PANSY, YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR! But please stay away from my motorhome.

It was all my MicroManaging Stupid Elderly Baby Sister's (SEBS) fault! She started it and she dreamed it up. It happened long, long ago.....maybe even STILL not long enough ago.

'Twas the Summer of 1990 and there was a Family Reunion down home in Texas. My SEBS said "let's buy the parents airplane tickets so you and I can drive their motorhome to the reunion with all the kids." A Road Trip!? OMG! Yew Becha! So, without even consulting the Old Folks we bought plane tickets, presented them to the parents, swiped their motorhome keys and began planning our Road Trip.

It was gonna be me, SEBS, our five (5!) children, ranging from 1 year to 12 years old, all the credit cards, and.....and The Very Best Part? NO HUSBANDS!!

THE DAY BEFORE DAY ONE:
We are All Set for the Road Trip adventure. I call MicroManager SEBS who has designed the entire trip and I ask her: "Um. Do YOU get the motorhome and come get me and the 2 girls? Or do I get the motorhome and come get you and the 3 boys?" Neither of us knows the answer. SEBS bites the bullet and asks her husband. He looks aghast at her, calls Mr. Pansy, who looks aghast at me, so I call SEBS, who looks aghast at her husband. I finally break the silent, aghast staredown to demand "So which the fuck is it?" Both husbands laugh and laugh and laugh and say "You two are so on your own with this one. Good luck, bitches." Then they HANG UP! WTF? We DO know we are going to want to eventually end up in Texas and that is "east-ish", isn't it?

DAYS ONE, TWO, THREE:
SEBS picks up me and the girls. See? Problem Solved! We hightail it to Disneyland, set up, look at each other and realize we are ahead of schedule! SEBS is one serious ass bossy MicroManager but somehow she miscalculated how long it would take us to get to Disneyland. No matter. We go to Disneyland right then and there instead of waiting until the next day like on the Original Big Plan. Disneyland was in the final day of a monster heatweave so there were no lines anywhere for any of the rides, we stayed until they closed at 2am, lots of fun! Same thing next day: no crowds, stayed until 2am, lots of fun. Same thing third day UNTIL....when we got back to the motorhome at 2am "suddenly" SEBS and I decided to re-check the Original Big Plan only to discover we are in serious trouble. What had possessed us to not remember that we have to actually BE on the Coast of Texas before July 4th if we are to celebrate July 4th AT the Family Reunion? Damn that Heatwave and Damn that Disneyland! Damn them both to Hell! OMG! We hauled ass outta there, at 2am. Problem Solved! Please don't tell the husbands.

DAY FOUR:
We drive to El Paso, Texas, where our next KOA reservations are for: two days ago. Stupid Magic Kingdom! But we call and they assure us they have space for when we arrive. We are SUCH Problem Solvers! Silly Husbands and their mockery. We drive nonstop, except for.....we are on Vacation and our Only Rule of Vacation is this: We Must, and Will, stop for every tourist trap Souvenir Roadside Stand/Reptile Garden/Exotic Freak Animals HERE!/Genuine Artifacts [made in China] For Sale Cheep/Shit Here 4 U! We had already stopped at 6 places between home and Disneyland and we were not about to break our streak. In fact, we had told the five (5!) children: If you see something and want to stop, we will. Democracy Is Cool! Or maybe it's Anarchy Is Cool!

We had a wonderful time driving and shit shopping, until we got to El Paso. El Paso is one freaking wide-assed city. When we got to the west side we think we are "almost" there. THREE HOURS LATER we finally get to the KOA in East El Paso...and we are driving 65mph. Perhaps even 80-ish mph. Please don't tell the parents. Finally we arrive at 2am, do the hookups and collapse. Then those five (5!) children wake up at: 5-fucking-am. Hungry, needing care, all kinds of disgusting me-me-me behaviors/demands. But it is just as well. We are still more than a day from the Coast of Texas. Because once you are inside Texas, all the roads have 90-degree turns every 100 yards.

DAY FIVE:
We are Seriously Hauling Ass now, especially since we have to stop for every tourist trap shopping opportunity, and we absolutely cannot make it any further than the Odessa, Texas KOA, where we finally arrived at 2am. What is it with that accursed 2am? It was the witching hour for us throughout that entire trip. Odessa is one sorry place to have to live. Winds incessantly howl through there so all the landscaping was rocks and plastic plants. But the KOA was pleasant enough, even with the whitecaps surging across the swimming pool. And if you discount the pedophile that actually tried to hit on Oldest Boy. Eewwww! Please don't tell the husbands.

DAY SIX:
It is now July 3 but we make it to the Family Reunion in the late afternoon with our five (5!) children. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Travel Mercies Gods! Plus, we did not miss out on any tourist trap shopping opportunities! Glee! The entire clan is so impressed with "those two girls a-drivin' by theyselves acrost the inntyre USA!" Pansy has never claimed grammar or geography are her family's strong suits. The July 4th-reunion-orama is a massive success and now it is time to head back home.

DAYS ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR GOING BACK HOME:
We head for Carlsbad Caverns, shopping at every tourist trap along the way which required we take that motorhome down rutted dirt roads where motorhomes have never been before and should never have gone in the first place at all. Please don't tell the parents. We do just fine, thankyouverymuch. Well, except for that part where Miss MicroManageress totally fucked us over with "we will buy gas at that town." Except that there was NO town. Just a solitary building: a closed down/abandoned gas station. Well, there is still that next town ahead. It's another solitary, closed down/abandoned gas station. Stupid AAA maps!

There is nothing else on the map except for the next town which we knew was too far away for us to have even the remotest hope in hell of reaching before we run out of gas in that fucking gas guzzling monster motorhome! Stupid cheap-ass parents couldn't have thought to buy a motorhome with a bigger gas tank? Do you think the mileage might have been affected by the dirt road side trips to buy tourist trap shit?

The only live things we see are lizards (not for sale) and Drunk Cowboys (available Cheep!) in rusted trucks racing up and down the dirt roads. We are going to have to draw straws on who has to prostitute herself for gasoline while envisioning newspaper headlines: "Shop-A-Holic California Mothers Kill Five (5!) Children Because Mothers Are Horrible Stupid." Only by God's Very Own Grace, which we totally did not deserve but probably the five (5!) children did deserve, we miraculously make it to that next town. When we filled up the motorhome it took 44.8 gallons. It had a 45 gallon tank. We were so freaked out we never drove more than 15 miles before filling up again for the rest of the trip. Please don't tell the parents OR the husbands.

Next, we go to the Grand Canyon where we decide to go for an airplane tour. Now this was in the Olden Days, when things were looser and more relaxed. SEBS didn't want to pay for her baby to go on the plane so we solve that problem by LEAVING HIM WITH THE COUNTER CLERKS FOR 2 HOURS, which Counter Clerks of course are people we do not know. Good God, what were we thinking? I am pretty certain they did not even have emergency contact information should our plane have crashed. Please don't tell the husbands. Especially SEBS' husband. He is a very big man.

Then we are in Las Vegas. It was in the middle of a monster heatwave and all traffic has been stopped on Hoover Dam while the poor workers had to pour molten tar/asphalt/whatever on the road surface. It is so hot and the wait was so long (3+ hours) the motorhome's air conditioner/generator/whatever blew up. We will never forgive the parents for being so uncaring and cheap in their choice of crappy motorhomes. The kids are broiling alive and they all stripped down to just their underwear, whereupon Daughter #1 precociously says "I sure am glad I have not developed yet or this would be embarrassing." hahahahhaha!

We got over Hoover Dam, cruise the Strip, set up the motorhome on the grounds of Circus, Circus at......2am. But everything is OPEN so we wholesome mothers introduce the children to gambling. Circus, Circus has a great area for children to learn early in life how to gamble/bet/lose/get all upset/beg on street corners for money with which to get home. Tip: If you are begging for money and a prospective charitable person says "But how do I know you aren't just going to gamble with this money I give you?" YOU SAY: "Oh, I HAVE gambling money!" No, we didn't make the kids beg for money. They SAID they wanted to! Guess What: Cash Advance! Problem Solved!

Upon leaving Las Vegas the next morning, SEBS drove the motorome through a McDonald's driveup. Until she did about $900 of structural damage to the passenger side of the motorhome where it wouldn't fit past the concrete guide poles. She was an insurance adjuster so she knew how to estimate how much damage was incurred. And all because her SPOILED BRAT BOY CHILDREN demanded McDonald's whereas my PERFECT ANGEL GIRL CHILDREN were Quite Content to eat the oatmeal their Wholesome and Much Better Mother made for them. I'm thinking maybe that unbroken string of 18-hour days was beginning to take its toll on our normally very good natures.

Then, we are filling up the gas tank (because we had driven at least 12 miles since the last fillup) and get told by the Manager that our tires are about to blow out and have no tread left! We will have those stupid parents put in jail for life for letting us drive our five (5!) precious children in an unsafe, air conditioner blowing up, tire blowing up, gas-guzzling crappy motorhome. Nothing that a few hours and $1000 of new tires won't take care of. Problem Solvers Is Us! We drive away mightily cursing those now feloniously stupid parents of ours.

YOSEMITE:
We arrive, after all the requisite tourist trap shopping, at the "beginning" of Yosemite. Micromanageress SEBS had read some blurb about Yosemite having a shuttle system to reduce vehicular traffic inside Yosemite. Except she didn't read far enough to get to that part about you still have to drive down into the Valley before you can park your vehicle and use the shuttles. Well, by the time we got down into the Valley and park in our campsite we had driven every last foot of Yosemite roads possible. Stupid fake Yosemite Valley "green" traffic-reducing shuttle plan.

We were, however, mighty fucking grateful to have gotten down into the Valley at all. Because on the narrow, winding road going down into the Valley there was an "incident." I was at the wheel but it was NOT my fault! A huge Buick kind of car came roaring around a curve and was over the double yellow line headed straight for us. I had two "choices": a full-on actual headon collision or......kind of drive a little closer to the right edge of the road. I chose to slow down and go rightish------right up against the low rock wall. The Buick did veer back to its side of the road but kinda AFTER the last second since it was fully beside my window before it went back into its own lane.

What the low rock wall did not tear off from front to rear of the entire bottom half of the entire right side of the motorhome, the thick stand of pine trees tore off from front to rear of the entire top half of the entire right side of the motorhome. SEBS loudly said my name in a quite blood-curdling Exorcist/Rosemary's Baby scream kinda way. We continue driving since we can't stop and just block the road and besides the Buick really took off after that close call. We drive to the next turnout. During this eerie 1/2 mile we hear really loud screechy/scraping noises and see lots and lots of SPARKS coming from the right side of the motorhome. Being that we have become Highly Experienced Problem Solvers during this trip we responded very rationally: we started laughing. We laughed so hard I do believe there may have been some loss of bladder control and I'm not talking about the baby. We finally get to a turnout so we can stop and a nice couple behind us also stopped to see if we were okay. We were unable to answer them due to continued laughing. All the noise/sparks was only coming from the mostly torn off metal stair/step so now we knew the motorhome was not going to burn to the ground and we would still have a roof over our heads that night.....if not a wall. Who could have guessed how truly shitty and tarpaper shacky motorhomes really are? Stupid sucker parents to have ever bought a motorhome at all!

We get to the campground, hook up the tattered motorhome and are all settled in and it wasn't even 2am! The next day Daughter #1 and I went for a horseback ride. SEBS was going to take the other four (4!) kids and do something or other. Halfway through the horseback ride a sudden and violent electrical storm hits. These are Serious Ass storms and nothing to mess around with. But, the wranglers told us that we were past the "point of no return" so we were going to have to slog on through. There would be a truck waiting at a road a few miles away, after we crossed a creek, for anyone who wanted to quit the horseback ride. The woman in front of Daughter #1 completely, and I mean completely, freaked out. She was literally screaming and boo-hooing. My daughter precociously said to her in her sweet and well-brought up way to calm the woman: "Shut up! You might scare the horses and you are hurting my ears! I said, Shut up!" hahahahahahha!

When we got to the "creek" we learned a new lesson about sudden, violent, electrical storms: they cause flash floods the likes of which I have never seen. The creek was such a torrent we literally all had to get off the horses, form human chains of inter-locked arms and inch our way across the waters that were up to my armpits. Normally this creek is about 10 inches deep. Who knows how screaming boo-hoo bitch got across the creek but she dramatically "collapsed" into the truck. No one else bailed on the horseback ride because this was one great kick-ass ride! Eventually, our stalwart horses sensed we were getting near the end whereupon they reverted to their rental horse, barn-soured, beastly selves and galloped home like possessed animals with us Soaked Rats Riders hanging on for dear life!

Daughter #1 and I climbed into a shuttle bus to get back to the motorhome. At that precise moment the rain stopped and a hail storm with hail the size of golf balls begins mercilessly pelting us in the Open Roof Stupid Ass Shuttle! We grab newspapers from the floor and attempt to avoid getting a concussion. We straggle up to the motor home where everyone else had spent all that time trapped inside watching: The Little Mermaid. Evidently Daughter #2 (my precious 4 year old Child From The Netherworld) was so powerful in her persuasion skills that none of the boys or Auntie SEBS had dared defy her request for The Little Mermaid! hahhahhaha!

A few hours later, SEBS looked at me and said "You know, screw my MicroManaged Original Big Plan. We can just go home, Now!" Yahoo! But first we stopped to shop at a tourist trap, for Old Times Sake.

Odds Bits 'n' Things:

1. Without exception, at every KOA (EVERY ONE) when the women in the bathrooms figured out we were on our own with five (5!) children they would ask "But....but....WHO drives your motorhome for you?" Oh. My. God. They were serious! We would respond with "Well, who will drive your motorhome if your husband gets hurt or sick?" They would pooh-pooh that scenario as not credible. So then we would say things like "Oh, we just pick up hitchhikers that are big and burly because they are also likely to know how to change a flat tire." THAT one they believed and they actually advised us to NOT do that, if only for the sake of the children. WTF!!!????

2. The interior of motorhomes is Major Crapola, too. Baby managed to pull off whole panels of the motorhome no matter where we set up his carseat.

3. Every day we made videotapes of what we did and we would watch them that night. That was seriously great entertainment since our 18-hour days were so long we would actually forget what we had done, when, and often where. We have 8 full-length tapes of that trip. The husbands have never seen them and never want to see them. They know there are many things they do NOT want to know.

4. The parents had, in fact, had the motorhome and its tires thoroughly inspected and approved as road worthy for 2 women and five (5!) children. But did they tell US? Nooooooo!! Sheesh! With their proof of road worthiness they negotiated with the Las Vegas Tire Shill so that the tires ended up costing only $140, total.

5. The insurance adjuster just howled over the entire debacle of the destruction of the motor home and even threw in repairs of the baby-altered interior. His own parents had suffered a somewhat similar sideswipe incident with their crappy motorhome so he actually believed my story. Plus, Oldest Boy backed me up as he also saw the "ghost Buick" which no one else saw because everyone else was asleep at the beginning of the "incident."

6. The "incident" occurred on Friday, July 13, 1990.......my 40th birthday.

7. Yep, it was an Epic Trip and among my greatest adventures/memories with my dear SEBS and her spoiled brat boy children.