Ye cannot change the laws of Physics!

*** continued from previous post  ***


I looked at the clock on my desk and realized that 2 hours had passed and I had heard nary a peep from your Mother. Where did the time go? I started out checking prices for the Uber Tote, and somehow wound up memorizing the lyrics to "Chocolate Rain" as performed by Chad Vader, Darth's younger brother. Da Netz is a vast resource of obscure knowledge. It is because of things like Chad and "Garfield minus Garfield" and epic fails that I needed to bring the laptop on vacation. What if I fell behind? What if I lost my edge? That was a risk I could not take.

I found your Mom, sitting against the house with her hair hanging in her face, and sweat beading on her forehead like the sheen on the outside of a cool, cool tasty drink on a hot, hot summer's day. Or much like the forehead of our accountant Fred.

"It's not all going to fit," she said, somewhat dejectedly, "and before you even start in we are not getting the Uber monstrosity."

Nicely played fair lady.

She looked so sad, so forlorn that it broke my heart. I walked over and offered my hand to pull her upright. "It's okay sweetie. Let's see what we can do."

As you know, the flip-side to your Mother's little tic was that I had learned to squeeze things into an allotted space that should not be allowed by our current understanding of the space-time continuum. I walked over to the bike, and looked at what she had done. The saddlebags were close to bursting, so I let them be. The trunk, on further inspection, and with some minor rearranging, could take in a bit more before it popped the hinges.

You want to know what love is? Right there in the bottom of the trunk was the laptop. She'd abandoned the Panini press/hairdryer and packed my laptop. Evidence of one of the many, many reasons that your Mom is the love of my life and my best friend. I mean really . . . who else would put up with my crap?

"You know, you've actually done a pretty good job here tiger. I can move some things around a little, and maybe squeeze some more room. What couldn't you fit in that you really, and I mean REALLY, need?"

Mom paused for a moment. It's hard to watch someone's dream die right before your eyes, unless that person is a former member of the Bush Cabinet or a Fox reporter, then it's a hoot. "I guess just these pairs of tennis shoes. I thought it would be nice to get out of our boots at night. I have no idea how to get your cane in there so you can reach it easily.' She looked around, "Most of our clothes are in the bag that we're going to strap to the trunk, so I guess we are good to go there."

"Did you get your books to fit?"

"Yeah. And a couple of magazines. I had to leave the book on birds out though," she snuffled.
"That's okay. If we see an interesting species, we will kill it and identify the body later," I said, pulling her into a hug. I knew right then I would find a place for her bird book even if I had to staple it to my damn chaps. Side note; staples stop hurting after about an hour and then itch like crazy. No, I'm not going to tell you now I know this.

She smiled. It was nice to see that smile. "It's going to be a good trip, isn't it?"

"Babe," I said and gave her a quick peck on the cheek, "it's going to be a wonderful trip. We are about to visit one of the most beautiful areas on the North American continent. We'll get some great riding on an incredible piece of modern technology, then we get to stay at an incredible Lodge and use that as base camp while we explore Banff. This little excursion," I said, meaning every word, "will be magical."

She smiled again, and after all these years I felt my heart skip a beat. That smile of hers is still intoxicating. "Tell you what, I'll finish up packing on the bike. Why don't you start taking some of this stuff back inside."

"Deal," she said and gave my arm a squeeze.


*** the journey continues tomorrow

Waffles: the crux of evil

*** continued from previous post  ***


Okay, now we were making progress. "What about the waffle maker? Do you really think we're going to use that?"

"What if we want waffles?"

In your Mother's world, this seemed like a perfectly reasonable question. I was miles ahead of her though, and had already crafted an appropriate response. "What," I said cocking my head and smiling as if I'm pointing out a completely foreign thought, and a rather clever one, "if we don't want waffles?"

That is some fine thinking right there. I was very proud of myself.

She started to rub her temples in slow, circular motions. "Have it your way. The waffle maker stays. Is that it?"

"Well, what about all that food? I mean, we aren't going camping. Can't we just take a couple of things to snack on?"

She looked at me like I had lost what little of my mind I had left. "We need that stuff! You don't know what we're going to run into. What if we are stuck in the middle of nowhere, and it's dark and we get hungry?"

I'm beginning to notice a pattern here. Evidently most of your Mother's reasoning centered around the idea that we were going to be stranded in the middle of nowhere for an extended period of time. At night. This, I'm sorry to say, was part of her delusional state. Poor, poor Mom.

Now before you think that I'm being too hard on her, I'm willing to admit that over the years, there may have been a couple of times when we found ourselves in just such a predicament. You know, you were there for some of them. We've run out of gas a couple of times. Well, maybe more than a couple. Certainly not more than twenty - twenty-five tops. Then there was the time we popped a fan belt, and sat on the side of the road for about 7 hours because I said "We don't need to carry tools. It's a new car." There was the fact that we had been in the ditch a few times, usually in a place that we had no business trying to drive a car. I, on rare occasions, have been known to lock the keys in the vehicle at the most inopportune moments. There were a few incidents with a pesky carburetor on a 1975 Ford Courier. In case you don't know the Ford Courier was the smallest truck ever made that didn't have "Hot Wheels" stamped on the side. It's true we'd been lost - a bunch. We've had to sleep in the car from time to time. And of course there had been the flat tires, the blown engines, the occasional small fires. Pretty typical stuff. You know, no different than anyone else and certainly nothing which I had the slightest bit of control.

"Babe," I said, "trust me. We're not going to be stranded in the middle of nowhere. We'll take a couple of snacks and call it good. Why, I bet we won't even use those! You'll see, everything will be fine."

I saw an opportunity here, and I went for it.

"You know - and I'm just sayin' - that if we had the UberBitchin' Tote 9000 we could take everything. Ev - Re - Thing." I drug the word out long and slow then inserted a moment of silence for effect. "Just think about that. If we had the UberBitchin' Tote we could take all you desire . . . all you desire and more!
"
This caused her to pause. I saw the conflicting emotions roll over her face like a cold spring wind in a field of wheat. "You are horrible. Absolutely, positively horrible. Do you know that?"

"Sweetie, I'm just looking out for you."

"I seriously doubt that. Listen and listen close. This is the last time I'm going to say this - we, under no circumstances, are buying that Uber thing."



*** the journey continues tomorrow