This Ain't Your Bob Hope Variety Road Trip, Folks...

This is day 11 of Nicky and Mike's "30 Minus 2 Days of Writing"...and we are fast (well slowly) approaching the half-way point of the challenge.  So far I've done pretty well, only using up two prior blogs (one because I just had to...it was a promise that I made -- and one because I had to...it was a migraine that I had).  I never write these things ahead of time - that would be cheating...and that's why some of mine are probably abysmally bad compared to the works of so many others.  So, with that said and out of the way, head on over there and enjoy today's prompt:  Road Trip

 

 

When you think of road trips...you might think of those Chevy Chase "Vacation" films...but I don't like them, so you will find no songs from Lindsay Buckingham here when I cue the intro music.

 

Cue intro music...
...The Who's - Going Mobile...

 

 

Aaaaaah...that's more like it.

 

I got my snacks packed and my pillow fluffed and I'm cosying on in for the long haul.  Let me just tilt my seat back like so and...okay...let me just try this again...ugggggggh...nope.  Let me ask someone else to do it. 

 

"Hey, could you tilt my seat back for me...I'm apparently too wimpy to push hard enough.  What do you mean my seat is already in the reclined position?"

 

Well, that's special.  If this seat's already in the reclined position, something tells me I don't want to see it upright.

 

It IS a nice plush bus, tho.  The school must have shelled out a lot o'cash to charter this puppy.  Let me just put my seat belt on...and...um...great...no seat belts.  I thought seat belts were mandatory?  Let me take a guess...seat belts are mandatory on every single vehicle except buses in Alabama, right?  

 

Great...my head is directly underneath one of the little "drop-down" movie screens -- happy, happy, joy, joy...I can see my head hitting it now when we go over a bump.  Lovely.  I take blood thinners.  I can see me having to be abulance'd over to the emergency room and everyone else going off to Washington, DC.

 

How long IS this trip anyway?  Twenty something hours?  Seriously twenty something hours stuck in the confines of this cramped seat with either the window to smash my head against or that thing looming up above my head?  Nice.  Oh, won't this be special.

 

Well, heat would be nice...what is it...like 50 degrees in here?  Everyone is complaining that it's freezin...everyone but the parents up front.  Seems the bus driver and his "entourage" get their little three feet's worth of heat...we get none.  Sheesh...you're kidding me...they actually want the air conditioner turned down lower.  That's great. 

 

I can't hear a damn word anyone's saying.  I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place...well, literally and figuratively.  All these girls...do they ever shut up?    All those parents...do they ever know I exist?  I guess not on both counts.  This will be fun.  I sense a never-ending headache coming on.

 

Could be worse I guess...I could be on the boy's bus...they are probably throwing each other and playing Frisbee in the aisle.  I would really be concerned about my head then.

 

Oh...someone is talking.  Something about a film.  Woohooo!  Someone's going to put on a VCR tape...that will quiet them down.  Well, that's great, not only can I not really see the screen (of which they have about six of them precariously placed about...one directly above my head by about three inches) - but I can't hear it anyway.  My hearing is shot...and I never played in "The Who".  I can understand Pete Townshend not hearing...but me?  I worked in an office...on the flight line with all the jet engines.  Nothing to lose hearing about there.

 

Okay, let's see what's about to start...all the girls are getting exceedingly  giggly.

 

Oh, for f***k's sake!  Are you kidding me??  "Twilight"???  Well, maybe my daughter wants to see it.  Nope.  Well, that's just great - but at least they seem engrossed texting among each other...maybe I can swap seats with that girl who has the whole row to herself.  She's younger than I am and I have a death box dangling above my head waiting to cleave it in half like I'm the only watermelon at the market and Gallagher just walked in.

 

Yes!  I shamed her into it!  Woohooo!  Old people guilt.  Gotta love it.  Three seats...all to myself; gotta love it!  Sure, I can't put my feet down because there's a ton of everyone's crap shoved on the floor and beneath the seats - but I don't have to touch the floor ever...because I can stretch the entire length of my legs out across all these seats.  Now, if I could just retract these arm rests.  There's gotta be a button around somewhere...or a lever. 

 

"Uh, could someone show me where the button is that..."

 

Oh, you're joking right?  You mean you can't move these things out of the way so I can get into a semi-prone position?

 

It's raining now?  Good. Maybe the bus driver will actually go slower than 80. No such luck.

 

There's construction barrels all over the road.  Good.  Maybe the bus driver will actually go slower than 80.  Ain't happening.

 

Does this bus driver think he's in the film, "Speed"?  Seriously, is there another speed he knows other than 80 mph??? 

 

Well, let me try to go to the bathroom while everyone is engrossed in "both" films.

 

Well, lookie there...isn't that cute?  Undoubtedly I have led a sheltered life. 

 

I have never been privy to the privy on a bus before.  Hmmmm...by the looks of it...many more things to bang my head into in here.  Let me work out the mechanics of it all -- I have to balance like the people in the Cirque du Soleil ...and I have to do it while peeing with my pants around my knees?  Oh...how rich.  I guess I missed that performance of theirs on PBS - as I have no clue how it's done.  Oh, wait...is THAT what I think it is...all the way in the corner of the toilet box?  Is that...oh, yes...oh, that's disturbing.  Great, now someone will think I did THAT.  I am NOT picking up someone's poop.  Wait...I couldn't pick it up if I wanted to...there's no toilet paper!  

 

This is going to be an interesting trip...a bus chock full o' girls...no toilet paper, a poop that at any time might decide to roll right at me...and I have to learn to levitate like David Blaine for the next two minutes in order for my posterior to stay well above touching range of anything in this germ-ridden cubicle.  Good luck unclenching my bladder during that 30 second window of opportunity when the ride finally smooths out.

 

How many hours left of this?  Twenty-one?

 

Time to cue some fade-out music from another "Who" album...

 

Okay, I've Had It!

I have had it with "staycations".

I also refuse to say the word "staycation".

I will, however, as you can plainly see, type the word "staycation" over and over again throughout the body of this blog.

I have nothing against people making up words...I love to make up words and have made up my fair share of them, many times by accident, but mostly on purpose. I saw Snoop Dogg on television once and he said he loved to make words up...hence all the "fo' shizzle" talk. Hey, I'm for it. But when you have a whole society who is saying words like "fo' shizzle" and mistakenly say "pizzle" (yeah, look that one up) trying to be cool, it's time to step aside -- as you aren't.

It's like people who say "bling". "Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon? And by the way, nice bling there on your Rolls."

See? It just doesn't work...so stop it already!

Now we have a whole nation who can't get through ANY holiday without saying the word "staycation" at least twice in any one news broadcast...or online newspaper. The airwaves are replete with "staycations". I'm sure any minute now the Go-Go's are thinking of getting back together in the studio to take this opportunity to cash in on changing up the lyrics to their "Vacation" song. In fact, if I remain very quiet, I swear I can hear it in some commercial right now.

Do I?

No.

Will I?

Probably.

I'm not even going over to YouTube as I'm sure it's been parodied there at least 20 gazillion times already by all too eager people willing to do anything to get featured on tomorrow's "Good Morning America" show.

So, I'm calling for a world-wide media ban of the word "staycation". I'm sure there are other words which can get the same point across just as "cutely".

Let me think...

The British probably go on "holistay" instead of "holiday". Or do they do that already? No...I will not Google...will not Google...will not Goo...

...but I will Google "vacation" to see what other words I can begrudgingly massacre in the name of journalism and colloquial catchetudeness.

Break: Hmmm...I guess no one probably wants to go "spring steak"...or "spring stayk". Oh, that one doesn't work at all...forget it.

Trip: Well, people used to take acid trips back in the 60's without ever leaving their houses...but I don't think we should bring that up here, although I guess, technically, it would apply.

Rest: "Rest" sounds more like something you do after you die than during vacation...being "laid to rest" and all. "Oh, look at Bob in this beautiful antique vase all cremated and stuff...well he certainly "urned" this well-deserved rest." Okay, scrap this one, too.

Retreat: I never heard of anyone going on a retreat refer to it as a vacation. I believe msn's thesaurus is wack...but I could possibly use it this way: "Our house was being retreated for fleas and we had to vacate the premises when Terminix tented it."

Leave: I think this is more of the military variety - "shore leave" and "LWOP" and all...Leave Without Pay...ing Anything on a Hotel "LWOPAOAH"...aka day-trip. Nope. That sucks even more than the other ones.

Escape: I never heard of a vacation referred to as an "escape"...and had it been synonymous with it, Steve McQueen's film, "The Great Escape" would have come off looking more like a Chevy Chase film than what it was. "National Lampoon's Great Escape" -- "National Lampoon's Christmas Escape" - eh...has some promise...especially with that methane gas escaping scene and all. But it really is far fetched. Oh, wait...if it's "far fetched" then it IS perfect...for a National Lampoon movie but not for a catchy new wordism.

Holiday: See above.

Well, there you have it. I've completely exhausted my online thesaurus' word bank and nothing has the same ring (not of the bling kind) or appeal as "staycation" - but at least I'm trendy nowadays. And when people ask me where I'm going for vacation I can appear green and hip...and no one has to know that I'm really not going anywhere because I have no money...

...and that's fo' shizzle.