4th of July trip report 2002
Saturday, June 29 2002
I left Seattle at about 11:30 and headed towards Boise. I drove, and drove, then drove some more. Nothing else happened. This begins the following 48 hours, most of which is a complete blur.
Monday, July 1 2002
Ok, a little background is in order here. When I left Seattle on Saturday, I had loaded four El Cheapo Sprite-esque sodas into my little cooler. I had consumed two of these on the way over, leaving two in the cooler in the truck bed. Monday, noonish, I was called to help mom and Chris move some of grandma’s stuff. During the drive, I grabbed one of the sodas from the cooler and popped it into a cup holder up front, though I never opened it.
Now, don’t jump ahead, this is my story.
So anyway, Chris and I stopped at Burger King on the way back and grabbed some drive-thru gut garbage. Home we went to eat our kill and sit inside doing a lot more of nothing. I went out to my truck a couple of hours later for something, probably to gaze upon its testosterone-ish beauty, and what do I find? It seemed that the lawn sprinklers had come on at some point and drenched the inside of my truck. No big deal upon initial inspection, but note that I said it “seemed” that the sprinklers were to blame. Much to my chagrin, I realized that the substance covering the interior of my reasonably-brand-new behemoth of a vehicle was something much more … sticky.
Now, I feel that I must make a point, for those of you who have never seen a Chevy Avalanche, of noting the sheer massiveness of this truck. It’s really friggin’ big. This should indirectly illustrate the vast expanse of interior surface area available to, umm, soil. Just trying to paint the scene for you. You’re welcome.
So, as I made my cursory investigation, it slowly became apparent what had transpired, thankfully, in my absence. According to my highly trained eye, the previously mentioned Designer Imposter beverage can had slowly, as the day progressed, been exposed to direct sunlight and “ruptured”. I’m still trying to locate a word that would accurately describe the event that the gory scene was depicting. Erupted? Detonated? Went supernova? Feel free to locate a thesaurus and insert your favorite synonym here. Whatever term you choose, I assure you that it was undeniably violent. How do I know this? Well, these are the items that were literally covered and/or saturated with said cheap-ass carbonated beverage:
Drivers seat, passenger seat, rear seat (both sides), both front floor mats, entire cloth headliner, rear-view mirror, entire windshield, radar detector, overhead console lights and controls. The dashboard top and face, stereo and all dash-located controls, steering wheel, drivers side door and window, passenger side door (that window and sunroof were open), passenger side view mirror (yes, the one on the outside), both rear side windows, and far rear window. Two CD cases, eight CD’s, cell phone and charging cable. Both cup holders and cubby holes contained puddles, as did the rear floor mats.
Where else did I find this satanic fluid? Well, after being launched out the sunroof, the soda apparently failed to establish a stable orbit around earth. Its reentry trajectory brought quite a lot of it to rest on the outside of my windshield. If you were still undecided, this should give you an idea that this must have been a massively catastrophic event.
Needless to say (though I’ll say it anyway), I spent the next hour wiping down the previously mentioned items with Windex and a wet cloth. The headliner is still in pretty bad shape. The doors still sound like Velcro when opened. There are still a few specks of sugary sweetness scattered here and there, noticeable when the sun is just right.
I am now convinced that the inside of a soda can is vastly larger than the outside would have you believe. 12 FL OZ my ass. That, and you have no idea how nasty some sugar-based liquids can become when suddenly removed from their natural habitat and exposed to 90 degree Boise heat. I can’t imagine how this story would read if I’d been in the truck at the time.
I don’t even want to talk about it.
Couldn’t it have been worse, you ask? Oh, certainly. Rachelle told me a story of their dog, Levi, a relatively large black lab. Apparently, Rachelle had taken Levi with her on some errands and had stopped at the horse stables to see her horse. Levi, being a dog, had spent most of this stop munching on big steaming mounds of horse manure. Nummy nummy in his tummy tummy. Or at least you might think so. By the time the pair were back in the car, Levi’s tummy had decided that this particular crap was not a very good vintage. Yep, up it came. Now, dog vomit is usually pretty nasty stuff on its own, and horse droppings are marginally worse. It’s difficult for me to imagine cleaning up dog puke consisting mostly of partially digested horse shit. I think I’m going to stop trying. My throat is constricting.
Let’s move on.
So, while I’m out cleaning up my personal sodabomb site, dad brought out Lilia. Lili is probably the most intelligent 2-year-old I’ve ever encountered. It’s almost spooky. Anyway, I split my time between cleaning and watching Lili and dad in the back seat. Dad seemed to be trying to convince Lili to shove her feet into my rear cup holders. To what end, I still don’t know. You just have to know dad. When you do, you realize that wondering is a fruitless and mostly unrewarding practice. He’s just … dad. Anyway, she was just not falling for it. See? Pretty smart, eh? Just then a plane went overhead. Dad says “Look Lili, see the plane? Say ‘Bye bye plane! Have a nice trip!’” Lili, as usual, repeats this word for word with grade-school accuracy. Then, about an hour later, we’re all out in the back yard when another plane goes by. Sure enough there’s a little voice spouting out “Bye bye plane! Have a nice trip!” Way smart. She knows almost every color you point at, can count down from 3, can name most US coins, and can spell Mississippi backward while reproducing your favorite Rembrandt using only chalk and saliva.
Ok, so she also uses the occasional crayon as well.
See? Freaky smart. It’s a little intimidating, really. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t that smart when I was that age. Come to think of it, I’m not so sure I’m that smart now. Nothing a little well-placed cranial trauma couldn’t fix. Of course, I can tie my own shoes and wipe my own butt, so I really shouldn’t feel threatened.
That said, she loves her Unca Jason, so she’s A-OK in my book.
Monday, July 1 2002 (late)
The Xbox rules. The Xbox is magical. The Xbox is bringing families closer together all over the nation. The Xbox is making kids everywhere laugh at their dads. We are no exception.
So Steven and I are kickin’ it with pops on Monday night. The entertainment of choice you wonder? None other than Outlaw Golf. Oh yes, the most heinous and repulsive golf game ever to grace a game console. You really just have to play it to understand.
The game starts out well enough. The three of us are playing pretty well, dad with some occasional coaching.
Then something happened to dad. He began to suck. Badly.
Now don’t get me wrong, some people are just naturally good gamers. Some others are naturally bad gamers. Dad is, well, not really either of those at all times. In contrast, he seems to alternate between acceptable skill and complete suckage at will. He’s like some sort of skill chameleon experiment gone bad. Fascinating, really.
Allow me to explain.
We had made it to the 8th hole with relatively little trouble. Sure, there were some delays as one of us tried such-n-such shot again, but overall we were motoring right along. Then The Change happened. It was so sudden, I don’t think Steven or I noticed until it was, regrettably, too late. By that time we were in total hysterics. See, dad was trying to whack this little ol’ golf ball up onto the green and kept slicing it off to the right. Way off to the right. Again, and again, and yes, yet again. I lost count at around 12 tries.
Now, this alone does not make for true hysteria. Oh no. In order for this event to spontaneously create and sustain a truly hysterical chain reaction, two or more Fish children must be added. Preferably the two most vile and crass of the bunch. Luckily for you, dear reader, Steven and I were on hand. What began as an innocent golf game between father and sons became a swirling eddy of the following elements:
1) Dad alternately trying to whack the mother %&#ing ball in a straight line, and trying to refrain from beating his children.
2) Steven and I alternately trying to keep from wetting ourselves, and trying to be quiet so mom wouldn’t wake up and begin beating her children.
No, I can’t tell you what was so funny in a way that would be funny again. It just doesn’t work that way. Here’s what did happen though. To summarize, Steven came up with the “Dad-o-matic Slicer”. This was altered to the “Papa-matic, from Ronco”. Quickly added was the inevitable “It slices, it dices, it makes soups in its own bowl! It makes curly fries! Yes, it’s just that easy! Only 3 easy payments of $19.95. As seen on TV. Some assembly required. Batteries not included. Limited to stock on hand. Selling fast, get yours today. Call now and we’ll include a commemorative Elvis plate. Operators are standing by.” It just went on and on. My stomach hurt the next day from the strain and force of the laughter.
Now look, I told you that I couldn’t really make it funny again. You had plenty of warning, but did you listen? No. You read my ramblings assuming that there simply must be a punch line, and are now feeling cheated. Well, skip ahead to the next day. Maybe there’ll be something there that’ll give you a chuckle. No promises though, as I haven’t written it yet.
Thursday, July 4 2002
My younger brothers are insane. Maybe it has to do with Boise. The heat? The air? The water perhaps? Your guess is as good as mine.
So, it’s the night of the fourth. We’re all hanging at Chris’s house drinking some brew. Noting that we didn’t have any fireworks, everyone decided that 10pm would be a good time to go shopping. And I mean everyone. The house quickly emptied, leaving me alone with the bar-b-que. I won’t hold that against them. For long.
Ok, so the clan returns with a $40 box of your readily available El Wimpo fireworks. Truth be told, they were actually pretty good. Now, keep in mind that we were raised by dad, who really did the 4th. I mean REALLY DID it. This might help explain the decisions that Chris and Ric made next. I can only assume it was because these corner-bought fireworks just weren’t cutting it. What do they do? Well, throwing fireworks at each other of course. Yes … lit, flaming, sparking, whistling, popping incendiary devices hurtling through the air between two brothers. Granted, we’ve all seen the Flaming Benucci Brothers juggling flaming bowling pins on TV. Pretty cool stuff. I’ve always assumed, and you’ll likely agree, that these yahoos had a lot of training and practice. Our two yahoos, Chris and Ric, have had, as far as I know, no training or practice in the art of hucking flaming anythings at each other. They are not named Benucci. They are not even Italian. They are young, however, and I envy them for that.
Dateless points of interest
I’ve noticed a couple things in the Boise area that I find worth mentioning. They have no real relevance to this trip, other than the fact that I saw them in this wacky town.
The other day, while leaving Steven and Rachelle’s house, I saw a street sign. The sign itself was pretty standard, with the big yellow “cross street ahead” diamond with a + symbol. Below this, as usual, was a second sign plate with the name of the cross street. This particular street is named “Ten Mile”. Below this was yet another sign plate which read “Dead End”.
Another sign I passed was at the entrance to the Simplot Sport Complex. Basically a huge amount of acreage devoted to just about any sport you’d like to play. The sign reads “No Pets” and includes a dog image with the standard NO circle superimposed over it. Below this, in smaller type, the sign reads “No Dogs. No Cats. No Llamas.” I shit you not.