Vacation Lampooned

We AIM to Kill You!

Since this weekend marks the unofficial start to summer, it's only fitting that I dedicate this post to a summer tradition - Family Vacations.

Oh Lord. Where do we even start? I'll begin by saying, I can guarantee you that this topic will be covered again in future posts. My family vacations are epic. Not the Homer "Odyssey" type of epic. More in the line of Lewis (Black) and Clark (Griswold). Where Lewis was so appalled at the lodging conditions that Clark booked, that Lewis said "screw this, I'm outta here". Lewis preferred the wilderness and the great unknown to the venues that Clark booked. Lewis would rather take his chances of being eaten by some carnivorous beast than stay one night in the room that Clark found acceptable. This is a little known fact. But true.

Lewis is the general population. The population that can decipher a clean room from a dirty room. The population that makes the determination that while the price might be right, the potential hospital bills just aren't worth the risk.

Clark is my father.

Growing up, my family went on many, many vacations - be they day trips or week long extravaganzas. My brother and I would get off the school bus on a Friday afternoon, and my parents would have the station wagon loaded up and ready to go. We'd sigh in unison and accept our fate. We were going away... again. To God knows where. To stay at God knows what place. We could only assume that it would include shag carpet of an indescribable color and some sort of unique wall paper that moved if you touched it. We would change into our "play" clothes and pile in to the car. Giving each other knowing looks, my brother and I began our bonding early on in life. These two crazy adults in charge of our well-being certainly were not taking their job seriously.

If we were leaving for a week long vacation, we usually woke up at 3am or so, to get a "jump on the traffic". My father is, and has always been, one who likes to get a jump on the traffic. To the point he arrives at his destination 4 hours before the event/venue even opens; parks at the furthest spot from the entrance in order to have a quicker getaway, and absolutely refuses to stop at any time from his travels from Point A to Point B - unless the need for gas demands it. God Bless the poor lad or lass that has to pee. My brother was known to pee in a bottle at one point. As a lady, I had no such luxury. If my persistent demands and pleas for a bathroom break finally broke through, I was lucky enough to have my Dad pull over to the side of the road so I could cop-a-squat. And then drive on, with pee in my sock, 'cause I sucked at copping a squat.

Our vacations were known for the time spent in the car. Most vacations consist of utilizing some sort of transportation in order to get to your desired endpoint, and then relaxing...maybe using the car to see local sights and sounds, but for the most part - you are no longer driving. Our vacations WERE the car. For example, you drove from New Jersey to Florida in a straight shot. Stopping only for gas and for much needed sleep breaks for my Dad. After a time, you learned to time your hunger pangs and bladder knockings accordingly. Dad would sleep in the front of the car, while my brother had pretty much been asleep since we left New Jersey. That left my Mother and I. Who would stay awake, raid the vending machines and take the dog for a walk. My Mother and I are not great sleepers. Couple that with sleeping in a car at a rest stop with a snoring man and a passed out brother, and we were going to be wide-eyed zombies until our first actual "hotel" stop.

Which brings us to the lodgings. I must correct myself here. We never, ever, EVER stayed at a hotel. We stayed at motels. Which is not a problem. It was 80's-early 90's, we weren't swimming in funds. Motels are admirable. Just not the motels Dad picked. You know the commercial for the "Black Flag Roach Motel", where roaches check in, but they don't check out? That was high class livin' in Dad's book. Those roaches were damn picky, according to Pops. There ain't nothing wrong with a little sticky substance on the floor and fumes emanating from an unknown source. "Where did you get to be so high class", was my Dad's look at it. I still blame some of these hotels for my poor memory and eye twitches.

One such motel was located in Florida. This motel has been etched in my family's mind ever since 1986-87, when my brother was 14ish and I was 12ish. The motel was called the "AIM Motel". They certainly had an aim....Such as, "We Aim To Kill You." This motel was a splat on the road of some random highway in some random town. Like a tossed out dump truck, this building stood haphazardly along the side of a two lane road. Being an efficiency, it came equipped with a stove. Which was turned on when we walked in, unbeknownst to us. There was a distinct smell in the room, and certain haze that hung overhead. One of us walked over to the stove and commented that the gas was on. After shutting it off, we opened the two windows that WOULD give way, and waited for fresh air to overtake this luxurious room. I believe we ordered Domino's Pizza that night, but I can 't be sure since the fumes knocked us all out at 7:45.

Another memorable motel was also in Florida. A mishmash of deities and decor, it was a palace of sorts. A palace of nightmares. While the latch-hook shag carpet was originally beige in color, it was now a dirty gray that most certainly housed bacteria that would cause indescribable itches and hospital visits if walked upon with bare feet. The bed had a Ganesha image carved upon it's plywood headboard, and a Buddha mirror hung directly across from a lion footed card table. Bibles abounded in the rickety nightstand, and you had to pray to God for hot water in the morning. It was a religious experience, indeed.

The coup de grâce was a motel down south that even my father had to check out before he agreed to a nights visit. This is big. Obviously my father has very low standards of what constitutes an acceptable place of lodging. If he actually had to view the accommodations before, it had to be bad. And it was. Yet, we stayed there. The good news? It was close to the ocean. The bad news? You had to make it through the night and then cross a highway and a dune to actually see the ocean.  We barely escaped with our lives.

I have so many memories of family vacations, they could take up volumes of posts. I will definitely discuss some of the finer (and lesser) points of my family trips in later posts.

Without a doubt, I can't say how happy I am that I experienced these trips. My family laughs about them to this day, and a familiar saying is "We AIM to Kill You!"

Happy Memorial Day

With Love
Lady Butterfly
xoxo