Don't Make Me Go Back There

Don't Make Me Go Back There!

         “Hey! You’re back!” a bikini-clad woman shouted from the edge of the neighborhood pool. “How was Florida?”

         Megan dropped the armload of towels she was carrying and slung the oversize canvas bag full of lotions and dive toys onto an empty lounge chair. “Kids! Don’t get in the water ‘til I put sunscreen on you!” She lowered her gaze to the woman.

         How was Florida? What to answer…? The preparations were exhausting. After accomplishing a financial juggling act that would impress the cleverest Wall Street mogul, Mark and I reserved a small, beach-side rental with a full kitchen. (A vacation including cooking and housework? Hooray!) Packing suitcases with a band of bouncing children underfoot was arduous, but fielding their endless questions bumped my task into a higher category of difficulty. The children traveled mercifully well considering their seven-hour confinement to a minivan. (I believe the engineer who first equipped an automobile with a TV/DVD player deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.)

         We arrived by two in the afternoon; Mark and I managed to unload the car amid begging voices asking repeatedly if it was time to go to the beach. By three o’clock, the children were playing rapturously in the sand and surf.

         At three fifteen, our eldest child bolted from the water shrieking, “SOMETHING BIT ME!!!” Gelatinous chunks clung to her skin where long, red welts were already forming. Once the stinging subsided, I tried coaxing the child back into the water; but she sobbed, “Don’t make me go back there!” Eventually, we had no choice but to pack up and relocate the children to THE POOL, where we spent the remaining six and a half days.

         “How was Florida?” Megan began. Before she could finish, her eldest child trotted by, singing out, “Florida was AWESOME!”


(WC:300)