When you go on summer vacation, your boss hardly ever asks you to write an essay on what you did while you were gone. If your boss does ask you to write an essay on your activities over the summer, then I want your boss. Tell him I said so.
When you were in grade school, you were asked at the beginning of each year to write an essay on your summer's activities. I think it's sad that as adults no one really wants to know what you did on your summer vacation. They especially don't want you to show them slides and/or videos of said holiday.
I need to write about my summer vacation. I have to write about my summer vacation. If I don't write things down, I forget about them, and then it's as if they never happened.
I write this for posterity and for that whole "Those who don't learn from the past are condemned to relive it" thing. I have an enormous desire to not relive my summer vacation, so remember I must. And you get to go along for the ride. Lucky you.
"What I Did on My Summer Vaca-tion," by the mom of four children, one out-of-work husband, a cross-eyed kitty and a dog with the shedding capability to bury my house in fur in less than a 24-hour period.
We cut our E.R. visits to Children's Hospital down to one this summer, for a total of two so far this year. This number is radically lower than in summers past. Sorry, Children's Hospital, but we're cutting down on our contributions to your new-wing-construction fund. Yes, we know there is an entire wing that we have funded in years past, but you cannot continue to count on us for monetary support.
Our children are growing older, and hopefully wiser. They've learned the basics: fire bad, ice good, knives sharp; using your face as a brake on the cement, bad. In the past, the only time hubby and I had an outing, or, as we called it, a date, was when we took a child to the E.R. This summer we had only one date.
This summer I ran a camp for unwanted children. I didn't want them, but they came anyway. I found that there are many unwanted children in my neighborhood. I found out why they were unwanted.
They ate a lot. They messed up my house. A lot. They brought water fights into my kitchen and made my floor wet and slippery, almost causing hubby and me to have another date.
This summer I learned about the joys of air conditioning. I have heretofore not been acquainted with the joys of air conditioning in my own home. I became the villain on the old Batman series who was unable to go anywhere that wasn't iced up and frozen.
The air-conditioning unit I bought this summer was placed in my bed-room window. Once it was up and running, I never left my room. Of course, then the unwanted children discovered it and I was no longer alone in my frigid paradise. In order to lose them, I had tents set up in my yard, hoping to lure them into believing they were camping in the wilds. It worked.
Over the summer I went on what is normally termed a vacation. I submit to you that going anywhere, for any length of time, with children cannot legally be considered a vacation. You do all the same things you do at home; you just do it somewhere else, in less hospitable circumstances, and you hemorrhage money from your wallet at blinding speeds as you do so.
Relaxing? I don't think so.
This summer I tried to teach my son that doing his gymnastic routines in just his boxers wasn't a good idea. My son, leaping around my bed in the coolness of my air-conditioned room.
Me: "Honey, how many times have I asked you to not wave your legs around like that when you're wearing boxers? There are some things a mother just shouldn't see."
Son: "PERVERT!"
Dad: "Did you see the full monty?"
Me: "He's 12. It was only half a monty."
Son: "MOOOOOOOOM!"
Note to self: Daughters aren't the only ones in need of training in modesty issues.
We don't have a screen door on our front door, so this summer we used a big old piece of plywood to set down in front of the door. People would ask us why we had this piece of wood there, and we'd tell them it was our redneck screen door. It kept the dog in and half the bugs out; meanwhile, the other half used me as a human buffet. Next summer I'm thinking of having our redneck screen door painted to match our house. Oh yeah, we're moving uptown in a big way.
I've learned a lot this summer. I learned that you can't hide in your air-conditioned room forever because they will find you. I learned that, unwanted or not, if you have food, they will come. And finally, I learned that there are probably worse things than taking four children on an airplane to visit the in-laws. If I think of what that worse thing is, I'll be sure and let you know.
In the meantime, want to see the digital pictures of my vacation?
Freelance columnist Pamela Troeppl Kinnaird can be reached at PamelaTroeppl@comcast.net.
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