Putting the FUN in ‘dysFUNctional family vacation’
Howdy friends. Today I woke up in kind of a funky mood. Seems like a sad or funky mood is the new normal. But then I thought, “Not today Donald … I mean, Satan! Today, I will not mope around this house and blankly stare at a screen to pass the time away. Today, I will put some Bailey’s in my coffee and some pep in my step. I will have a great day!”
I am thankful that I woke up at all, that all my critters are healthy and that I am loved. That is enough to turn anybody’s day around.
Usually when I want to cheer myself up, I think of where we can go on our next vacation. But that doesn’t seem right these days. I have been off work for three months. It’s not been a vacation, but God knows when I will be able to take time off in the future!
Really, I just wanna get back to work. But it is nice to think of the vacation possibilities: an Alaskan cruise, snorkeling someplace tropical and beautiful, New York for a Broadway musical or even a camping trip in Oklahoma. Everything sounds so exciting after three months at home.
Bitch, at this point it would be exciting just to visit friends across town.
When I was a kid, we didn’t go on many vacations. As a matter of fact, my family only went on one actual vacation. It was years after Mom and Dad got divorced, but they decided to take my sister and me on a Big Texas Vacation.
I was 14, and my sister Brandy was 11. And out of the blue, Mom told us to pack a bag because we were going on vacation. She said we were going to play it my ear and just see where the day takes us, but that we were going to start on the coast in Galveston.
My sister and I are both pretty cynical. I remember telling her, “This isn’t going to end well.” Brenda and James Love — the parents — were not known to get along for more than an hour at a time. But hell, what did we have to lose? We were excited just to go somewhere.
We had friends that would tell us about these cool family vacations they took to the Grand Canyon or to Disneyland, and we were lucky if we got to go to Six Flags once during the summer. I’m not dissing the parentals; we were poor, so they really did do the best they could by us. And looking back now, I realize what a big deal this dysfunctional family vacation really was.
So the day came, and we loaded up Dad’s truck and took off.
This was in 1987, and the front of the truck was cramped, so my sister and I laid down a blanket and rode in the back of the truck. Fuck a seatbelt! (That was way before they had laws against what we were doing.)
We had a big bag of Doritos and a couple of Dr. Peppers, so we were set. It felt like it took days, what with all the bouncing and wind whipping we went through. But we made it to Galveston in one piece. We stayed at a little motel across from the beach, and we hit the beach til sunset that first day.
The next day, Dad wanted to go fishing, and Mom wanted to lay on the beach. So Brandy went with Dad, and I went with Mom. They fished off of the pier near we were laying out on the beach.
I was kind of scared of the ocean. I saw Jaws when I was five, and it scarred me for life. So did Jaws 2, Jaws 3 in 3-D and the super-ridiculous Jaws 4. I think we had even rented Jaws from Blockbuster just a few weeks before this vacation, so that shit was fresh in my mind.
So I am exploring the beach, being that goofy kid looking for cool shells and rocks, when my Dad yelled for me to get into the water and untangle my sister’s line that had somehow gotten caught on something under the pier. So I, not wanting to be a puss, swallowed down my fear and followed her line into the darkness under the pier. I could see the line; it didn’t look like it was caught on any of the beams but instead just went straight down into the water.
My evil sister told me to hurry up and to quit being a wuss. I crept closer and closer. The water kept getting deeper and deeper. By now it was almost up to my nips.
I finally got to the line and pulled on it. It felt stuck, so I pulled on it again. And that’s when the shark she had hooked flew straight up at me, near my face, slapping me with its tail.
I fucking screamed like the last girl in a horror movie and Jesused my way out of that dark water. I have never been so scared in my life.
The people on shore were laughing; the people in the water were laughing; my wonderful family was laughing. Even I laughed hysterically — once I was sure I wasn’t going to be eaten by God’s finned devil.
My dad and sister reeled in the mighty shark that had almost taken my life and prematurely streaked my hair white like Jo Beth Williams in Poltergeist. It turned out that the behemoth was barely a foot long. It was just a baby — but still big enough that it could have taken or damaged my favorite appendage.
Of course, my sister demanded that we keep the little fucker as a souvenir, and my dad said okay. We were going to put it in a jar with alcohol to preserve it as a reminder of the time I almost died of fright and my family almost died from laughing.
Unfortunately, Dad’s follow-through on that was lacking.
The next day we went to Houston so we could go to AstroWorld. That day started off great. Dad and I rode just about every thrill ride they had at AstroWorld. There was a space shuttle ride, kind of like the pirate ship ride at the State Fair, except this one went all the way around — back and forth, back and forth, and then all the way around … . Well, ALMOST all the way around.
The first time we went completely upside down, there was a click, and something locked. We were upside down and not moving — like, at all. Change is falling out of pockets; sunglasses are crashing down onto the roof of the ride below us.
Then the ride operator comes over the loud speaker and politely tells us that the ride has malfunctioned, but it would only be a minute before they got it fixed.
It took 12 minutes.
That is a long time to be upside down, with all the blood rushing to your face. Some people were yelling or laughing; some were freaking out. We just sat patiently, waiting to get back down. I think that was the last ride we rode that day; our stomachs were done.
As we leave the park and head to Dad’s truck in the parking lot, it hits us — the most horrible, rank smell of fishy death I have ever smelled. The cooler that held Brandy’s prize shark was open and little Miss Shark had been sitting in the Texas summer heat all day.
We smelled it from so far away in that parking lot, and that smell stayed with us into San Antonio where we went to see the Alamo, and it followed us all the way home — even though we threw the shark away in a trashcan at AstroWorld.
My family only went on one family vacation, but it was a doozy. And it is one of my favorite childhood memories.
Remember to always love more … . That’s it! Just love more! XOXO, Cassie Nova