Round Six: The Long and Winding Road

I'm sitting on my mattress, which is sitting on the floor, typing away on my laptop. I feel like I was given a second chance to become a college student. I'm questioning Jeremy's and my sanity, in many ways, but most recently based on our decision to switch rooms with the kids. Not a bad idea in theory. Our room is bigger than theirs, and they have more stuff than we do. The switch seemed like a natural progression. Granted, once we switch, we'll have to forgo our bed frame, (hence the floor/mattress situation), and- horrors!- the bookshelves he built for me in our much larger closet. He's been telling me for years that I need to just box up my books and clear the shelves for other things, his reasoning being that I've read all of said books. More than once. Jeremy is not a reader. Enough said. My fellow bookworms will grieve with me.

Continuing our journey home saga, the (almost) final leg of the trip was up to me. Here's a little fact about me: I've never driven on a road trip. I know! Crazy, right? For various reasons or other, I've always been a passenger, never a driver. It seems unfair. I've missed out on a very important rite of passage in my young adulthood. Well. When we stopped in South Carolina, Jeremy decided I needed to drive so he could sleep. It's a little ridiculous how excited I was. Especially for it only being 5 in the morning. I hopped in the driver's seat, readjusted all of my settings (grumble, grumble), plugged up my iPod and chose Ben Gibbard's live album to guide me through South Carolina. That turned out to be a mistake, by the way, because apparently, due to all the times I've listened to this album while falling asleep, I've created a Pavlovian response to it. I had to turn it off after the first two songs. Jeremy ended up kidnapping my iPod anyway to block out some noise while he slept. I turned the Beach Boys CD on for awhile, but I had to keep it so quiet it wasn't even worth it.

(Back story: I've decided that watching Jeremy listen to the Beach Boys must be what it's like for others to watch me listen to the Beatles. Endearing and annoying. It's a little obnoxious how he sings every part, cutting into one part to sing the other part, bobbing his head, telling me facts about the band in between. I'm sure I'm not that bad, am I?)

All that said, I found my lovely little "road trip rite of passage" bubble burst within the first hour. Here are some of the thoughts that went through my head during those long, long five hours:

"I can't believe I get to drive!"

"How long before the sun comes up?"

"I'm about Surfer Girl-ed out."

"Jeremy is the whiniest road trip sleeper I've ever met." (He really is.)

"Why do some girls look so good in rompers and others look ridiculous?"

"I wonder what I would look like in a romper."

"This is freaking boring."

"How long before the sun comes up?"

"I have to pee."

"I wish it wasn't too early to call someone."

"I don't know why I ever wanted to drive on road trips."

"I wonder if I could accidentally wake Jeremy up..."

"My butt is falling asleep."

"I have to pee."

"I wish I lived in Georgia. Then we would've been home a whole state ago."

"Maybe I could just close my eyes for a second..."

"WAKE UP!!!"

"I can't believe I just convinced myself I could close my eyes while driving."

"I am so. freaking. bored."

"Where the hell is a Chick-fil-A when you need one??"

"I can't believe I have to drive."

"If he makes one more little sleepy noise I'm going to slap him."

"That dude totally just checked me out. Heyyy, dude."

"That was definitely a woman."

"She was probably still checking me out."

"I really, really have to pee."

"I never want to do this again."

"Are we there yet?"



Eventually, around 10am, I woke Jeremy up, telling him that if I kept driving we'd probably all wake up in heaven. We stopped and got some breakfast (at Chick-fil-A!) on the outskirts of Virginia, then got back on the road. He had the nerve to call me a wuss. I didn't bring up all the "Can't get comfortable" whining I endured from him.

We made it home around 1pm, unloaded all the perishables (namely the homemade meatballs and spaghetti sauce my mom and stepdad had sent home with us), and fell straight into bed (which, at that point, was still in a bed frame).


This seems like an anticlimactic conclusion to all of our Floridian adventures. Maybe it is. I'm okay with that. Our adventures were tiresome enough, without a colossal ending to them. I'm not worried about it. We have all summer to have adventures.