You know what I think sucks?
Birthday parties.
Birthday parties and holidays.
Birthday parties, holidays, and family vacations.
I know…I know…sacrelig, right?
WRONG.
I never used to understand my mom when I was younger. Every year we would go camping along the good Ole’ Colorado River, and I mean camping. Sleeping on cots, cooking over a fire, “relieving” yourself in bushes, coming home redder than lobsters. (Side note, one time I burned so bad I came home with sun poisoning. My lips were two giant blisters. YOU try eating campfire spaghetti with two giant blisters for lips!). My cousin and I used to hunt snakes, until we found them. Then we would remember- we were girls, and oh-my-GAWWWWD- they will eat us. Then we stopped hunting snakes. But my mom, not so much. I mean sure she had fun, she would bring her Stephen King novels with her and laugh with my aunts and stuff, but she was never EXCITED excited like we were. I mean, I packed for this trip in like FEBRUARY every year. I never quite understood it.
Until I had kids.
And we camped.
HOLY COW is it hard. Why the hell do you even call it a vacation anymore?! It is TOTALLY not. WRONG. Wrong wrong wrong. You know what it is?! It’s work, except for free, and in the dirt. You have to pack up like every dish known to man, and somehow get is to fit in ONE milk crate. You need to pack enough clothes for all the children (who will be playing in the DIRT!) for the entire week, and somehow get it in one bag. Plus, you never know what will happen, so now I also need to be a traveling medic (not THAT kind) and bring like, every single product that Band Aid and Johnson and Johnson make combined. Plus, the kids need to like, be comfortable, so we need cozies, and bears, and blankies, and on and on and on.
NOT FUN. I hear ya Mom, I hear ya.
Same thing with holidays. You get the kids allllll dressed up, so that they can shit themselves five seconds from your Great Aunt three times removed Gerda’s house. Then, all you do is chase them around the whole time yelling “DON’T TOUCH THAT”. Not fun.
And birthday parties?! I mean please, do I even need to say anything more? Um, hellllloooo? I BIRTHED YOU. Is this not enough already?!
So mom…here’s to you. Hats off lady, even if I did get skin cancer from all those camping trips. But me? I’ll pass. Here on out, it’s the Ritz for me.
