We've Gotta Get Out of This Place

I need a vacation.

Like, seriously need a vacation. Not in an "Gee, my life is so crazy, I could sure use a break, golly!" way, but in a "I am about to claw my own skin off if I don't go somewhere new soon" way.

I know there's some crazy statistic out there that claims most Americans never leave the country, and few even leave their home states, but I am not one of those people. I am a traveler. I like to go places. Mostly for the food, and, in my adult life, for the hooch: I've had reindeer in Finland, vodka in Russia, bignets in New Orleans, pizza in Chicago, oxtail in Spain, microbrew in Colorado, falafel in Israel, ale in England, wine in Italy, and, once in South Africa, some weird homemade moonshine someone brought to a party from, I don't know, Botswana or something, that caused me to black out for a short while.

Before my first son, the Juban Princeling, was born I overheard a man in an elevator tell his friend, "My wife and I just got back from vacation. Our first one in 15 years without the kids."

I vowed then and there to never be that guy. 

Three times my husband and I have tried to get out of town. Three times we have been thwarted by fate's fickle douchiness. 


In 2008 we booked a trip to Paris for a week. OMG did we get into it. I bought a "French for Your Trip" CD, the Lonely Planet guide to Paris, and my friend who had lived there briefly as a model - you know, as you do - inscribed detailed notes on a map for us. The Princeling, who by then would be seven months old, would stay with my parents in Miami while we ate bread and cheese and wine in a French park and slept in a French hotel room not littered with pacifiers, burp clothes, and spit-up stains.

Then we decided to move, from Manhattan to Brooklyn. And moving ain't cheap. And we had just finished paying off the massive credit card debt we had accrued while "nesting" in anticipation of the Princeling's birth. Something had to give, and that something was Paris.


Our next attempt at a child-free vacation happened in February 2010. For my birthday we booked ourselves three nights in a quaint little bed and breakfast upstate, complete with in-room hot tub. My mom would come up the week before and fly back to Miami with the Princeling. For weeks I had visions of spending my birthday sipping champagne in a hot tub while my gorgeous and awesome husband fed me chocolates.

Instead, my mom got stranded here in the Great Blizzard Snowpocalypse of 2010, and by the time she managed to get home, not even the promise of three days with the Princeling all to herself could convince her to take him off our hands. My gorgeous and awesome husband even offered to fly down with the Princeling and then return three days later just to pick him up, but no. My parents had seen the Awful Beast that is February weather in New York, and, like the survivors at the end of a zombie movie, they boarded up and went radio silent for a while.


Most recently, my parents - who clearly felt guilty about their post-Snowpocalypse, end-of-zombie-movie behavior that RUINED MY HOT TUB AND CHAMPAGNE BIRTHDAY (hashtag: firstworldproblems) - booked us on a week long cruise for this past April. I'm not a fan of cruises generally, but I didn't care. By the time they offered I was so desperate to go somewhere I would have taken a trip to Kabul. 


My husband and I booked our on-shore activities. Scuba classes in Cozumel. Horseback riding among Mayan ruins. Ziplining in Costa Rica. And OHMYGOD SEVEN MORNINGS OF WAKING UP WHENEVER THE HELL WE WANT TO WAKE UP. No one whining at us that the hot dog we made that he asked for is "too yucky." No one screaming "Bah!" into our faces when we tell him he can't have a lollipop for breakfast. No one responding with, "You could do it," when tell him to clean up his toys. Just my loverman and me, in places that are not New York or South Florida, places where our parents and child are not. Paradise.


So of course that never happened, because my dad was diagnosed with cancer last February and was scheduled to receive his first chemo treatment the week of our cruise. Just to spite me. We just could not burden my poor mother with both a 60-year old chemo patient AND an energetic 2 1/2-year old. If we had any doubts about this, in March I had to have emergency surgery to remove my gall bladder, and would still be recovering come cruise time in April: no booze, no ziplining.


My point is, it's not for lack of trying that the hubby and I haven't made it beyond New York or South Florida for the past four years. We're not those creepy parents whose lives come to a screeching halt with the arrival of kinderfolk. We are more than happy to dump our offspring on his grandparents so we can bust out our passports and try new foods and alcohols in exotic locales.


Because of my dad's cancer (calm down, he is 100% fine now. He even took a trip to Paris - !!! - and Amsterdam in October.) we made many visits to Miami in 2011, some just me and the Princeling, others all three of us. And now, with the imminent arrival of the Duke of Juban (ETA: March 2012) we feel we've earned the right to a Florida-free year in 2012. Oh, I know. Boo-hoo, we had to go to Florida. But we didn't go to fun Florida. We went to visit our parents, which, even in Florida is pretty much like going to visit your parents anywhere else. A couple of nights we went out to dinner in Miami, and I think we saw some movies. 

Ho-hum.


That's why we are making 2012 the year we finally take a proper vacation. With the kids! I don't even care. The Princeling is a fun guy, let's schlep him along. His baby bro, too. A friend suggested we do a family-friendly all-inclusive resort, and I found one in Barbados that has a nursery for the Duke and a Kid's Club for the Princeling so that from 9am to 5pm every day our kids can be other people's problems while the two of us glue giant frozen margaritas to our hands and go kayaking, possibly both together. AND WE ARE GOING. I don't care if we all die trying. I don't care if five hurricanes block our flight. I don't care if we all have to travel in body casts. I don't care if a giant earthquake rips open a chasm in the east coast and Balrog comes out. Come Hell or high water, we are taking a goddamn vacation this year.


This, I vow.

An Open Letter To: Holiday Travel

Dear Holiday Travel:

It's "that time of year" again, when trillions of people around the world, even in countries that are not dominated by Judeo-Christian dogma, will take to the roads and skies (and rails, probably) to visit "loved ones" in other cities and towns.

And we all get cranky about it.

Because, let's face it, traveling at a time of year when every other human being is also traveling is a pain in the ass. It's the kind of thing that can kill the Holiday spirit and make those of us who otherwise are all about stuff like peace on earth or whatever into giant Crankypantses.

My family's journey to Miami last week was fine, in which "fine" = "nothing bad happened." Unless you count my 3-year old son's tantrum just as we were boarding the plane, which I do not. Look, he had a toy airplane, and the little girl his age nearby at the gate also had a toy airplane, and 3-year olds generally don't understand the concept of "Now boarding all passengers in Group 2," so much. They just want to play, and if you try to take that away from them it is possible they will scream bloody murder like you are hacking off one of their limbs, throw themselves on the floor in front of other passengers, and cry like the little babies they are.

Thankfully the tantrum ended before we got on the plane. 

For the record, my son is an excellent flier. He has never once had a tantrum in the air. Not to brag, Holiday Travel, but my kid is the one other parents wish they had when they fly.

But I digress.

Our flight back to New York was...I think the correct term is "a shit show."

Here are some things I can live without during future Holiday Travels, in no particular order of importance:

• TSA employees who don't let a pregnant woman with a 3-year old into the "family line" at security because we don't have a stroller, and then proceed to allow another stroller-less family into that very same "family line"
• TSA employees who steal little girls' shoes. The family ahead of us mysteriously "lost" their daughter's purple sneakers, which the TSA agents swore up and down must have been stolen by a fellow passenger. Later, I overheard the father tell another passenger that the little girl herself found her shoes - behind the TSA counter, while the agents insisted they were "lost." For shame, Holiday Travel.
• TSA employees who think it is OK to snark to my son that he is "too old" for a pacifier or blankie. I'm sorry, did I ask for your opinion on my son's creature comforts while traveling?
• The entire TSA in general.
• Fellow passengers who see a child and automatically pass judgement on me, my parenting, and my kid. Hey, my kid is an awesome flier, probably better than many adults, so just shut your face. And to the lady behind us in the security line who snarked, "Look at all these kids. They shouldn't be allowed to fly," - be thankful that you weren't on our flight because I myself would have kicked your seat the whole time, asshole.
• Incompetent flight attendants who are so slow with the beverage and snack cart that they are still serving "refreshments" during the descent.
• Miami International Airport

Here's the thing, Holiday Travel. The Holidays happen at the same time every year, and yet airline and airport employees act like they are completely taken by surprise. "What? Thanksgiving? When did this happen and why did no one warn me? IS THERE NO GOD???"


If that retail store I hate but can't stop shopping at - the big red discount one that rhymes with "Margaret" - can pull Halloween decorations off the shelves to make room for Christmas lights on October 20 (no joke), then surely your people can get their act together? It's not like air travel is new. It's not like Thanksgiving or Christmas are new. I made a calendar full of photos of my son, the Juban Princeling, for my husband to take to work. If I get you a copy, Holiday Travel, will you please use it to mark sometime before Thanksgiving when you need to start anticipating a giant tsunami of travelers, many of whom have small children (who necessarily need their pacis, and shoes)? Because there really is no reason for the extra-surly employees (who snark and steal) and the crazy long lines to check bags and go through security.


If it seems like I am being particularly harsh on you Holiday Travel, it's because I hate you. Get it together and maybe one day years from now I'll venture outside the five boroughs for some major holiday travel again.


Sincerely,
Meredith L.