Thursday, March 4, 1993
Death-defying coasters and water slides
by Alicia Hartman
Co4u:Utor
Well, Spring Break is only
tne day away. Actually, some
people have already left. As
everyone is packing for Florida
(Disney World/Daytona),
heading south to Alabama to
eet country-folk, or flying
est to challenge the slopes of
to enver, unfortunately, lam
.oing nothing devastatingly
xciting for Spring Break except
orking. Whoo-whee. No, I
an't even go home because I
eady Lye, at home.
Since I am not doing
nything thrilling, I'm going to
eminisce about a typical
.nnual summer vacation for me
land my family.
My dad, mom, sister and I
pack into the blue Oldsmobile.
Andi (my sister) and I situate
ourselves in the back seat along
with our pillows, stuffed
animals, food, deck of cards and
pens and paper.
My Uncle Norm, Aunt Nancy
and cousin Melissa also joined
us on our expedition.
Vacationing with my uncle,
aunt and cousin is pretty fun,
except for the fact that my uncle
always follow us and he drives
as slow as molasses.
My dad is the type of person
who likes to get where he's
going in the shortest time
possible. Things are slow
enough with my uncle behind
us, but then my mom is totally
illiterate , when it conies to
" But aren't most
by Dave Barry
Syndicated Columnist
Recently I stood in the
kitchen of our new home, amid
hundreds of cardboard boxes, all
helpfully labeled "BETH", and
watched my wife, Beth, open a
box. She cut through several
layers of tape, opened the box
flaps and pulled out an object
that had been laboriously wadded
up inside roughly 2,000 square
feet of white paper. She
unwrapped it, layer by layer,
until finally she got to the
object that had been so carefully
protected a coffee mug.
With coffee still in it.
If you're wondering why we
packed a mug with coffee in it,
the answer is, we are not that
stupid. We are MUCH stupider
than that. What we did was
PAY SOMEBODY to do this.
I am of course referring to
moving professionals. They're
all trained at a special school.
Here's a sample question from
the final exam:
You are packing up a
customer's possessions, and you
find a human body with
multiple stab wounds. You
should:
a. Call an ambulance.
women map illiterate?)
DAD: Which way now,
Linda?
MOM: I don't know.
DAD: God it Linda!
Read the map!
Dad's face is getting redder and
Tedder.
MOM: You're driving!
DAD: Well I certainly can't
drive and read the map at the
same time can I?!
Dad is fuming by this time,
shouting at the top of his lungs.
MOM: I think you just
better stop somewhere and ask
for directions!
We go through this
conversation over and over and
over and over
Andi and I are pretty prepared
at vacation entertainment.
Besides playing cards and
hangman, we like to signal
semi drivers to toot their horns,
and we read other cars' license
plates and make words or
sentences out of them. (Bumper
Stumpers on the USA channel.)
Driving in Canada is fun too
where everything is in the
metric system. We see a sign
that says the speed limit is 100
km. "What's 100 km in miles,
Dad?"
I love toll booths. I like
reading all the weird-named
cities on the ticket and how
much they "cost."
Did you ever notice that the
ride home takes half as much
time as the ride there?
Eventualiy we get to the
hoteVinote,l.
I s wondered wit ni
Making a new house a home
b. Notify the police.
c. Wad it up in white paper
and stuff it in a box.
The correct answer is "c".
Professional movers wad
EVERYTHING in white paper.
If, in 1990, George Bush had
sent in professional movers to
resolve the Kuwait problem,
today the entire Iraqi military
force, tanks and all, would be
individually wadded up inside
several million cardboard boxes
strewn all over the desert, each
box labeled with only the word
"IRAQ". (Or possibly "BETH".)
It would take Saddam Hussein
DECADES to unpack his army.
("Let's see what's in this box ...
more corporals! Where the
HECK did they put the enlisted
men?")
That's pretty much our
situation. We're in a new,
extremely box-intensive house.
We moved because our old
house got whomped by
Hurricane Andrew. We thought
about fixing it up, but then we
got some estimates from
contactors:
CONTRACTOR: OK, you
see this?
US: What?
CONTRACTOR: Where the
tree landed on this truss.
Opinion
difference was between a hotel
and a motel. A motel (MOTOR
plus HOTEL) has rooms that
open directly to the parking
area. Rooms in a hotel are
enclosed within a building.
Hotels are usually bigger, nicer,
more comfortable, and of
course, more expensive.
Motels aren't bad, I just like
the elevators in hotels and the
fact that you can run up and
down the halls, creating all
kinds of commotion and wake
everyone. I really hate motels
that have two stories because
you have to drag all your
luggage that weighs 29 million
pounds up a stairwell that isn't
enclosed, and it's usually raining
cats and dogs. (Or is that dogs
and cats? Which is politically
correct?)
My mom is so frantic in a
hotellmotel. She has a fear' of
the floors and we always have
to wear shoes whenever we walk
around on the carpet because
"you don't know what kinds of
bugs have been crawling
around." I usually take those
thongs that FLIP-FLOP-FLIP
FLOP when you wear them.
I love all the "goodies" that
hotels have: petite bottles of
shampoo and conditioner,
soapies, official hotel pens and
paper. My sister and I always
fight over the stationery.
Requesting extra towels is
aiwilya fun. The maid brings
you less than you began with,
or she brings enough <to dry an
army.
US: Houses have TRUSSES?
CONTRACTOR: (to his
assistant): Go back to the truck
and fetch me some more zeros
for this estimate.
It turned out that our old
house needed major work. To
get it back to its original
condition, we would have had to
go through a three-step process:
STEP ONE: We move out.
STEP TWO: We move into
temporary lodgings.
STEP THREE: We die there
of old age.
The reason for Step Three, of
course, is that major home
renovations -- ask anybody who
has been through them -- are
never completed within your
personal lifetime. Major
renovations are something you
do for posterity.
CLERGYMAN: And so
today we pay our last respects to
a person who had a dream -- the
dream that someday, somehow,
her house would once again
have working bathrooms.
(Roars of laughter from the
audience, especially the plumb
ing contractor.)
So we decided to sell our
house in what is legally known
as "whomped condition." The
buyer, who is named Frank, was
pack something too, underwear,
toothpaste, etc. So we must
adventure to the nearest K-Mart.
All K-Marts have the same
types of things, but there is
nothing more thrilling than
going to a K-Mart that's
different from the one you
usually shop at. You seem to
find things that your K-Mart
doesn't have.
Wherever we stay, whether
it's a hotel or a motel inc., place
has to have a pool.
Every time I go on vacation
with my family, we go to an
amusement park. I like
amusement parks, but I hate
BIG rides. Yes, I'm a pansy.
I hate those death-defying
roller coasters like the Viper at
Darien Lake; the Magnum,
Gemini, Corkscrew and Blue
Streak at Cedar Point; or the
KILLER COASTER, the
BEAST at King's Island.
King's Island (in Cincinnati,
Ohio) has several wet-your
pants coasters. Besides the'
BEAST, there is a roller
coaster that you stand-up on,
and one that first goes forward
then backward on the track.
Everyone attempts to drag me
on to these coasters, but I get
sick just looking at them.
Ralphing and yacking aren't my
favorite pastimes. Besides,
someone has to held the food,
purses, stuffed animals and my
dad's glasses, which flew off his
face riding the BEAST, but he
caught them just in time.
Sometimes I sit for 15
minutes, sometimes I sit for
not troubled by this at all.
Frank is a positive, optimistic
individual, by which I mean he
is clinically insane, although of
course I would never say this in
print because he bought our
house. Frank is totally unafraid
of major home renovations. He
strides confidently around and
says things like, "I'm gonna
move the kitchen HERE, put
another bathroom HERE, put an
escalator THERE; then I'm
gonna move the entire house
NEXT DOOR for a few days
while I dig a new basement, and
then I'm gonna..."
We admire Frank's zeal, and
we plan to say so at his funeral.
Meanwhile, we're adapting to
our new house. We've never
had a brand-new house before,
where everything works and the
walls and floors are spotless and
there is no lingering odor
coming from behind the
cabinets where apparently a
mouse has died. (Don't worry,
Frank! After a while you get
used to it!) And so when we
entered our new house for the
first time as the owners, we felt
a sense of euphoria that lasted
for a full 10 seconds, which is
how long it took for our small
auxiliary backup dog, Zippy, to
two nours. I don't mind sitting
and waiting. I'm a people
observer/watcher/starer. I love
those groups who walk around
wearing the same colored T
shirts (probably so they don't
lose each other), the leader
waves the FLAG to gather the
group together, and they all
have the monster cameras from
hell.
Then there are the heavy
metalers decked out in their
leather coats, leather pants and
leather boots when it's hotter
than holy famolees outside.
People are so interesting.
Besides being terrified of
roller coasters, I am also scared
of water slides. I was riding a
single tube one time and the
tube turned around so that I was
going down the slide backwards!
My life passed before me -
wasn't a pleasant experience.
I've also ridden down this
water ride that had a VERY
steep and VERY high incline. I
sat on this hard, plastic slab,
raced flown the incline at a speed
of over 29 hundred miles per
hour, hit bottom, and then
jumped the water five or six
times. I thought I was going to
die.
Well, hopefully my Spring
Break won't be too bad. Enjoy
yourself bn those death-defying,
killer roller coasters and water
slides. be sure to enjoy my
serenity. Send me a postcard.
Alicia Hartman is a second
semester communication miler.
locate a white carpet and poop
on it. I am not making this up.
I believe the sound of the door
closing was still echoing
through the empty house when
Zippy let loose. I don't hold
this against him. Inside his
brain, which is made of the
same material as his toenails, he
believed he was doing the right
thing, according to the laws of
Dog Logic, as follows:
1. It is bad to poop inside our
house.
2. This is not our house.
3. Therefore, this is a good
place to poop.
Of course we plan to do much
more with our new home.
We're going to put gouges in
the floors, and we plan to do a
LOT with hand smudges. But
we like to think that, in terms
of our basic decor theme, Zippy
set the tone. We can't wait to
get started, and we're looking
forward to many happy years
here, during which we hope to
eventually locate the box
containing our son.
Dave Barry is a syndicated
columnist from the Miami
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