Year: 2012

Last week on vacation Bobby and I had an EPIC double-parental fail: we left Joshua’s BAG at home.  We realized as soon as we arrived at my parent’s house and unloaded the van – there was no bag for poor Joshua! The kid had only his Nintendo DS and the clothes on his back.  Although I had packed his bag, I had failed to set it by the door with the other bags, and Bobby had then failed to make sure we had one bag per family member. Thus, the double-parental fail.

Our penalty for this giant fail?  A trip to the Lexington, Virginia, Walm@rt.  That’s what everyone wants to do after a 7-hour road trip with three kids!

I am spelling “Walm@rt” like this so they don’t SUE me. Because I HATE Walm@rt.  I regularly admonish and scold my friends who go there for any reason. Blecch. Yes, I AM too good for Walm@rt.  I am so high-falutin’ that I go to TARGET!  That’s right!  Me so fancy.

The problem is, where my parents live, Walm@rt is the only option for all the stuff an 8-year-old needs to take on vacation. They have Kroger and Food Lion for groceries, CVS for medicines and toiletries, but nowhere to buy clothes and underwear except Walm@rt.

So.  Bobby and Jenny went to Walm@rt.

And here, my friends, is what we found.

I know we were supposed to be looking for new clothes for Joshua, but I couldn’t resist these pants:

Then, I saw this nice family shopping for guns together.  Because the family that hunts together…kills things. Together. (Just ask my hairy brother and his sons!)

Next, we saw a Walm@rt employee hard at work cleaning up a spill…

by squirting cleaner on the floor and pushing a rag around with his foot.  (You can just SEE me rolling my eyes, can’t you?”

Also, that lady whose head is visible as she walks by him?  Was about 50 years old and had on a paper-think tank top and NO BRA.  I couldn’t photobomb her because I would never traumatize anyone by perpetuating that image. And it was BAAAAAADDD.

After finding Joshua three outfits and some underwear, goggles for swimming and a few food items we needed, we headed to the checkout.  We tried to get the cheapest stuff possible, but we still ended up spending EIGHTY BUCKS!

Low prices my @$$!! ROLL THIS BACK, Walm@rt!!

Ergh.  At least we were able to finally make it out to the parking lot. Something interesting about the parking lot of this particular Walm@rt is that you walk out the door and smack into an amazing view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I mean, it’s just gorgeous.  So, if you walk backwards into Walm@rt, you can hold off the pain a little bit longer.  However, when we exited the Walm@rt, our breathtaking view was assaulted by this:

You can only imagine what kind of music was blaring from that monstrosity. As usual, the Walm@rt parking lot is a showplace for class and decorum!

Bobby and I let out sighs of relief and superiority when we were finally able to climb back into our minivan and head back up the Walm@rt-less mountain to my parents’ house again. After discovering that the basketball shorts we bought Joshua were listed as “dazzle shorts” (really? DAZZLE SHORTS, Walm@rt??? I just bought my 8-year-old son DAZZLE SHORTS?) on the receipt, I’m pretty glad we won’t have to go back until we make another epic parental fail next year (it’s bound to happen!)

I’m sure you’ve heard of the famous “Five Stages of Grief”, popularized in some book by some guy who was probably a psychologist, but please, like I’m gonna do the research.  You’ll just have to trust me if this isn’t sounding familiar.  I’ve never led you astray before, right? Riiight??  In any case, last week on our family trip (because when your toddler gets up 50 bajillion times a night because he’s sleeping in a strange place, let me tell you, it’s not a “vacation.”  It’s a “family trip”),  I discovered that there are also also “Five Stages of Road Trip”.  Five. Grueling. Stages.  Allow me to lay them out for you, and then I hope you’ll feel free to add your own.

Stage One: The WOOHOO!  Stage

 

The WOOHOO! stage is when everyone is just happy to get on the road.  The whole family is looking forward to vacation and WOOHOOO!!!!!!!!  We’re on our way!

This stage lasts approximately three minutes, or as soon as you get on the highway, whichever comes first.  It is followed quickly by:

Stage Two: The Needy Stage

The Needy Stage is designed by the children in the family principally to keep the parents from actually sitting still and concentrating on driving.  During the Needy Stage, electronic devices will need batteries, thirsts will need to be quenched, bladders emptied, and fights broken up.  Seat assignments are commonly rearranged during unplanned pit stops.  And parents commonly begin craving some sort of mind-numbing narcotic.  The Needy Stage lasts approximately  FOR FREAKING EVER.  However, if a parent gets desperate enough, it can be cut short by:

Stage Three: The Yo Gabba Gabba Stage

The Yo Gabba Gabba Stage is the commonly opened up by a chorus of “Are we there yet??”  and “How many more minutes?” and is also known as the “Whatever the hell you have to put in the DVD player so the kids will zone out and SHUT UP” stage.  Maybe for you it’s the Dora Stage or the – gasp! – BARNEY Stage.  Maybe you don’t have a DVD player and you take one for the team and insert {shudder} Kidz Bop (banned in our van! I’d rather have Barney any day.) into the CD player.  But whatever it is, it’s the definition of “desperate times call for desperate measures”.  You need those kids to forget they have needs and just become quiet, DVD-watching zombies.  It is the stage where the sounds of Foofa and Tootie doing a dancey-dance is bliss compared to your kids’ discontented shrieks.  It is the stage where wrong is right and right is wrong!  It generally lasts exactly as long as the DVD or CD you’ve relented to.  And then, we move into:

Stage Four: The Put Hi-C in the Baby’s Sippy Cup Stage

This stage occurs near the end of the road trip.  Typically when you are less than an hour away from your destination, one or more of your kids will lose their flippin’ MIND.  No DVD or CD can console them, they are DONE.  The only solution in this case is to ply said child with some sort of snack they are not normally allowed to have.  For older kids, you’re pulling your secret-weapon Hershey bar from the cooler you’ve stashed in a concealed compartment, after you and your co-parent have verified the pre-arranged code word.  In our case, “The Platypus Mates at Midnight” meant, “Puncture that juice box intended for the big kids and squeeze every last drop into the baby’s sippy cup because he’s never had sugary juice before and he is going to looooooooooooove it and quit screaming DO IT DO IT NOW!!!!”

(It worked like a charm, BTW.)

This stage can be very, very, messy, but is totally worth it 100% of the time.  And, it will usually hold you over until you can transition into the final stage.

Stage Five: The Euphoria Stage

The Euphoria Stage occurs when you have about 5-10 minutes left of your trip.  This is the point where the smiles return and the kids realize that adventure is finally, really, actually around the corner.  In our kids’ case, they’ve been to this destination before and they start to see familiar stuff and IT. IS. EXCITING!  Every curve in the road is like a roller coaster, every hill bigger and more fun than the one before, and every landmark is a thrilling memory.  The whole family is all smiles during this stage and they remember why they set out together in the first place.  The kids get super-giggly and super-cute and and you know that giving over to the evils of DJ Lance Rock and High Fructose Corn Syrup was not in vain!

And you can move on to the Five Stages of Vacation.

Those are my Five Stages of Road Trip! What are yours?