Posts
Warren, the monkeys, and I are hitting the road tomorrow for the tri-annual Oster Family Reunion in lovely Wichita, Kansas. (That's about a 9 hour drive yall.) On Monday we head from Wichita to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit on of our Peace Corps buddies and his wife, who is ripe with their first child. (That's another 8-10 hours.) Then next Friday we will start winding our way home. (It's a solid 13-15 hours from Albuquerque.)
Are we insane?
I think so.
Just to get the boys ready for our trip, Warren lodged a Spiderman toy in the driver side window of the car last night. "Remember what happens when you don't behave!" he warned.
Everyone I have told about our trip has had the same reaction: "Get a portable DVD player!"
Warren and I both shrugged them off and said, "We didn't need a DVD player growing up, and neither do the monkeys."
Then Andria, who just returned from a road trip to Chicago with her monkey, made an excellent point. "Yes, but we weren't strapped into carseats when we were little either."
The carseat situation does somewhat limit the excitement of the backseat. I can remember crawling all over the back of the car with my twin sister when we were little. I even remember sleeping in the back dashboard.
Warren and I looked at each other as we pondered this information. After a few moments of silence in which we each envisioned the final leg of our journey, I said, "But how would we keep them from fighting over it? It's not like we can mount it on the ceiling."
Andria looked at me like the luddite I am, and said, "You attach it to the headrests with a special strap."
"Oooh fancy, that might actually work." I said. Of course I immediately envisioned the monkeys attempting to break free from their 5 point harnesses to paw the DVD player and I knew Jiro would waste no time pressing each and every button as many times as possible. And let's not forget our future DJs penchant for changing the CD/movie every 5 seconds just for fun.
"We don't need it," Warren said optimistically.
"They'll definitely break it," I said. Then immediately, "What will one of these gadgets set us back? You know, in case we have to pull over in Oklahoma and buy one."
"About $100 bucks or so," Andria said.
"Dang," I said. Even though it isn't a TON of money, it's still more than I was willing to fork over. Plus, I don't officially want to own a portable DVD player. "Hey, can we borrow yours?"
Andria's eyes got a little big and I could see her replaying my words in her head: They'll definitely break it.
"If they break it, I will pay you the purchase price," I added quickly. She was trapped!
"Sure," she said. "Come by and pick it up tomorrow."
Warren is still doubting whether we need it and I'll be glad if we don't, but having it hidden away somewhere in case of emergency will make me feel better. That and the fact that I have a Xanax in my dop kit.
So place your bets--how long will it take before we bust out the DVD? Then how long before one of us throws it out the window?
I'll keep you posted on our travels if possible, but I expect my computer access to be severaly limited over the next week. Eek!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
We drove from Albuquerque to Memphis pre-monkey and it took about 20 hours.
Have a great trip!
I don't see what the problem is- fire that thing up! I want to buy one, and the farthest we ever go in the car is Nashville!
My kid is still incubating in my uterus, so perhaps I'm missingn something here...but I just can't see any reason not to seize all that modern technology offers by its shoulders and kiss it hard on the mouth.
You could technically walk instead of driving...but thankfully someone invented the car...you could technically risk having an extra few hours of children screaming while driving in your car...but thankfully people in China make cheap electronics.
I'm already writing my mother-of-the-year acceptance speech.
The DVD player is golden, baby. I know, TV is evil and all that, but seriously--you don't remember driving in a car fro 20 hours when you were two years old. You remember driving like 8 hours when you were ten. It ain't the same. Here is a little car trip I remember:
When I was about 5 1/2 and my sister was about 1, my parents loaded up ou fully white trach El Camino with us and camping gear and we went to someplace in Georgia. This was the mid-70's so we were all in the front seat and unrestrained. On the way home, I got an earache which caused me to scream in pain the whole way, and at one point my sister threw her last bottle out the window, after which she screamed the whole way. Fun, fun in the good ol' days! I'm sure nothing like that horror story will happen to you, but it pays to have a plan.
Just please tell me you put the player's harness up before leaving, because I don't want to read the blog posted from Whattagoonie Holler Prison after you get arrested for flinging the entire system into a protected wildlife area.
And amen to everyone else. This is the most ambitious/insane road trip plan I've ever heard of, even before factoring in the monkeys. Take all the help you can get and leave the guilt in the driveway.
I hope the post from Whattagoonie Holler Prison is a Dining With Monkeys piece. I bet a weekend in the box would put those monkeys under control.
"Fortunately for the Monkeys, Chief Leblansky of the Whattagoonie Holler PD is an amateur icthyologist, so they headed straight for the giant saltwater fish tank set up right outside the interrogation shed ..."
Post a Comment