Vacation 2.0

By Wesley Boynton

Let's do this right now...  Maybe burn some bagels.

Dad was right – not a phrase you hear often in our family--At least not from me.

We got to the hotel, and we were tired, and grumpy.  But he didn't make this prediction to us, he made it to the Econo Lodge online reservation system under the “Special Requests” box – in the form of this:
“When we arrive at this room, we will be very tired and grumpy, and would like you to tell us a joke.”

When we arrived, I was asleep and my mom waited in the car.  He later told us the story—He walked in, and as he was about to go to the room, the man at the counter says “Wait—I guess I owe you a joke.  We tried for a while – all day, in fact, to come up with a joke; this was the best un-offensive one we could think of”

“Shoot,” replied my dad.

“So these two muffins were sitting in an oven.  And one says to the other: 'It's getting kind of hot in here,' to which the other replied: “AHHHH!  A TALKING MUFFIN!”

While I'd heard the joke, “That's ok, Wes, the guy was working for his money”

Now before I venture further into the deep, unused recesses of your mind – I'll clarify upon the title.  Those who look back in the archives will find an article from two years ago written on vacation.  It was pretty bad.  And since we came back this year to not only the outer banks, NC, but to the same house, I was sitting in the same room, with the same laptop, on the same version of OpenOffice, with the same old article on the recent files list.  So I thought I'd see if I can do any better – maybe even make it a tradition.  Every vacation I get off my lazy ass (Of all the times to be a self-starter...) and write an article, whether I like it or not.  Whatever – Burn that bridge when I get there.

We woke up the next morning and I hopped out of bed.

Okay, “hopped” isn't really the right word.  “Sagged,” maybe...  “Fell.”   Yeah, that's the one.  And inquired about breakfast, to which daddy dearest replied that there was food in the lobby.  Mom told me to take a shower, but screw that—I'm on vacation.  So first let me explain—as I mentioned earlier, I was asleep when we checked in.  So we get into a sort of nice, cheap little room and I assume we're in an Econo lodge or cheap little road motel.    My parents knew, but I assumed.  That's important here.  Because when I got up and walked to the lobby, I got a nice plate of donuts, eggs, biscuts, some juice, and two bagels.  Well, one...  But two.

You see, there was a conveyor toaster.  It has a conveyor inside with toasters below, and it goes over the conveyor, then drops down.  The speed of the conveyor  determines your dark to light ratio.  You split the bagel, and place the two halves face down on an angled plane that drags them into the toaster so as to not burn one self.  I didn't know, and had no sleep.  I dropped the whole bagel in.  About ten seconds later, the conveyor stopped.  I thought that it might stop things to toast them, until I looked in.

There was my bagel.  On fire.  Like—flames, burning, the whole schmere.  So I turned it off and calmly walked over to the “pantry” with workers in it, who pulled it out bit-by-bit with tongs until the rest dropped out.  As I walked out, I noticed the sign out front.  “HAMPTON INN & SUITES”

“Hmm”,I thought.    “That's funny, I didn't think we would pay so much for one night in a hotel..”.

As I re-entered our room after crossing the parking lot, my dad looked at my plate.  “WTF?!” he said.  But not really, of course.  “What?  They didn't have any of that when I got there!  They had krispy kreme, little bagels, no eggs, no biscuts...  Jeez, Wesman.  You got there at the right time.”

“The eggs were in the little square, right behind where you come in.  hard to miss, dad.  Oh—I didn't know this was a Hampton.”

“It's not.”

“Yeah, it is” I assured to him, gesturing an all-knowing-teenager hand out the window, finger outstretched towards the sign, to which he smartly replied with a resounding: “Wes?  That's a different hotel.”

So, for those just tuning in, let's recap.

I had then stolen breakfast from a hotel we were not staying at, and nearly burnt down their building in the process.

This complete with another trip to the Ice Cream Nazi—a man who spent fifteen minutes explaining to us the different varieties of ice cream and smoothies, and what was and was not legal  in a small province in Poland (or something...  We tuned him out after the bit about the ingredients he adds to edy's ice cream)--who this year seemed quite a bit nicer.  I'm sure the big colored glasses, tye-dye t-shirt and spaced out grin had nothing to do with it – that and he left the shop to go have one puff from a hand-rolled something or another in his car.

My dad also had to go to the hospital.  He got a stint, tests, and a catscan.  He's fine, the cat is still recovering.

The house we stayed in was nice like it used to be, but it had new carpet.  And the moron who installed it didn't remove the tacks.  At least I know when to close the bathroom door.  Every time someone comes up, I hear “OW *thump thump thump*”

© 2004-2007 Wesley Boynton, all rights reserved.  Don't  steal my stuff, assholes.