We learned this lesson within the first half-an-hour of our
annual overnight pilgrimage to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. At this
point there may be questions. Let me
answer a few.
Yes, we go to Hilton Head almost every year. My wife’s parents have a timeshare there, which
we started visiting when our first-born was little. It has become something of a summer
tradition.
And yes, we drive straight through to get there. We’ve learned that piling on the miles while
the kids are sleeping is the only way to make the trip manageable. By leaving at night, and filling their little
gullets with food on the way out the door, we’re able to get a solid ten hours on
the road before one of them wakes up, usually somewhere in North Carolina,
complaining about the sleeping arrangements and asking if we’re there yet.
Sure, it’s a long drive.
But it adds to the mystique for the kids -- at least the younger ones. On recent trips, Maisie has said, after an
hour on the road, “If we flew, we’d be there already.” My retort, “And if we took the private yacht
it would take weeks to get there.”
Back to the questions:
Yes, our local grocery store sells sushi, as many attempt to these
days. And our local store is a Wegmans. So it usually passes the smell test. Literally.
So, as we pulled up to Wegman’s at 7:30 pm on Friday evening, 5 minutes into
our summer vacation, and as my wife prepared to run in get some snacks and more
substantive food, like chicken fingers, I suggested, “May get me some
sushi. Spicy, crunchy tuna, please.”
Maisie then said she’d take a California roll. And Sadie screamed: “Dumplings.”
These little guys are never going with us to Hilton Head, again. |
As she departed, my wife asked one more time: “Who wants sushi, and who wants chicken
fingers.” It was almost unanimous. Only Drew, who abstained from voting, got
chicken fingers – and that was by default.
After my wife returned to the car, with some bags of snacks and
a few trays of Wegman’s sushi, we were ready for our all-night, bleary-eyed, we’re-not-stopping-till-the-sun-comes-up
drive south. And off we went.
Not three minutes later, before we even got past the
McDonalds in Lafeyette, we were sitting with our individual sushi trays open on
our laps when all hell broke loose. Okay, that may be an overstatement. But from the back of the car, Chloe asked
for help. Her mother, with the quick reaction
time of a supermom, closed her sushi tray by flipping the lid back on. Unfortunately, she had already used the lid
as a soy sauce dipping vessel. Soy sauce went everywhere, including her lap,
her seat and the pillow that was next to her seat ready for the long night’s
drive. Soy sauce splatter patterns were
scatter throughout the front of the car.
She immediately called for the paper towels, which were
conveniently tucked in the back of the van behind the seat holding two older children. They scrambled to get the paper towels, and
in the process, Chloe’s ginger-infused dipping sauce for her dumplings fell to
the floor. Reports from the back of the
van could not confirm whether the container’s lid was still on the
ginger-infused dipping sauce when it fell.
And, now, the ginger-infused dipping sauce container itself was
missing. At least, neither properly-seat-belted
child could get a visual fix on the sauce container. I had visions of ginger-infused dipping sauce
slowly soaking into our van’s carpet.
So, there we are, screaming down the highway – and I mean
screaming, not driving fast – trapped in a van that was smelling increasingly like
grocery-store-bought Asian food.
Luckily, there was a truck inspection pull-off just ahead of
us. That’s where I pulled over, and I calmly
(its my blog, so my description) … calmly took care of the spill and missing
dipping sauce. I also collected the
remaining sushi containers and pronounced then and there that we would never buy
sushi on a car trip ever, ever again.
Not ten minutes into our annual vacation and we had already learned
an important lesson. When, embarking on
a car trip, and asked if you want sushi, or something else. Always pick something else.
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