Day Two

Ah, Day Two.

We woke around the same time the following morning, which I was sort of angry about because I'd hoped to be out of the filthy hotel before any of it settled in to my pores, but that didn't happen. We quickly packed up the stuff we had to drag out of the car (because we had to have food, water, and litter box for the animals and a diaper bag for Nora) and checked out. We got out of the little town and zoomed through Little Rock before we stopped for food.

Day Two meant that the dog stopped shaking and the kitten understood that we weren't going to toss him on the side of the road. Nora was still fussing, but Adam and I were better at ignoring her. We had some serious ground to cover if we were going to make it to my dad's a decent hour and she had to deal with it.

That being said, part of our motivation came in form of finally reading the paperwork I signed for the car. You knew it was coming, right? It went a little something like this:

“Hey, Chester (that's me), I know we said we'd pay the insurance (because my dad insisted), how much are they charging us?” (He's driving)

“Um, I have no idea. You told me to sign it.” (I'm defensive because I had seriously didn't want to get the insurance for the car. I'm a risk-taker.)

“Yeah, but I need to know how much we're going to have to pay because I need to know what we can spend at your dad's.”

“But you said that we had an extra paycheck!” (I know, this has nothing to do with it, but my brain had already hurled forward in time to the argument where Adam tells me we can't do anything because we're broke.)

“Just look.”

So, at this point, I take out the paper and I start doing the math, which, admittedly, I'm bad at, but I start getting this astronomical number and I start shaking. Because I don't want to tell Adam. Because I know how he's going to react.

“It's bad.”

“How bad.”

“If my math is right, it's, like, 80 at day.” (We've reserved the car for 14-16 days)*

Adam starts FREAKING out, which I totally saw coming, and yelling about how I handled this whole thing badly and now we weren't going to do anything other than pay for gas and the car and all of our vacation plans have been ruined.

Now, I'm sobbing, because I can't stand to be yelled at while trapped, and Nora's yelling and Adam's stone-faced and silent.

Somewhere, about thirty miles outside Memphis, Adam finally says that he's sorry and that we'll be all right. And he admitted that he and Dad bullied me in to agreeing to the insurance and I couldn't be held responsible for not reading something I didn't want anyway.

At this point, had we thinking clearly, we could've pulled in to any sister agency and dropped the insurance, saving us the rest of the money, but that didn't happen. That's why the rest of my vacation update will be ridiculously boring, filled with hours of staring at walls. Whee.

By the time we drove in to Memphis we were calmer and stopped to rest. It was so weird to pull in to this gas station, get of the car, and smell barbeque. It was everywhere.

Our favorite part of Tennessee was the smell of barbeque. I'm still kicking myself for not planning better and eating lunch while we were there. I think it would have endeared Adam to the whole state if we'd done that.

Adam complained the whole time we were driving through the state. We managed to get on this crappy two lane road that went through every small town you could think of, and not picturesque ones, but towns that made you uncomfortable and lock your doors. And the area wasn't pretty, either, which I didn't think was possible. I usually loved driving through Tennessee, or visiting, when I was growing up. Go figure.

Unfortunately, getting through Tennessee on this trip up was the hardest, longest, part once you leave Texas. That meant hours and HOURS of Adam telling me how much he hated going 35 miles an hour through the ugliest part of the state. Ha.

I started singing “The song that never ends” over and over again in retaliation. We were delirious and fairly certain we were caught in a glitch in the Matrix. And Adam kept seeing Zombies.

Heh.

Good times.

Technically arriving at my Dad's is part of Day Two, but I'm going to hold off because it involves a story about my step-sister that sets the tone for the whole vacation.

*We had this huge argument about that because we didn't communicate about the length of his vacation very well and blah blah blah...fishcakes. We didn't need the car for that long.