I’m going to be on vacation in Florida in a few weeks. Feel free to rob my house. A warning though, I am not the only one in my house, I am one of four, and of those four, pretty much one single person is there nearly every minute of the day. The dogs absolutely love this. Mac has a tendency to get a bit nuts when people aren’t there to properly stroke his ego
So, vacation…In Florida…nonstop, roundtrip airfare for less than $150 and free room because we’ll be at my Papaw’s place.
My Papaw has had a winter place in Florida ever since I can remember and every spring break since I can remember has been to his place. When I was in college, though, he moved into a house a little closer to the beach. Because of 15+ spring breaks and vacations I have taken to the area, I know it pretty well.
And have several memories.
Always first on the list is when Kevin shot scum remover in my eye. He was in the bathroom and like any pair of sibs, I liked to annoy him. The doors to the bathroom didn’t touch the floor so I stuck my hand under the door and raised my middle finger at him. He grabbed my hand. I wrenched it out of his grasp. Some back and forth antics resumed which culminated in him grabbing the bathtub scum remover and shooting me in the eye. In his defense, he didn’t know he was shooting me in the eye, but he did. As the only child of three with 20/20 vision, I began to panic and had horrific images of my eye as a melted worthless piece of tissue, my perfect eyesight a thing of legend. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. My eye stung, but after ten minutes of my mom holding my head under the faucet, the pain subsided.
Also high up on the list is one of the first visits to the beach. We had bought hamburgers and cheeseburgers from the concession. Andrea, around kindergarten-age give or take a year or two, was poised to take a bite out of her burger when a seagull swooped down and literally swiped the meat out from between the buns. Andrea took a big bite of bread and cried.
The water park was a place we would always go when we were down there. Kevin, who was terrified of roller coasters and carnie rides refused to do anything that required adrenaline. He would ride the lazy river or spend time in the wave pool. However, it became a game between of one-up-man-ship between Andrea and me that resulted in me riding the tallest water ride there, one of those monstrosities that is around 200-feet high and dives straight down. I got the wedgie from hell riding that thing and nearly pulled a muscle in my ass from squeezing my cheeks so hard. Once I was safely on level ground, Andrea went and arrived in the same state of disarray as me. I like to think I won that contest since I was the one who bit the bullet and went down the ride first.
Kevin had recently told Andrea and me, “You guys are gonna die,” when we went off to ride The Zipper at the annual Fall Festival. We didn’t quite care because The Zipper was fun and Kevin was missing out. He was a stick in the mud like that and never cared for the daring stuff like his older sisters did. So it was a treat to see him wait in line at the amusement park and ride an actual roller coaster that happened to have an upside-down loop in it. As it came time for Kevin to get into the car, he flipped out, but with nice sibs around like Andrea and me, we made him ride it. He had fun, but still wouldn’t ride any carnival type rides. Even though he was young, he didn’t trust the carnies. However, about two years later, he was peer pressured into riding the Loop-O-Planes. With that experience out of the way, Kevin now rides any and all roller coasters at any amusement park.
Another memory high up there has to do with me and my shell-collecting obsession to find a completely intact sand dollar. We would take a ferry over to a little island and stay for about four hours. This island wasn’t that far from the mainland, but for some reason, the sun was way more intense. Sun at the beach we normally went to was so intense that my mother bathed me in sunscreen (she halfheartedly lathered me one time and I was all streaky with burned patches all over my body). At this beach, I would burn even worse. I knew that I would burn, but saw a few other beachcombers already scavenging my shells and I could not let them find my sand dollar. I went collecting without sunscreen. I paid dearly for it the rest of the vacation with a sunburn on my back that was so fierce that looking back I’m amazed I didn’t contract skin cancer right then and there. Also, Andrea complained about a small pink spot on her nose and tried to argue that she knew the pain of a sunburn. Right, Josephine Baker, right.
Of course, nothing beats people watching – especially when you see those who walk to the beat of their own drum. For the longest time, there was a local who would dance down the beach. Dance is…not quite the right word. This was something resembling erotic stripper meets Elaine Benes. Bizarre and nonconformist are the only two words for this. Needless to say, we all started laughing when this MAN dropped down into the MIDDLE SPLITS and began to HUNCH the beach. Also great was his gun bit. He held his arms out like he was holding a gun and shot the gun, then acted like the victim would, by clutching his chest and falling back onto the ground. This of course led into some even more interesting gyrations. I’d like to add that this was not a young guy, he was middle-aged man no younger than 50. All I can say is: What a long strange TRIP it’s been.
And then there have been college spring breaks down there.
There was a mishap at a Sink or Swim night at one of the clubs. I was doing fine until my best friend accused me of trying to steal the man she had been eyeing. When I’m drinking, I’m either your best friend or your worst enemy. When she got mad and yelled at me I quickly turned her into an enemy. We argued on the car ride home (neither of us were driving), and when I got home, I packed my suitcase and managed to dial 411 to request a flight home and then to hopefully get a cab to take me to the airport. My friends (the ones that hadn’t yelled at me) stopped me, but then I hid and in the morning, everyone assumed I had run away. My disappearance sparked a call to my parents who were not quite pleased with my behavior. After that, thought of alcohol in clubs didn’t seem quite as fun as it once had. And my friend and I remained friends until we graduated college and she got a boyfriend and then promptly fell off the face of the earth.
The same said friend though had her night too when some guys, one who was named Jeffy, put some kind of a pill in her drink. Andrea, who was now 21, and I believe it was a Loratab. Anyway, my friend suddenly thought it would be a great idea to go home with a person named Jeffy. Andrea and I assured her it was not. Of course, she fought us, but the two of us overpowered her and I’m pretty sure Andrea threatened Jeffy. The nice thing about the Loratab was that it knocked her out the minute we hit the car. In the morning, she barely remembered anything. Which is probably for the best, because a guy named Jeffy? It’s just a good thing she had decent girlfriends with who knew a mistake named Jeffy was not something she’d want to wake up to!
Along with that, there are other aspects about spring break that will always bring a smile to my face. Like hearing “I Touch Myself” and then Lil Troy’s “Wanna be a Balla” right after, renting a car that had a tape deck and no CD changer (this was a car made in THIS millennium too people), the multiple bodies of water and long bridges we would have to take to get to the city and/or the beach, the “shopping” in Neiman Marcus and swooning over the REAL Louis Vuitton purses. Getting lost and simply relying on my own version of navigation to get us back, spring training and my Derek Jeter infatuation, getting four or five hours of sleep to wake up at 8 a.m. and get to the beach in order to get maximum tanning time and then falling asleep, cocktails on the beach, the “HOT TIE” shorts, the Tweeter and Ruby Tuesday’s, the Curse of the New Outfits, hot black pants, E/C Catholics…the memories are endless.
So it was a sense of nostalgia and desire for new memories, memories that revolve around me as an employed, responsible adult instead of a borderline irresponsible college kid.
Ok…so maybe I’m just employed.
Either way…this vacay is going to be fun…and complete with a sunset pirate cruise! Capt. Jack! I love you!
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