Vacation Awesomeness

Apologies for my abrupt departure last week. My husband has been doing a lot of work in the South as of late. Last Monday afternoon, he called me from Atlanta.

"Hey," he joked, "Why don't you drive down here with the kids and spend a week?"

Forty-five minutes later, I was on the road. I made it as far as Baltimore before the consequences of my impulsive decision-making fully sank in. After pulling off at the next rest stop, I did the following things in the following order:

1. Confiscated what was left (there wasn't much) of the package of Styrofoam cups that I had inadvertently left in the back seat of my car.

2. Made the compulsive seat kicker switch seats so he was no longer sitting in directly in back of me and was instead, sitting behind his twin brother.

3. Told the compulsive urinator that he would be deprived of any further beverages until we reached Richmond.

4. Temporarily relinquished my I-Pod to my daughter on the condition that she not criticize any occupant of the car for at least one hour.

5. Spent a small fortune booking my husband a last minute one-way airline ticket.

"Get to the airport quick!" I told him. "I'm picking you up in Raleigh in four hours."

My unplanned vacation was filled with magical moments, most of which took place between the hours of 7-9pm in my husband's 400 square-foot studio apartment.

"Be quiet and go to sleep!" I screeched at least a million times to my squirming, giggling offspring. "There are people all around us!" I pointed to the ceiling, floor, and walls.

I learned the hard way that apartment living is an abstract construct to children who grow up in houses.

The most memorable experience of the week by far, however, occurred not in a high-rise apartment building, but in a high-end eatery known as Burger King. I was there eating lunch with my kids one day when I noticed a woman at a nearby table wrinkle her nose at us and turn away in disgust.

I assumed the woman's reaction to my family had something to do either with the 52 paper cups of ketchup that sat on the table before us or the fact that my eighteen-month-old was systematically dipping his french fries into each of them, or maybe both. I too, am sometimes repulsed by my kids' love of condiments.

After a few minutes of glaring and sneering, the woman couldn't take it anymore and approached our table.

"Excuse me," she said to me. "Did you spill something?"

I looked around, suspiciously. Miraculously, all of my kids' cups were in their upright positions.

"I don't think so," I replied.

"Did your baby spill something?" the woman clarified. By this point, her hands were on her hips.

I glanced under Cameron's high chair and saw the puddle on the floor. Then I felt his diaper.

Faced with such overwhelming physical evidence, I was only left with one option: to lie through my teeth.

"My baby is totally dry," I told the woman, shrugging my shoulders. "I don't know what to say."

The woman stomped back to her table and gave a report to her husband.

"She says her baby is dry!" she shrieked indignantly.

I went back to eating my french fries. I waited until the woman and her husband left the restaurant before asking the manager for a mop.