It's not that I mind having all the kids in the car. They are, actually, good kids; there are just....more of them than any sane person would take on vacation. I imagine the conversations going something like this:
Me: "Who is hungry? There is a Sonic at the next exit!"
Dan: "Sonic sounds good."
Melanie: "Noooooo. I don't want Sonic."
Mandy: "Yeah! Sonic!"
Nicole: "I've never been to Sonic!"
Tyler:
Me: "Well, Melanie, what would YOU like?"
Melanie: "I don't know. I don't feel good."
Dan: "So, it really doesn't matter where we eat?"
Me: "So, we'll go to Sonic!"
Mandy: "Yeah! Let's go! PLEEEEEAAASSSSEEEE."
Melanie: "Whatever. SHE always gets HER way."
Mandy: "That's BULL! You're the spoiled one."
Melanie: "Shut up Mandy."
Nicole: "I've never been to Sonic"
Tyler:
Melanie: "I'm gonna throw-up."
Mandy: "You can do it when we get to Sonic."
Melanie: "Shut up, Mandy. I NEVER should've come on this stupid trip."
Nicole: I've never been to Sonic.
Tyler:
In this scenario, I can actually picture leaving my own flesh and blood at some random Sonic and driving away with just Nicole and Tyler. Seriously.
Me: "Here's ten bucks, we will be back thru this way on Saturday around noon!"
:)
Yesterday, I went to breakfast with my Dad. Now that I am retired (I prefer "retired" over "jobless"), I can see why people so look forward to it. Here it was, a Tuesday, and I was going out to breakfast. Never mind that I was the only forty year old at the diner (aside from some of the waitresses, who, at least HAVE A JOB). So, Dad and I had breakfast and then he wanted to check his e-mail at my house. Now, here is where it gets weird...He brought his laptop to my house...to check his e-mail. My first thought is, "Poor old guy, doesn't realize that he can check his e-mail from any place...even the diner we just left." Then I realize that my Dad isn't that ignorant. He comes inside my house, puts his feet up and proceeds to boot-up his laptop and then....as it hums (well, clicks and hums) to life...errrr...half-life....I realize why he is here. He is on a ten year old laptop. It takes twenty-five minutes for Windows 1800 BC to boot-up. When it finally boots up and he clicks on his shortcut to his e-mail, we wait another twenty minutes for Explorer to attempt to open. In the time it takes for him to reach gmail, [using my Mac] I've checked my Facebook, played a Mindjolt game and checked my e-mail and I've hacked his e-mail account and noted that he has 5489 unread messages, dating back to December of 2009. When I comment on this, "Holy Shit, Dad! You have over five thousand messages!, he tells me that I've violated his privacy by logging onto his account and mumbles something about changing his password, which makes me chuckle because he definitely won't know HOW to do this and will ask me to do it. "Ummm...Hey, Dad, the way it's looking, it will be December 2011 before you actually get to your inbox. I am just trying to expedite the process." Not even I want to go through 5489 e-mail messages. I would just delete everything before October 2010 and start there but Dad decides that he has to go through all of them, individually. I am fairly certain that he will be here for at least twenty four hours and I plan accordingly. He can sleep right where he sits, I will just throw a blanket on him when it gets dark. But then it occurs to me that I've just handed over my Mac for him to use because his Lack-of-Inspiron Dell from 1998 is still "working." OMG. How will I get through the evening without my Mac? Suddenly, I am visualizing hitting him over the head with his laptop, which is heavy enough to give him more than a goose egg, unlike my four pound Mac. But then I consider how thick-headed he is and consider what will happen if walloping him over the head doesn't knock him out.
Dad, grabbing his head, " What the hell was that for?"
Me: "Sorry, dropped the laptop."
Dad: "On my head?"
Me: " I was just going to set it there, when it slipped."
Dad: "You were going to set it on my head?"
Me: "Well, you've heard of osmosis, right?"
Hours later, on my Mac, he's managed to get down to a more manageable, ninety messages (meanwhile, Explorer just timed-out for the umpteenth time, on his laptop). Dad has learned to create filters, mass delete and unsubscribed from a dozen lists. I feel like some kind of senior-citizen-computer-user heroine, "My work here is done. This man now has a "normal-sized" inbox." I decide to leave the antiquated laptop for my trusty sidekick (Dan) to "fix." After all, I've already done the hard stuff.
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