my life & other stories

Trip to the Lake.

Part I

About six weeks before we were suppose to leave, the phone calls began.

My cousin Kelly had just moved to New York and was temporarily staying with me while she looked for an apartment. Sitting together on her cot in my living room, first her phone would ring. She would look down and roll her eyes and place her phone on silent. “It’s her again” she’d warn me, shaking her head. Next, my phone would ring.

“Hi Auntie Lynn…” I would say, watching my cousin wave her arms and mouth I’m not here.

“Hi Chrissyfer” Aunt Lynn would say, “Is my daughter there? I’m trying to get a hold of her but she’s not answering her phone.”

“No Auntie Lynn” I would tell her, flicking off Kelly with my free hand. “I’ll tell her you called when she gets back from the gym though…”

“Well will you ask her…” and that’s when my Aunt Lynn would start rattling off information into my ear a mile a minute. Even if I was listening…even if I had intended on giving my cousin the message, it was doubtful I would be able to retain any of this. Instead I would write “fuck you slut” on a piece of paper for Kelly and doodle a picture of her getting eaten by a dinosaur, and she would love it forever.

With summer upon us, there was only one thing on my Aunt’s mind; the annual family vacation. Every year for the last 7 or 8 years, my parents and Kelly’s parents would burn their two weeks of annual leave at a lake house in North Carolina, noodling and talking about corn (noodling; a verb my parents made up to describe the action of placing a Styrofoam flotation noodle between one's legs, and floating in water for hours). My brothers and cousins and I would usually join them for few days, but for the last two years I had declined my invitation. The constant and incessant nagging by my mother and Aunt Lynn, in combination with the drunken antics of my father and Uncle Ed was all too much for me to handle, and when my father shattered his hip in a freak knee boarding accident three years ago, I found the perfect reason never to return.

This year was different however. My invitation was not so much an invitation, but a demand…crippled father or no crippled father. My mother and her sister decided to hold a celebration for my grandfather’s 85^th birthday at the lake house, and my attendance was “highly suggested.” By my mother’s tone, I could tell that Christmas presents hung in the balance, so I reluctantly agreed. Kelly was like-wised cornered.

To sweeten the deal, our parents told us they would fly us down together. We would only have to stay through the weekend, and with the promise of a free trip I told myself it couldn’t be that bad right?

Oh fuck me was I wrong. As soon as we agreed to take them up on their flight, Aunt Lynn and my mother would call us every night with a litany of questions. And as the date approached, the calls only became more frequent and more frantic.

Urgently, our mothers would ask:

“What airline would you prefer to fly? Jet Blue or American? Well neither one is available, so what’s your feeling on Delta? Would you prefer to sit window or aisle? If Kelly wants to sit window too, how should we work it? Maybe rotate? Maybe she can sit window on the way there and you can sit window on the way back? Oh well I think she wants to sit in the aisle anyway. Now you might be sitting in the emergency row. Is that going to be a problem? Do you want me to change it? How do you plan on getting to the airport? Do you think you and Kelly should ride together? Can you get to Kelly’s work and then go to the airport from there? Do you think you’re leaving yourself enough time to get there?”

The answers were always the same. “Whatever, I don’t care. Leave me alone.” Then about two weeks before the big birthday bash, our mothers convened and decided that instead of flying us to South Carolina, they would fly us to Richmond, where my cousin John would pick us up and drive us the rest of the way. So the litany of questions began again. See above.

The night before we were to fly out, Kelly and I reluctantly packed our bags like two convicts preparing for prison. As I shoved my clothes into my 17 year old duffle bag, I debated as to what the worst part of the trip would be. Would it be the nagging? The unfriendly demand to shuck corn? The “can you get my reading glasses? Can you get my sunglasses? Can you get my reading glasses with the sunglasses attached to them?” The way Aunt Lynn stills refers to our seating arrangement as “the Kids Table” (even though the youngest one of us is 22)? The way my brother and his wife make cat noises when they’re angry with one another? The way my father pronounces filet mignon phonetically every times he says it, repeating himself until someone politely laughs. The way my uncle “gooses” me when he’s had one too many? The way my twin’s head smells when he’s worn his hat all day? My cousin John’s ridiculously long nipple hair?

As per my mother’s recommendation, Kelly and I decided to meet up after work and split a cab to LaGuardia. I met her at her office, and then the two of us spent 20 minutes trying to find a cab. It took forever, but we finally convinced an off duty cabbie to stop and take us. Things from there seem to go without a hitch. There was no traffic…no long lines to check our bags. We printed our boarding passes without any problems.

Our good luck was ruined though when we got in line to go through security. Kelly looked at me. “Oh shit!” She said. “I brought liquids.”

“Why God why would you do such a thing?” I asked her. Clearly she had not read her mother’s three page email breaking down new airport security procedures. Clearly.

“It’s fine” she told me. “As long as you can fit it all into a plastic bag you’re fine.” I had already given her up for dead. I was picturing how I would explain to our parents as we sunbathed on the dock the story of how Kelly was snipered down right there in the security line when she pulled out her bottle of Scope. Kelly turned around to find where she could pick up a plastic bag to stow away her liquids. She had difficultly located one however, and so she grabbed an airport employee she thought would be able to help.

He was a small Indian man. He looked at Kelly like she was a crazy woman when she asked for a plastic bag. “FOR MY LIQUIDS!” she shouted repeatedly. I ducked to dodge the sniper bullets. With a smile on his face, he finally nodded as if he understood. He walked over behind a counter and pulled out a plastic bag…a large plastic garment bag that could have easily fit the three of us in it. Kelly shook her head in frustration. “Look, I need a small regulation plastic bag to put my liquids in. I don’t mind throwing away my makeup, my shampoo, my mouthwash. I just need this one cylinder of medication.” The Indian dude finally understood. “Oh! Liquids!” he shouted triumphantly. “What kind of medication is it?”

Kelly squirmed a little and I could tell she was embarrassed. I recognized the bottle. It was her topical acne medication, the one I had drunkenly confused with my toothpaste and brushed my teeth with a few nights before. “It’s for my face…” she told the guy. He smiled and grabbed the bottle from her “Oh! I see. Follow me!” Kelly then hurried to follow him as he dashed across the airport, waving her acne cream in front of every attendant in the terminal.

I put my bag down so that I could more readily enjoy the spectacle. I stuck my hands in my pockets, and then realized that something was missing. My phone was gone.

I threw my bag on a chair and started rummaging through it like a mad man. I told myself that I had probably mindlessly thrown it in there when I had gotten my itinerary out, but deep down I knew exactly where it was. I had left it on the seat of the cab, and it was probably gone forever. I had come to terms with its loss about the time Kelly returned.

“So apparently they don’t have a single fucking plastic bag in this airport. That Indian dude told me he would take care of it though.” She noticed my look of concern and I told her I had lost my phone.

“It begins…” she responded.

We went through security, and once on the other side, Kelly began looking for her Indian friend. He was gone though. He had taken her acne medication and ran. She came to the same terms of loss that I had come to about my phone, and downtrodden, the two of us made it to our gate.

“Fuck it” Kelly said. “Lets get fucked up.” I laughed and she responded “I’m serious. We have an hour to kill. We’re going to need this. I need this. I need this now. Let’s drink.” So she and I made a detour to Chili’s and started throwing down.

“This trip is going to fucking suck.” Kelly said over her giant novelty margarita. “It already sucks. Let’s just fucking go home. Let’s tell them our flight was cancelled. It could happen right?”

And for the first time, I started to think that maybe this trip wasn’t going to be that bad after all. I mean, I was ready for a break of the city. I was tired of cramming myself onto the subway, getting bumped into on the street, squeezing into overcrowded bars. I could use a break. And I was with Kelly. As we pounded our overpriced airport drinks, we laughed together at the elderly woman in the wheel chair being padded down by the security guard. I mean, yeah, we had already had a few setbacks, but things were looking up. She and I were having a good time and I was actually looking forward to getting down to North Carolina.

And it would be at about this point that we heard our flight was canceled.

To Be Continued...