’d take to finally roust eldest son out of bed—at that time in his life, eldest son preferred Country Music.

Eldest son would then stagger, like a drunken sailor on shore leave, to the bathroom to prepare for the day.

“It’s six-fifteen! Our ride will be here in 45 minutes!” the Time Keeper would holler.

“Knock it off!” Eldest would retort, while cranking up his radio in the bathroom to drown younger sibling’s Rock Music.

“Hurry up then. You’re going to make us late . . . AGAIN!” would be middle son’s reply. And the conversation between the two always deteriorated from there.

Soon, above the noise of both radios they’d begin arguing over every little thing they could think of: Country Music versus Rock Music, arriving early to an event versus arriving late, who did or didn’t take out the previous day’s trash, whether or not the moon is made of cheese, and snowflakes are really the world’s collective dandruff blowing in the wind (Ok, not those last two. I got carried away, sorry).

At last former Mrs. Bagley, youngest son, and I would be rescued from this morning ritual when, at 7:00 a.m., the two boys’ ride to school arrived.

Middle son would announce the appearance of their ride and, neatly dressed, hair washed and combed, backpack filled with all he’d need for the day, he’d rush out the front door and crawl into the car. Eldest son was, as I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, a different story.

He’d be just exiting the bathroom as younger brother was announcing the arrival of their ride. As middle son was going out the door, eldest son would be scurrying about the house, gathering his clothes from all corners of the abode and hastily throwing them on himself.

And as he walked out the door in a pair of semi-clean blue jeans, a partially buttoned and wrinkled shirt, shoes and socks in one hand, a cup of hot chocolate in the other, and a hat over his wet, matted hair, I couldn’t help but wonder out loud to the boys' mom, “are we raising the odd couple?”

She just smiled and told me someday we’d look back on these times and laugh.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but probably from within a room at a sanitarium.”