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Adventure Kills Grandmother

Why isn’t she screaming?

My grown son, daughter and eight-year-old granddaughter and me are off to Puerto Rico tomorrow.  We’re going this week because it’s President’s week. My daughter felt it was necessary to travel on the most expensive and ridiculously crowded week so that Skylar doesn’t miss four freakin’ days of 2nd grade.
I raised my hand once, just once to object but quickly put it down to say, “You’re teaching your daughter good values, honey. Way to go!” I choked on my lie and made the reservation.
Choosing my battles is my battle plan.  Better still, there will be no battles.  My motto for this trip is just the opposite of Nancy Reagan’s … Just say YES!’  Spa treatments? Why not?  Life back home is a war zone – please check off that little box that explains how rocks lined up on your back relieves your unbearable stress, kids.
We absolutely need to reserve a pool pavilion and a beach cabana so no one stubs a toe racing down to get four chaises together. YES!  Are we spoiled? YES!
Their father always did things abbondanza (Italian for abundance) and who am I to break with tradition?  Enough has been broken in this family.  We simply cannot carry on without room service!
I’m not a beach and sand and pool and lounge type person.  I’m more of a “Let’s go into town for ice-cream” and hopefully stumble on to a street performer to cheer on and throw some sheckles into his hat.  Later we can look at the photos we took with him and have no clue who he was or where we were.
Isn’t that more fun than laying on a outside couch in a bathing suit that shows off publicly what I’ve been in recent times even covering up privately? It also beats going in the water.  Still, because her face makes me melt I promised my granddaughter that I would splash around in the pool with her and do relay races.  And, if she tilts her head and twinkles at me in the way that only she can, I may even venture into ocean with her.
I will abandon my fear of getting my hair wet. YES!  Love conquers trepidation! (note to self: make blow-out appts in advance)
But, the same family that needs to make top shelf dinner reservations also apparently craves adventure!  I am not talking about me…the rest of ‘those people” My idea of an adventure is forcing myself to double down at a blackjack table when I have worked hard to bring my pile of chips to a height that hurts.
My daughter has investigated an off site excursion that she is convinced “Afterwards, you’ll be so glad you did it!”  No I won’t.  I already know that I do not need a van to pick me up at sunrise to take me to a remote area where I must sign a waver promising not to sue if my leg falls off while jogging through the jungle. I do not need to hike across a rickety bridge a million miles up – closer to God than I hope to be for a while to a series of 5 (FIVE!) zip lines – ending with ‘a pleasant box lunch.’
Jacki, my daughter, my first-born and the reason my hair is not a little thicker has decided that we need this experience.  She must have forgotten the vacation in Chitiniza, Mexico years ago when we climbed a pyramid, a small pyramid and as I watched in awe young children skip down it I was convinced I would have to be rescued by helicopter because I was petrified to shimmy down.
“The brochure says it’s for ages 6-68, See, Mom…You’re not too old!”  Yup, she forgot.
I am not declaring this an official foreshadowing – all I’m saying is that it has…
a. ‘What was I thinking?’ all over it.
b.“Oh, my, Mrs. Scibelli, in the 25 years we’ve been in business this has neverhappened!” feel to it.
c. And, I can easily imagine in a tearfully delivered eulogy,  “Mom was a good sport.”
The best I can hope for is when Jacki calls for a reservation they will tell her “Sorry, it’s all sold out. It’s President’s Week you know!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU0eRBD-HRo Check this out if you think I am a wuss and exaggerating!  Would YOU do this?

 

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