Umm wow. So this is intense because I’ve spent every waking minute of my day with my family since 6 am. Honestly, when my mom told me that we’d be leaving at six i didn’t believe her, because it sounded too horrific to be true, but lo and behold I was woken at six so I put on some Drake to get myself feeling alive and feeling jazzed about the 10 HOUR CAR RIDE TO NORTH CAROLINA. Yeah you read that right. And no, it wasn’t just my family going, but also my one-eyed dog, Rosebud.
We took my grandma’s SUV instead of the usual Prius, which we thought would be more comfortable, but we actually had less leg room than usual. Somehow, with Rosebud taking up most of the trunk, our bags barely fit, so we were literally stuffing rolls of toilet paper wherever we could to get everything to fit. I, for example, sat in the front seat and had five bags on my legs. Getting up early makes me grumpy, so then my family’s usual stuff bugs me even more. For example, whenever Joseph and my mom talk, they use w’s instead of r’s (e.g. “tewwible” instead of the more commonly used “terrible”). He is twelve years old but I’m sleep tho. Another thing that bugs me is when Joseph talks to animals like they’re people. I KINDA got used to it when it was Rosebud, but this morning I heard him politely ask a moth to get out of the car, which was weird, but again, I’m sleep. It was nearing seven and we still had not left yet. Sophie came hobbling out with a boot on her right foot. This requires a bit of backstory. On Monday, Sophie was babysitting some kids and was running backwards and tripped and fell, straining a ligament. This led to mom not being able to pick me up from rehearsal and Sophie informing the family, “IM DYINF,” through text. My grandpa picked me up and I asked him what was wrong with Sophie. “Mom took her to the doctor,” he said, “But you know Soph.” “Yeah, I know,” I replied, knowing that she has, what we call, a flair for the dramatic. When I got home monday, Sophie was clunking around in her boot and crutches. This morning she climbed into the car and there wasn’t room for her boot so she took it off and rested her foot next to me on the center console. I do not like feet. The last one to get out of the house was mom, who told us that she couldn’t find her phone so we all had to call it but it turned out that it was in her pocket. With all of our stuff crammed into every empty space in the car, we took off towards North Carolina, but not until we went to Einstein’s for breakfast and about 13 bathroom breaks on the way. We listened to the new season of Serial for fun and because Theory of Knowledge requires an extensive amount of listening to podcasts. It was about halfway through episode 2 when a knowledge question struck me, so I paused the podcast, wrote it down, and then took a nap.
I only ever really moved when I lost feeling in my legs because they were being crushed under the weight of the bags. I entertained myself with Spotify and tweeting about salty/politically relevant topics. When we crossed the border into South Carolina, I turned to my dad and said, “I feel dumber.” It was then that I realized he was BORN in South Carolina so I went back to Spotify, even though I had awful service for the ten-hour ride up here :-) Dad got hungry eventually so we decided to stop at Sonic because my brother and sister wanted to see them roller skate, even though there is a Sonic in Winter Park on University, so we ended up sitting in a parking space trying to communicate through one of those voice box things that only seemed to pick up every third word we said. Apparently my brother and sister were dieting but decided to put it off for a day because come on, the mozzarella sticks there are A1. We got back on the highway on started off on the journey to more success.
All of a sudden I started hearing an awful noise like a wounded horse. I turned around and Sophie was crying, so I asked, out of curiosity, what was wrong. WELL AS IT TURNS OUT SHE WAS WATCHING BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE WHICH JUST HAD SUCH A HUGE EMOTIONAL IMPACT THAT SHE WAS BAWLING IN THE BACKSEAT. This is a movie that came out over 10 years ago so excuse me for not understanding why she’d be crying when everyone know the dog comes back, not to mention the book was out five years before the movie soooo... Ok.
We made it through the ten hours and finally arrived at the house, which was actually pretty rad because it is right behind the French Broad RIver and in front of tha Appalachian Trail, so when we got there I busted out the hammock I bought from Amazon on Black Friday and figured out how the heck it works. I came inside as dinner was being prepared, and by that I mean I boiled water and sorta checked out. While the water was boiling, mom decided sophie should go in the hot tub for her foot, but since Sophie couldn’t get there on her own, I had to physically lift her up and carry her outside. I came back in to check the water, but it turned out I turned on the wrong burner, so I figured that out, and then had to find a light for Sophie because there’s no outdoor lighting. I arranged my stuff in the room all three kids are sharing, and then my mom told me to drain the spaghetti. Well someone had put the pasta in but not stirred it so it was a clump on the bottom. Whatever. I fixed it. I’m just glad I didn’t have to carry Sophie back inside. Here’s a thing I learned: we don’t have WiFi at this house, which makes this the continuation of a long saga of not having WiFi on vacation.
We all took our pasta to the TV room and ate while dad tried to figure out how to play Finding Nemo on DVD because we also don’t have cable. I dropped a clump of penne pasta with marinara on my white Vineyard Vines shirt. My family pointed it out for the next fifteen minutes straight. The movie started and my mom began asking questions like, “what was that?” And “who was she?” And “was that one Ellen Degeneres?” Finding Nemo was kinda a bust because it kept pausing and in every pause we heard Joseph practicing the recorder in the other room, so that really ruined the mood. I changed my shirt and got settled in for the night. Sophie and Joseph were watching Paper Towns on Sophie’s laptop because she had downloaded it. Joseph saw the confederate flag and Sophie tried to explain it. “It’s the confederate flag, it...” she said. “Would you like to phone a friend?” I ask as she looks at me for help. She ignored me and said, “It means they believe in slavery... and black people?” Yeah, that meant it was time to go to bed, except SOMEONE busted out his recorder again and was desperately trying to play Hot Cross Buns. Now both kids are asleep in the bed next to me, which means I have a limited time to sleep before the wild rumpus starts again.
-12/24/15
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