Shhhh! Turn of the lights, idiot! Who invited her anyway?!
With the impending natural disaster closing in on the Eastern Seaboard, I decided now would be a good time - considering that all public transportation has been postponed, everything (including work) has been cancelled, and I can't even leave the house due to inclimate conditions - to resume my storytelling in The Book of Jommy.
Fitting, then, that this story happens to be about the LAST hurricane I weathered, the current one, Sandy, being the second hurricane that has blustered over me in twice as many years. For someone who hates anything "low-pressure-system" related - rain, snow, the discouraging looks I get when I wear flip-flops in the rain and snow - I sure seem to find myself on the business end of these tropical storms more often that most.
Mother nature has made it clear that my happiness is not really a priority to her.
* * * * * * * * *
The Story of Dolly
My dad makes an effort, I'll give him that. Since we've all grown up, moved out, and spread ourselves around the country, he tries to wrangle his offspring in at least once a year, luring us back to Texas with the promise of relaxing, fun-filled - and more importantly, free - family vacations. And it usually works. Credit to our family, we all manage to see each other at least once a year, scraping together money for plane tickets or gas to make the pilgrimage back to the Lone Star State, encouraged by promises of home-cooking (featuring gratuitous portions of red meat and a refrigerator full of beer), parent-funded entertainment, and, you know, family-togetherness-bonding-lovey-stuff-time.
So when Dad announced, in the Summer of 2008, that his annual medical conference would be held in South Padre Island - hands down the nicest beach in Texas and arguably the classiest of the run-down Gulf Coast resort towns - my siblings and I were thrilled. This meant lounging on the beach, sleeping in a nice hotel, and eating/drinking/doing whatever we wanted - all with virtually no cost to us. (Thank God my dad had done all that pesky Medical School Physician stuff).
We would take full advantage of this vacation that we could not ourselves afford but desperately believed we deserved. For me, the year had already been stressful - what with barely graduating from college, trying to avoid confronting "adulthood", and being more poor than I had ever been in my life - and I nursed the conviction that I had earned a few days to unwind on my father's hard-earned dime.
In July, the family - nine of us in total - assembled at my Dad's house in Southeast Texas, piling into two cars and driving the five hours to the small island off the coast of Southern Texas. Crossing the causeway that served as the only passage to the mainland by car, I was taken back to the excitement of my childhood, of seeing the ocean for the first time, of smelling the salty air, of palm trees and gulls and sand between toes. As we pulled into the hotel parking lot, the blue skies and light breeze welcomed us, promising to temporarily relieve us of our responsibilities.
Get me a beer. I'm on vacation.
The first couple days were exactly what every vacation should be: excessive amounts of beach-laying, drinking before noon, overeating, and exploring the shitty souvenir shops within walking distance of the hotel. Nothing overly exciting or crazy happened, but we were all okay with this - no news was good news, so to speak, and it was shaping up to be an enjoyable yet not entirely memorable experience.
Little did we know, it would soon become a vacation none of us would ever forget.
...to be continued
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