This might be the most epic idea ever.

So I am trying to decide if I am crazy for wanting to drive to Minnesota or a genius. My parents drove to Minnesota and Florida with four kids several times when I was a child. And all I remember is that by the end of that drive it was a miracle there was no blood. Anytime you are forced to be in a car for more than eight hours it is impossible to look on the bright side. And Minnesota is no eight hour drive in case you were wondering. 

So why in the world would I want to drive my three sisters and myself to Minnesota. There is one very simple reason: money. I refuse to give the airlines that much of my money when flying is a miserable experience.  To fly five people to Minnesota is over three thousand dollars before taxes, baggage fees,  parking fees and airport food.  That is no small investment. And for what? So you can be harassed at security, be delayed during boarding and be delayed while waiting for takeoff. Oh and be forced to sit in the middle seat between two people competing for the last spot on Jerry Springer.

So I thought I would a genius and avoid paying the airlines for the privilege of a miserable, delayed filled travel experience and put myself in charge of a miserable, mile-filled car ride.  If you look at it solely from a monetary perspective it makes sense.

Cost to rent a car for 10 days  - $250.00. I do have a car that I could drive but considering that my car is very temperamental, it is probably not a good idea to allow it to possibly strand us on some random highway in Tennessee.  I would also like to point out that even if we flew to Minnesota, we would still have to rent a car once we were there.

Cost to stay in a hotel on the way there -$150.00. This is a necessary cost because I refuse to do all the driving in one day.

Cost to stay in a hotel on the way home - $150.00 Again necessary because only someone with suicidal tendencies would think it was a good idea to drive home in one shot, after having looked at these same people for ten days straight.

Cost to put gas in the car - $550.00. Got to get the car to move. I could have them push it, but a snail probably moves faster. We would have to spend some money on gas even if we just flew because we would still at some point acquire a rental car to fill up.

Cost to feed the animals at the zoo - $250. If their mouths are filled with food, they will hopefully be less inclined to use their wonderful backseat driving directions.

Grand total -$1350.00. So I feel like a genius for keeping two thousand dollars to spend on a Bassett hound and my exotic animal collection. However, there is a part of me that is questioning just how much my sanity is worth. I might save two grand but lose my mental stability in the process.

Don’t get me wrong. Flying with my sisters and Clinton would be stressful I am sure. Trying to get everyone through security and make sure they don’t over pack and arranging seating so everyone can look out the window. But not sure anything compares to sitting a car with three other people for two consecutive days.  I may or may not hate myself and my travel companions; but I am not sure that I want to find out the hard way.

Sure, driving through scenic roads and cute little towns is a great way to spend an hour or two. But after about five hours all you want to do is just get out of the stinking car.  Plus there is the huge possibility that somewhere, on some highway we will get stuck in some ridiculous traffic jam.  And that is a recipe for disaster. I don’t mind being stuffed in car, but that damn car better be moving.

So I think we are going to go for it. If for no other reason than driving as opposed to flying allows me to cram more clothing into my luggage. I also already have extra rope so I can tie someone to the roof if they get on my last nerve. I already have someone in mind for this actually….oh and I can’t forget that I need to make a detour to Coburn, VA and pick up a goat. Don’t ask me where I am going to put the goat at the hotel or while we are in restaurants because I haven’t gotten that far. But at least I know where to go to get the goat.

 

Oh and Clinton is chickening out of the car ride and flying directly to Minnesota. He is doesn’t think he would be allowed to live through the car ride otherwise.  And maybe Clint and I should go ahead and get married before this trip because afterwards he might want to try and get as far away as possible, so I out to trap him before he knows any better.

This is a sneak peak of my glorious driving skills. 

 

I want a Basset Hound for Christmas. That is all I truly want.

I have been steadily trying to convince Clinton the merits of owning a Basset Hound, particularly an overweight, slobbery one. He really isn’t warming up the idea yet, but I still have time. I think he usually just gives in because he is tired of listening to me. I tend to have that effect on people. I also tend to bother other people to amuse myself when I am bored.

For example, we went for a walk the other day and I spent the entire hour long walk poking him with my hair clip when he wasn’t looking. Now the reason this was so amusing was because I would poke him and he would attempt to swat me away, but since I had already retracted my hand he just ended up smacking himself. At one point I was laughing so hard I honestly thought I would just have to sit down on the side of road and make Clint go get the car. He informed me however that he would just leave me there and go home and enjoy the peaceful calm of the house without me. This got my butt in gear because I didn’t want to be left on the side of the road without someone to torture for my amusement.

Another favorite pastime of mine is pulling down Clint’s pants. When he wears something like gym shorts, I like to randomly try to pull his pants down. Now don’t worry, he is wearing underwear so he wouldn’t be completely exposed. And I don’t even pull them down far. Just four or five inches.  Enough to annoy him and make him have to stop what he is doing to pull them back up.  Thankfully for Clint, he doesn’t wear gym shorts very often, but when he does I get my fun in.

I also love bothering Clinton to force him to do his animals imitations. He does an excellent platypus, owl and brontosaurus impersonation .Now he normally only does these impersonations to shut me up or to prevent me from making him endure any other plans I may come up with to amuse myself. A couple of animal imitations usually leaves me satisfied for about fifteen minutes. And those fifteen minutes are very important because they give Clinton a chance to regroup his sanity. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t spend every minute of every day annoying Clinton. But it is great entertainment when I am bored. This is probably why he does not enjoy long trips in the car with me.

But I didn’t come up with these ingenious ideas all by myself. No, you see I learned the art of being annoying when bored from a very dear friend. This friend has done quite a lot of ridiculous things to me over the years.

There was the time we drove to the beach and she spent over an hour stuffing grapes in my ears. In case you were wondering – cold squishy grapes feel very gross when shoved in your ear canal.

There was also the time she was bored and decided to coat my entire face in cheap makeup and give me cornrows.

I can’t leave out the time she decided to stuff our clothes with pillows so that we looked the 300 pound sumo wrestlers.

She also had the brilliant idea to cover me with  tattoos drawn on by gel pens.  My mother scrubbed me with rubbing alcohol so hard I was red for a week.

Whenever we were somewhere that is exceptionally boring like Mass or standing in line at the grocery store, I will find my nose being honked. This causes me to make a noise like a horse which provides her with endless delight. She has continued to honk for nose for like past 12 years. And it continues to provide her with amusement.

So you can see that I came to the idea of harassing Clinton quite naturally. It was what I was always used to.

 

Not my puppy but proof that I love cuddly, furry things. 

 

Those poptarts came in handy.

Well it is a good thing that Clint stocked up on Poptarts and Granola Bars because low and behold we did actually lose power.

All day during the hurricane I was insisting that the weather wasn’t that bad and everyone needed to stop being so babyish. Sure the rain was annoying and the wind made the trees sway ominously. But that didn’t mean the world was ending.  Well we went out for an essential trip to Target around 430 and after a gust of wind literately pushed me backwards I decided maybe this was a little more than just your typical wind and rainstorm. We packed it up and headed home.

At home I tuned on all the TVS so I could thoroughly enjoy the dramatic weather reporting being done by our local newscasters and Clint and I broke out Monopoly. Now our version of Monopoly is a little bit different.  Most people stop playing when they run out of money, but we just go into debt to each other and the bank. This can make for a very long marathon game. We also compete with each other to buy the most property and load it with houses and hotels so that whoever lands on that property is bound to be indebted to the owner. This constant cycle of buying also leaves us with no cash to pay the rent if we land on a taken property so we just start a sentence of servitude to the owner.  We had just started to buy up the property in earnest when our lights went out.

Clint and I spent a good five minutes lighting every candle that we owned and then we enjoyed the novelty of lighting the house by candlelight for a good sixty seconds. We then realized that even though the candlelight kept us from walking into the walls, it did not provide us with enough light to do anything but sit and talk. It was too dark to read or continue playing so we sat on the couch and stared at each other.  This was no longer amusing after five minutes. After an hour I was desperate for any source of amusement.  The TV is a lifesaver. It provides a great distraction when I don’t have anything else to do.  It was too dark for me to even read. So out of sheer boredom Clint and I went to bed at 8 pm.  Because there was only so much we could talk about after an hour or two. Had there been enough light I probably would have been bored enough to actually go through my clothing and organize my kitchen. Or maybe not……

When we woke up the next morning life seemed great. The sun was shining. It wasn’t hot. And then I went to get water from my refrigerator and it took me a minute before I realized that nothing was going to come out. And the reason that nothing was coming out was because we had no electricity. I was doomed to drinking room temperature water from the tap.  The morning only got worse as I came to the realization that I would have to throw all the food away that was in my fridge and freezer. I was upset about losing the food, but I was most upset about losing the ice cream in my freezer. I had so much ice cream and I had to throw it all away. I was devastated.  All that magnificent ice cream gone to waste.

I was also annoyed at the lack of hot water. So I did what any reasonable person with three gym memberships would do. I went to each gym until I found one that had power and hot water and promptly made myself right at home. Can’t beat borrowed internet and hot water.

However when I arrived back home and started make my routine visits to the fridge to find something to eat. I was greeted by a depressingly empty fridge each time. This was starting to depress me. I was also getting annoyed by the lack of air conditioning. I thought about posting a sign in my yard stating that I was looking for a fan boy who looks good shirtless. But I didn’t want to risk making Clint suspicious…..he would definitely believe that I was desperate for some relief from the muggy, humidity that is Richmond, but he might question my insistence on a shirtless barely legal boy.

Needless to say after our power came on I went around turning lights on just for the novelty on of it. I was tempted to turn my air conditioning to artic settings but I didn’t want Clint to have a stroke when he got the power bill.  I learned a lot from my lack of electricity experience, mainly that I can live without a lot of things but I cannot live without hot water, a way to keep food cold and cook it, and a fan or air conditioning.

This picture is from a year ago before I so lovingly totaled Clint's car. Amazing what happens in a year.