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Sparkle (3)
The average American drives 12,000 miles a year. If you are married with children, you must multiply that number by 28 since each mile traversed is like an uphill climb on a sheer mountain pass littered with glass shards. And you’re without shoes. Or legs. The GPS readout on a family road trip goes a little like this:
Hour 1: Wheels Up aka The Beginning of the End of Your Life
The hours spent laundering clothes that will be soiled in seven minutes and preparing sandwiches that will be flattened against car windows in four all come down to this moment of emancipation. Husband has packed the back of the car with a wall of luggage more ominous than the Iron Curtain. You have torn it all down, citing inaccessibility to fruit snacks and the emergency crapper. He rebuilds with shockingly less order and sensibility than the first time. You notice his use of Hefty bags instead of suitcases to contain his clothing.
While your bag is squarely on the bottom, crushed under the weight of a case of non-refrigerated milk boxes leaking on your one dressy outfit, he has delicately placed his suit on top of everything with a death threat by caning to all if wrinkling or staining ensues. Perhaps a garment bag, or some Ziplocs, would have been a wise choice, you mutter.
Children are strapped into carseats with the hopeful expectation of arrival exactly one handful of Cheerios later. Reverse out of driveway. Gas light illuminates. Husband looks at you as though you’ve revealed a sexual affair with a lower mammal and says something patronizing and short-sighted such as, “Your only job was to fill the tank before we left.” You check the glove compartment for the Chloroform you bought from an online medical supply company in Mexico. Just in case.
Window splat on Sandwich One.
Hour 2: Cruise Control aka The Calm Before the Storm
The kids have exhausted themselves from hurling their torsos against their restraints, like a couple of criminally insane patients being transported by gurney from one holding cell to another. You only had to raise the whaling harpoon four times. Allowing them to watch Whale Wars has proven to be sound behavior modification. As their eyes flutter closed and their frenzied breathing becomes rhythmic, you and Husband ease into the cockpit, smile, remark about how magical they are and bemusedly wonder why people stop traveling once they have kids. You even hold hands for a little while until his right hand becomes reflexively drawn to the radio dial, searching endlessly for a channel playing non-stop Guns N Roses. You bury your nose in neglected back-issues of Parents and Better Homes and Gardens, dogearing recipes you’ll later declare ‘a total waste of time’ and methods to get your kids to stop calling you 'shithead'. You permit the fourth replay of Pour Some Sugar on Me since, after all, you … are … on … vacation.
Hour 3: Reversal aka The Forehead Slap Followed by Irrelevant Bickering
The miles quickly ticking by are interrupted by a sharp intake of breath, forehead slap, and choke-hold to the neck. Husband steers violently into oncoming traffic, while shouting, “What? Where? Are you in labor?” The kids are awakened by the parental outburst and the bleating of horns and grinding of steel from an 18-wheeler now overturned. You declare dramatically that something very dire has been forgotten. This something is so essential that without it the entire family, and the thinning sheath of the Ozone Layer and the tidal pulls of the oceans, will be jeopardized. Did we forget a child? Much worse than that: Underwear. And that flashlight that should blink a myriad of colors but only the green actually illuminates. The kids love it. Go back.
You are unsympathetically told to go Commando or to keep alert for a swap meet. As for the flashlight, what kind of kids are interested in a flashlight that doesn’t work properly? What does this say about their intelligence? Why are we paying so much money for Montessori if they’re dumb enough to play with broken toys? Why don’t you expect excellence? Why didn’t you pay the electric bill? Is DVR really necessary? Did you use my toothbrush last night?
Your hand reaches for the glove compartment but you realize you’ll have to
