Road Trip

RANDOM FACT OF THE POST: Scotland’s national animal is the unicorn.

I know what you’re doing right now. You’re sitting in front of your laptop, wondering what it would be like to abandon all reason and hop in an RV with five close family members for a week long camp out 15 hours away from that place you call home.
Enticing as it sounds, I don’t recommend it. Oh, it’s fun on occasions, sure, and it gives you a ton of stories to blog about (you will be hearing about this for a while), but it HURTS.
Physically, mentally, socially…
PHYSICALLY
I sit here writing with four bruises polka-dotting my legs, thirteen (an unlucky number) bug bites of unknown origin spotting my body, and a wicked sunburn creeping up my legs, arms, and back. (I must defend myself here–I applied sunscreen four times in a six-hour period and sat with a book in my lap beneath an umbrella. I do wear red very well, though. And with my bright green shirt on, I’m a walking Christmas in June. Long story short, I’m white.) My hygiene has also taken a beating, as I wish jump in and out of the moth-and-spider-ridden showers as quickly as possible. I have neglected my hair, so it sits in an abandoned nest atop my head.
And Aloe Vera gel is rather sticky and shiny and unflatteringly green…
MENTALLY
I sit here, reflecting on this 15-mile drive. It’s in the 80s and our air conditioning is not on. As a matter of fact, our heat was on for three hours before we realized it. We therefore opened the windows in the hopes of cooling down. And then it rained, and open windows were not cool anymore. Now, they’re cool again and my hair/nest is sweeping up into a tornado. The GPS system is not built for RVs. It drove us down a long, thin road and expected us to squeeze through a gate. Only fat vehicles do not squeeze through, nor do they turn around on thin roads easily. This predicament led to a string of swear words from my grandfather, which then prompted my mother to stress over my young brother hearing such angry words, and so loud conversations and monologues wrestled with one another for center stage. The link between the RV and the Jeep trailing behind it continuously unlocks, which paves the path for more streams of swear words from my grandfather and angry outbursts from my now-stressed, tired, and work-burdened father (and therefore more pressure on my mother and more shell shocked expressions from my grandmother).
And mental damage also comes from what conversations do take place. Like each time we stop at a gas station:
GRANDPA: Do you want anything from the gas station?
ME: Nope, I’m good!
GRANDPA: You sure? They have lemonade…
ME: Yep, I’m sure. I’m not thirsty.
GRANDPA: So do you want the raspberry lemonade or the strawberry lemonade or just the regular lemonade?
ME: Grandpa, thanks for asking, but like I said, I don’t want lemonade.
GRANDPA: Okay, then, if you’re sure.
[1 minute later]
GRANDMA: You’re grandpa’s in there buying you a raspberry lemonade, does that sound good?
ME: I told him I’m not thirsty!
GRANDMA: Oh, well he must have misunderstood you.
[another minute later]
GRANDPA: Hey, I brought you raspberry lemonade!
DAD: Here, I know you said you weren’t hungry but we’ll be on the road for a while, so I got you twizzlers.
ME: *facepalm*
EVERY. TIME. WE. STOP.
Worst of all, I really wanted Chick-Fil-A, only to realize they close on Sunday.
I should probably see a therapist.
SOCIALLY
Yes, because every teenager’s reputation is elevated from camping out with their family.
It. Hurts.

*DISCLAIMER: Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy camping. I love my family. But I really feel crabby cooped up in a sweltering, cramped vehicle for 15 hours. I needed to rant somehow. Thank you, patient Internet readers.

Back in the day…

This week, as my mom was cleaning out the filing cabinets, she discovered a collection of college essays written by herself and college essays written by my dad. And she read them. And she laughed.

You see, my mother received her degree in elementary education with a major in English and a minor in history. My dad stood on the opposite end of the spectrum, with a degree in information technology. And my dad’s essays were far better.

My mother had me read several of the essays. They were written way back in the Jurassic age when computers were brand new and, therefore, not well developed. Their college professors frequently remarked “Nice font!” and “spelled wrong. OK NEVER MIND.” It makes sense for my dad to use special fonts, I suppose because it demonstrated his computer prowess…

This is the introduction of one of his essays (unedited):

“‘Zigglethworps!,’ the little ugnaut exclaimed as he and his compeers were suddenly jumped by the veracious creatures of the dark moon, Thespolitia. Before the ugnauts could faint from the scent of the zigglethworps despicable breath, Captain Perseus and his crew of steroid-heads blasted the devils with a partio-gelatious beam neutralizer and the ugnauts were saved!!!

What are you picturing? Ask someone else what they picture. The results are different, aren’t they? The difference is caused by imagination. 

Imagination is the ability to conjure up visual pictures and sounds from little to no information. What is an ‘ugnaut’? They don’t exist. The pictures your mind created were made with the imagination. Some think that the imagination is unnecessary to sustain life, but they are wrong. From Adam and Eve to the present, the imagination has played an important part of the human sanity.”

Keep in mind that he was the ultimate procrastinate and, therefore, this was written at 2:00 am the day it was due. He was arguing that imagination is more important than knowledge, and the paper earned him a solid B+. But you have to give him credit for originality and creativity.

***

I also ran into some of my former work. Here are my highlights from “My Poetry Book,” which was written sometime around second grade and illustrated by yours truly.

“Sleeping Beauty, 

Sleeping Beauty

In the castle

In the castle

Singing a song

Picking berries

Sleeping Beauty,

Sleeping Beauty.”

“I like hummingbirds! 

Pretty ones

Fast ones

My favorite one’s the pink nose nakt

hummingbird

It weighs four ounces

I like it because it’s the smallest bird

I like hummingbirds!”

“Fairy

Fly quick

Wings flutter

Flap, flip, turn, twist

Fly, fly, fun fairy”

 

Yep. I was destined for greatness.

And here’s a critique that I wrote about my friend’s story in fourth grade. It’s saved in my portfolio with this introduction: “I AM PROUD OF THIS PIECE OF WORK BECAUSE I like writing and scince [science was one of my favorite subjects at the time, believe it or not] and this pice of work is writing. I did this piece of work with my frend K—–. That’s another way this piece of work is specal.” Here goes (without edit):

“One of your strenths for Ideas was staying on your Main Idea. If you really reread your story you would of found out that your ideas need to be more clear. For organization you have a clear begening, middle, and end. However, your paragraphs need to be reworked/redone. You had some good words for word choice, however, you said some words repeatedly. You also need more describing words. You used good voice when you said “I sighed” and It was nowhere to be found! You need to expand or show more emosions. In sentince fluncy youe have no choppy sentinces but, your writing is ocword at times–you need to rewrite. You did indent and sometimes you used capitlzation and punctuation in conventions. However, you were useing punctuation incorectly. You also had quite a few spelling errors. You did great!”

Because we all know, if there’s someone who can catch spelling errors, it’d be me. This flawless critique proves that well enough…

😛

A Theory

I have this theory. Liv has already heard it…

Frequently, my dog stares out our front window and barks at absolutely nothing. This occurs in the dead of winter, too, when there are no squirrels or birds or anything else that may spook him.

Some may call this proof of the existence of ghosts–ghosts that we can’t see, but animals can.

I call this proof of the existence of mythological creatures.

Suppose that my dog is not going crazy, and rely on your common sense to know that he is not barking at a ghost. What could he possibly see that I can’t?

A MYTHICAL CREATURE.

Something allows the animal kingdom to see beings like unicorns and mermaids that the average human cannot. These  beings are actually all around us, strolling up and down our main streets and subdivisions. They live beneath our cars and in our ponds and along the corners of our attic that we refuse to venture into. That door that always opens even though you’ve closed it? Those blinds that opened up even though no one touched them? Not wind. Not even phantoms. FAIRIES.

And now it all makes sense. All we have to do is look harder for the magic around us to catch sightings of unicorns, fairies, mermaids, loch ness monsters, and phoenixes.*

I just solved the greatest mystery of the universe. BOOM.

*Please understand that I do not actually believe in this theory. I’m not insane. Really.

It only rains on me

It only rains on me…

Do you want to hear about the highlight of my day? Of course you do.

My school has interesting architectural choices. We have two floors and four locker bank areas at the corners. The second floor has a hole in the middle of the locker bank area that allows natural light from our skylights down to the first floor. Some idiot decided that the sophomore bank should be above the freshman bank. Now, sophomores often dump the remains of their lunch on unsuspecting freshmen. Decisions like that are not to be made lightly. I’m getting off topic.

From the second floor staircase you can dump things on the first floor staircase, which leads up from our cafeteria. There was the usual rush for the stairs after lunch today and everyone packed themselves onto the first floor staircase. I wound up standing right beneath the second staircase in “splash zone”. Sure enough, on the second staircase, someone had let slip their lidless water bottle.

But here’s the thing- it just poured out a steady stream on me. Not on Gigi, who stood next to me the whole time. Just on ME. I feel honored that I would be so singled out by fortune. I mean, of the many people attending my school, fate chose to cleanse me through someone else’s clumsiness. While they mourn for the loss of their beloved water, I rejoice in the free bath they have given me.

It just goes to show–there’s a good side to everything.