Microrave

A few nights ago, after a long day of doctor visits, cleaning, cooking, and facebooking, I decided to relax with my favorite kettle corn and a book. At my advanced age, this is one of my favorite nighttime pastimes. Never, in my wild, ill-spent youth would I have believed I'd be content with a book and popcorn, but there it is. I have joined most of my peers in boring, sedate old age. Alright, alright, I hear you all - I'm not sedate.

But I digress. Back to the kettle corn which I put into the microwave. I listened to it merrily pop as I got into my flannel nightie. But when I tried to remove it from the microwave - and this is really the whole crux of microwaving, the removing - the door would not open. I called my spouse for help. Picture, if you will, the two of us - I in my nightgown, he in his sweats, I armed with a fondue fork, he with a butter knife, as we pried and banged and jiggled. Nothing worked. The door remained firmly shut. I could smell my kettle corn, so near and yet, so far. I went to get the big gun, ie, the hammer. Percussive maintainence has often worked for me. I gave the door latch a couple of good whacks. I heard the microwave chuckle as I whacked my thumb.

That didn't work either. There was only one thing to do and we sucked up and did it. We went to K-Mart and bought a new microwave. Let me just say here that this is not my favorite way to spend an evening. My favorite way to spend an evening would be to be getting a massage while on the phone to my agent telling her I simply could not fit another book signing into my schedule. I'm just saying...

So we hooked up the new microwave and put the old one, still containing my perfectly popped kettle corn, out on the curb. The next morning, it was gone. Who in their right mind, upon seeing a microwave oven disposed of on the curb, takes it home? Who thinks, "Oh, someone left a good microwave on the curb. I could use that!"?

I can only hope they managed to open the door and enjoyed a fine, if slightly cool, bag of kettle corn.

Why I Hate Baking: Reason #117

I am in the process of writing a family cookbook. A few weeks ago, I decided to take it to work (As any nurse knows, bringing in work from home is a sure fire way of ensuring an incredibly busy night) and I removed all the loose recipes so I wouldn't lose them en route. I put all the loose recipes - somewhere.
Last night, I took out the 8 ounces of cream cheese and the 2 sticks of butter for Cream Cheese Wreaths. I did not, however, remember the entire recipe and being too lazy to look for it, I brought up a recipe on the internet. But wait - the internet recipe calls for only 3 ounces of cream cheese. I messily remove 5 ounces of cream cheese from the bowl and put it back in the fridge. I then proceed, with great difficulty because - did I mention this? - I hate baking - to mix the cookie ingredients. But before I fashioned them into little frigging wreaths, I checked the recipe to find out at what temperature to preheat the oven. And as I am checking this, I see, at the bottom of the page, reader's comments. Readers who all complained about the typo in the recipe. The typo that called for 3 ounces of cream cheese when it should be 8. The dough I mixed is missing 5 ounces of cream cheese - the exact amount that is now as hard as a rock in my refrigerator. And let me tell you - watched cream cheese does not soften. Did I mention yet that I hate baking?

Working Girl

I was born and raised in New England. In other words, fate dropped me right into the middle of the Protestant Work Ethic (I believe fate, as well as love, is blind and thus did not realise that I was both Catholic and unethical). Even so, I bought the work ethis thing hook, line and sinker.
"Treat every job as if it were the most important job you'll ever have." my father told me. "Work hard and get ahead."
I heeded his advice, more or less. Sometimes, it was hard. At one memorable place of employment, a watch company who shall remain nameless (Timex), my entire job consisted of putting orange stickers on white boxes. It would have been piecework if there had been enough white boxes to go around, but there were not. Grown women would fight to grab boxes. "I can do this," I thought, "there is no shame in honest labor." I lasted 5 weeks.
Towards the end of week 5, I went home for lunch. Now this being the 60's, the days of Peace-Love-Dope, lunch consisted of a sandwich, a cup of Lemon Tie-dye Hippie Yogi tea, and...well, .. let us say I returned to work more than a litle impaired.
I sat on my stool. Actual chairs were thought to breed relaxation and carelessness - wouldn't want to miss the top of that white box. I looked at the rows of women already at work. Their hands flew, their mouths hung open, their eyes....oh God, their eyes, their vacant eyes.... I fled.
But that, I think, was just my worst job. I've had many others in my attempt to find my niche. I was a ski information telephone operator, a cashier, a nurse's aide, a short order cook. I jumped out of cakes (good pay, bad, bad, men). I worked in a laundry putting clothes down a chute. I was a day laborer, a weaver, a waitress, and a nurse. I worked at a machine that put a little long thing into a little round thing, always suspecting that the supervisor had some Freudian problems and just liked to watch. For quite some time, I worked in an LDRP unit at a local hospital.
This was my first experience with real job predjudice - not against women, everyone was female, but against differentness. I noticed right away that all the employees of this department were young, blonde WASPs with a husband, a minivan and 2.2 kids. I tried to fit in. No, I take that back. I've never tried to fit in anywhere. But I did try to demonstrate by my actions that just because someone is different, that doesn't mean they aren't good at their job. I worked my buns off. In the end, I found that my small, dark, mixed-race self overrode my value as an employee. When I graduated from nursing school eigth in my class, they let me go. Although nearly all of the staff nurses tried to intervene on my behalf, the blonde WASP unit supervisor with the husband, minivan, and 2.2 kids was not about to let doing the right thing stand in her way. But that's alright. I learned, along with how to put in a foley catheter, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
For a while I attended a CETA secretary school. This was a school set up by the government for people who were too dumb or too unmotivated to get through high school. It was a three month program. I finished everything in three weeks, except for typing which requuires a level of manual dexterity that I do not possess. They didn't know what to do with me. At first, I spent class time pecking at my typewriter, bored. Next, I became the designated person to take the students who arrived drunk and walk them around the parking lot until they sobered up. Finally, I taught the math class after the math teacher was laid off. Armed with my new secretarial skills, I left school and immediately got a job as a private duty nurse's aide.
Private duty aide work is not hard. You don't have to do much and you do get to read. However, the job usually involves contact with sick people and small dogs. It did not take me long to decide that I did not want to spend my life with sick people or small dogs. I quit.
"Treat each job as if it were the most important one you'll ever have." How do you do that when you're a waitress in a donut shop? Does doing a good job consist of scrubbing the coffeepots and counters until they shine and keeping the donut case filled? Or does it consist of sucking up to the customers so they'll purchase one more cup of coffee? In due time I discovered that I did not enjoy scrubbing or sucking. I collected my pink slip, which fetchingly matched my uniform, and moved on.
I have been told, "Never work for a boss who is less intelligent than you." Puh-leese. Where do we find such a person, such a gem of authority? We're the ones who have to take those aptitude tests. We're the ones putting pegs into holes and in the time it takes to complete one of those tests, twenty people in America have been promoted past their level of competence.
I work now as a Labor & Delivery nurse. I like this because someone else (the woman in labor) does all the work. Also, they've made me night charge nurse. Yes! I, too, have been promoted past my level of competence. You know, it's not half bad.

My Name is Linda and I'm a Facebook Addict

Forgive my absence, dear readers, but I've been - I'm so ashamed - on Facebook. It started innocently enough. Every now and then, I'd get an invitation to join, which I would respectfully delete. But when I noticed that so many of my co-workers were on it, I thought, "What the hell. What could it hurt?" Like addicts the world over, my co-workers just smiled and encouraged me. Oh if I'd known then what I know now. Email and blogs are mere gateway drugs because Facebook is, for sure, the heroin of cyberspace.
The addiction is immediate. "Hellooo..." said Facebook "and who is this beautiful, scintillating woman who has just logged on? Would you like to send someone a useless gift? Help save the rainforest? Did you know 3 of your friends think you're stupid?"
I didn't log off for hours. Hours! And I might have stayed on longer if the smoke alarm hadn't gone off because I was burning dinner.
I've only gotten worse.I have taken the stupid, pointless quizes, sent and received granny pants, small animals and half-eaten cookies, and found out that my stripper name is Boom Boom Luscious Lips. I have "friended" people I don't like and who don't like me. I've seen photos of people I went to high school with and let me tell you - when you graduated in 1972, that's not neccessarily a good thing!
But the worst ( I have no shame left. I'll tell you every sordid detail), the very worst, is Hatchlings. For those of you who are not Facebook addicts, Hatchlings is an application (they call all these little Facebook games applications, although what one is applying for, I don't know) where one searches various placces on Facebook for virtual eggs which then "hatch" into a variety of virtual creatures which then have to be fed more virtual eggs, thus ensuring that one could conceivably play this game forever. Sure, I could just stop, but if one doesn't feed the hatchlings, Facebook lets you know that your little creatures are virtually unhappy. I was raised Catholic. It doesn't take much to make me feel guilty.
I could expound further on this subject, but I am beginning to feel the first pangs of Facebook withdrawal. So here is my warning - as usual, I'm the dire warning, not the good example - Use Facebook at your own risk because it will suck you right in. And if anyone hears of a local Facebook Anonymous, please let me know. I may need them when I hit bottom.

Unsafe at Any Speed

What vengeful God decided that age and clumsiness must increase in equal proportions? Why is it that when one gets to the age where a fall has a greater chance of doing harm, one also becomes more likely to fall? This is not just my opinion. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence. I have witnessed an aging coworker pour candy into a bowl and completely miss the bowl. Another coworker fell, and I have to say, not gracefully, into a patient's crotch. My husband recently fell down the stairs. My friend Nancy, who is only a few years older than me, fell out of a chair she was sitting in (She says the chair pushed her, but I suspect she's just trying to save face).
This morning, as I was crossing a parking lot that was nearly empty, I tripped over one of those plastic speed bumps. There was an entire parking lot that was practically obstruction-free, but my aging self, like one of those GPS ''s gone awry, found this speed bump to trip over. My already-bad knees are scraped, throbbing, and swollen. My palms are bleeding. And this causes me to think - "How did I get from the lithe, graceful person I was to this unsteady, accident-prone person? I used to be fairly good on the balance beam (people who know me think I am making this up, but I'm not). Now I can't balance on land. And don't even get me started on the stiff joints or the memory lapses.
I submit that this is a basic design flaw. It's all unfair and I think God needs to rethink the way he chose to divvy up the physical agility. And God, if you're listening, I would really appreciate it if you could take care of this before I have to ambulate over any wide open spaces. I'm an accident waiting to happen.

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

Christmas time is here again, bringing with it the smell of pine and gingerbread, twinkling lights, the rustle of wrapping paper, the beauty of newly-fallen snow and the dreaded visit to the post office. Yes, as everyone who has friends or relatives living out of state knows, the post office is not the place one wants to be during the holiday season. It is also the place one can't avoid if one wants to get those Christmas gifts sent on time.
Well, let's just talk about the words "on time". I suspect that "on time" is an abstract concept to the U.S. Postal Service rather than a reachable reality. I base this on an experience I had with a Christmas package that traveled up and down the east coast several times before arriving at its intended destination of Connecticut. On the last swing of this postal pendulum, it took only three days to get from Virginia (I don't know what it was doing in Virginia) to Connecticut, thus being "on time" if one disregards the fact that it had been mailed five weeks earlier from West Palm Beach, Florida. The post office also disregarded the fact that I had mailed it "priority mail". I have since learned that "priority mail" means the customer pays extra for his package to be one of the first to be used to prop open the mail room door and forgotten about.
But I could take the late deliveries. I could ignore the ubiquitous photos of wanted criminals tacked to the wall. I could, possibly, learn to endure those self -stick stamps that stick to everything else on their way to the envelope. I could get used to the absence of any parking spots within a half mile of the post office. All of these things are minor irritations when compared with the lines. The last three times I've walked into the post office (and I'm not making this up), a postal employee working behind the counter has looked at me and put out his little "closed" sign. The last time, as he put out his rotten little sign, he winked at me and said, "Lunch break!" It was 10:15 in the morning. Visions of giving him something to chew on danced through my head.
However, in all due honesty and fairness, I cannot blame the slowness of the lines on the postal employees alone. No, they have help and lots of it from the postal customers. Every drone, every thoughtless imbecile, every mother with three undisciplined kids, every idiot who can't figure out how to write an address on a box - arrives at the post office ten minutes before I do.
Think I'm being paranoid? During my last ill-fated visit to mail a package, a man stepped up to the counter with about twenty-five letters, purchased stamps for them, and proceeded to hold up the entire line while he affixed each stamp neatly and precisely on an envelope. Meanwhile, the person (and I use this term loosely) who had been waiting on him seized the opportunity for a quick "lunch break". As we waited, a mother gazed into space as her darling son detached the chain link line-divider and proceeded to chain whip the legs of the waiting customers. His cries of delight nearly drowned out the sound of an argument occurring at the only other open station where two customers were debating whether or not it should cost $3.59 to mail a book to Kenosha.
But that wait was a piece of cake compared to the traffic jam I experienced last year when a little old woman tried to mail a package which was held together with what appeared to be toilet paper. The counter person had to rewrap the entire package after explaining, in a loud voice, why the toilet paper tape would not suffice. When her package was finally rewrapped and taped, the little old lady decided she would pay her $33.82 shipping charge with change. Exact change. From the bottom of her purse. Which she could not see. Coin by coin. Her quavering hands kept dropping change. "Don't worry, young man," she smiled, "I have plenty of time."
So you can see why I view with aversion the annual mailing of of my Christmas packages to the members of my family who now live in California. Maybe this year I'll bring along a book to read while I wait. Better yet, it might be a good idea to deliver my gifts in person. After all, it only takes five days to drive to California.

The Call of the Mall

At this time of year, as Christmas lists are written and visions of sugarplums dance in other folk's heads, visions of dragging my husband to the mall dance through mine. I don't think it's accurate to say my husband hates shopping. No, "hate" doesn't convey in strong enough terms, his absolute aversion to, break-out-in-hives-from, loathing of shopping in general and malls in particular.
Furthermore, I think a lot of husbands are like this and it stems from basic gender differences in our attitudes towards shopping and dissimilarities concerning what we feel it's necessary to shop for (Yes, I can hear the politically correct screaming in the backround). Men tend to feel that only big things are worth shopping for. Big, mechanical things. Things like cars, boats and high tech sound systems. A man who blanches at the thought of buying his own socks can easily spend an entire morning at a car dealership just browsing. He even has definite opinions concerning Corinthian leather vs cloth seats. But try to explain the nuances between the peach and melon cashmere sweaters, or even why someone would want to spend that much on something to wear, then he is completely out of his element.
Is this nature or nurture? Well, the studies aren't in yet, but I opt for nature. Yes, I believe that if my husband had been raised in a vacuum and released into the world at age 30, he'd still have an avid dislike of shopping. I believe that male babies, if they could only talk, would say, "No, Mommy, not the mall! I'll drink all my bottle. I'll eat strained peas. I'll go to sleep without fussing. I won't grow up to be a sex offender. Just please don't take me to that mall place!" (Baby girls, on the other hand, would be pulling their booties on.) I believe that cave men - well, you get the picture.
Nonetheless, this Christmas season, again, I will drag my husband to the mall. He'll promise not to have a long face. He'll promise to stifle the melodramatic sighs accompanied by a glance at his watch. He'll promise not to ask, several times, "How long is this going to take?" Within fifteen minutes at the mall, he'll have broken every one of these promises. After half an hour, he'll begin dropping bags and dragging his feet. Forty-five minutes brings on the psychosomatic illnesses.
So why do I bring him with me? Do I enjoy making him suffer? Do I believe this is good for his character? Well, no, but hope springs eternal, and each holiday season, I fantasize that once at the mall, he'll have a revelation; that he'll slap his forehead and say, "What was I thinking all those years? Shopping is fun. Shopping is good. Shopping - where have you been all my life?!"
Logically, I know that this is not likely to happen. Statistically, I know the odds are better that I'll see Jimmy Hoffa buying his own socks than I'll see my husband doing so. But hey - this is Christmas! This is a time of giving, a time of good thoughts and good cheer, a time of gifts and buying sprees, a time of romance (Yes! Romance!) And on that note, I think I will go find my husband and tell him we have a date - for the mall.

The Not Ready for Prime Time OB Christmas Carol

The Not Ready for Prime Time OB Christmas Carol
(sung to the tune of Jingle Bells)

Dashing through the halls,

it's been a busy day,

the mom in "B" bed calls -

her baby's turning grey.

The E.R. rolls one in

She's due it's plain to see,

It's too bad we did not know

this patient has TB

Oh-

(chorus) Maternity, maternity, maternity is great.

We'd like to keep our jobs so go home and procreate

Maternity, maternity, we will never quit

And if you don't deliver soon, we'll just turn up the pit.

This mom who's HIV

just had her seventh kid.

She should either tie her tubes

or keep her privates hid.

The girl who just arrived

is screaming at her kin,

I bet she didn't act this way

when the baby got put in!

Oh - (chorus)

The patient's bed's a mess;

she didn't push as planned,

She should have used a Fleets

or some other brand.

This patient screams and kicks.

She's writhing on her back.

We know that she'll deliver soon

because she's high on crack!

Oh - (chorus)

We try to do exams

but sometimes there's a catch,

Before these girls come in,

we wish they'd trim their thatch.

When primips reach the floor

holding their birth plan,

we know who we'll be calling soon -

-the anesthesia man!

Oh - (chorus)

The young teen says to us

"To give birth is not a sin,

especially when I see

those State checks rolling in"!

Our new patient is a pain.

She swears and shakes the bed.

We wish instead of intercourse

she's just given some head!

Oh-

Maternity, maternity, maternity is great

We's like to keep our jobs so go home and procreate.

Maternity, maternity, we will never quit

And if you don't deliver soon, we'll just turn up the pit!

Fourteen Ways to Tell You're in New England and Not Florida

1. People drive in the correct lanes. Except for the moron in front of us last Tuesday on I84 who apparently assumed that 35MPH was a brisk enough pace for the passing lane.
2. Motels let you mke long distance calls and pay when you leave. Even if you're paying in cash.
3. A gas station attendant washed our windshield when we bought gas.
4. When you see a man walking briskly toward a door you are about to enter, it is likely that he plans to open it for you, not squeeze into the store ahead of you.
5. I heard someone whistling "A Little Night Music".
6. People in the "12 items or less" lane have 12 items or less.
7. When we returned to Connecticut, we dropped our rental truck off and the rental guy said he'd call us if we owed any money.
8. In rental stores, the DVD boxes contain DVDs.
9. Checkout persons speak understandable English. Now don't get me wrong. I have much admiration for anyone who moves to another country and learns the language, and will try to decipher what they're trying to tell me with all the patience and understanding I can muster. What I DO have a problem with is not being able to understand someone who WAS BORN IN THIS COUNTRY.
10. One can walk outside at mid-day and not shrivel and die.
11. The new traffic light in Torrington made the front page.
12. The bugs are civilized, small and know their place.
13. Having 10 children is considered an aberration, not an income.
14. If your car breaks down at the side of the road, the police will stop to assist instead of speeding up when they see you.
15. People use apostrophes in sentences, not their children's names.
16. License plates stay on the cars they were registered to.
17. There are real trees.

Queen

I've known many people who felt that they were meant to be born rich and many more who felt they were born to marry rich.I've known others who felt they were born to be treated like royalty or who were royal in the sense of being "a royal pain". I, however, am different. I, however, was born to be a Queen.
This first became evident at my birth when I presented myself, not in the usual face-down position, but with my nose in the air. My first experience at ruling, it is said, was when I came home from the hospital. My siblings tell me that the entire household revolved around my wants and needs. Of course.
My apparent misplacement in a middle class family became more obvious as I learned to sit on the "throne" at an early twelve months of age. Other children wanted dolls or BB guns. I craved a scepter. While kids in the neighborhood lined up their American army men to shoot at and annihilate the "Reds" or the "Japs" (This was back in those old, politically incorrect 50's), my soldiers snubbed the other kid's armies and refused to let them into the Red Cross Ball.
Yes, somewhere, a mistake had been made. Somewhere, a little middle class minded child was worrying my royal parents with her appalling lack of knowledge concerning the use of finger bowls and the management of servants. Somewhere, a little girl sat at her castle window yearning for backyard picnics and public schools.
I continued trying to assert my round-peg self into my parent's square-peg world. After all, who can ever forget the day I came running home with a perfect report card, declaiming to my mother that I had made the "A list"? This trend continued throughout my teenage years where peer approval had an entirely different meaning for me than it did for my classmates.
Undaunted by the distinct lack of obeisance from my subjects, I left school to travel throughout my realm. I held my head high and eventually married a prince of a man.While my neighbors were trying to keep up with the Joneses, I had my eye on the Windsors. I spent my days with a few dear friends, sipping Earl Grey tea and complaining about the servant problem (Regretably, our problem was the lack of them).
How did someone of my obvious royal qualifications end up living on the wrong side of the castle walls? Possibly, it could be traced back to my marriage - when my husband mentioned Riviera, I assumed he meant "French", not "Beach".
So here I wait, always with a queenly mein, a sense of noblesse oblige and an eye for good jewelry. I know in my heart that somewhere I have a long lost relative with royal blood. After all, on several occasions, I have been called a princess - which just goes to show, the truth will out.

Computers Byte

I don't like computers. There - I've said it. Yes, I know computers are the wave of the future. I know they save time. I know every successful business and business person must have one, and I grudgingly grant you that persons who are not computer literate are probably dragging their feet and closing their eyes to the inevitable. Maybe we are stubborn, rigid and behind the times.
I don't like to think I possess those qualities, but, but --- I don't like computers.Correctly speaking, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that computers have never liked me and after years of them not liking me, I've simply reciprocated the emotion.
Don't try to tell me computers are incapable of feeling dislike. I know better. Not only have computers demonstrated that they can dislike a person, but they also seem to possess a spiteful, mean sort of sense of humor. How else does one explain phenomena such as the computer at work refusing to allow me to enter my name - this, in spite of the fact that it knows I'm the charge nurse? If it does let me enter my name, it often refuses to let me go any further.
For example: I will attempt to put in an order for a simple lab test, say, a CBC (complete blood count for those fortunate enough to have avoided the field of medicine). The computer adamantly refuses to execute this order. Our secretary, Janice (whom the computer loves) pushes the exact same sequence of buttons and the computer immediately, slavishly executes the order. I swear, if it had little computer arms and legs, it would have run and drawn the blood itself.
I have even taken a computer class - even though I felt that the computer needed counseling more than I did. Our teacher told us that computers will only do what one tells them to do. The computer operator is in charge at all times. The operator pushes a button, the computer responds. Simple. Then why do I feel that the computer is pushing my buttons rather than vice versa?
Last week, I attempted to order a diet for one of my patients. This, again, is a simple procedure. In order to get to the diet screen, you must type in your employee number and your personal secret code (mine is LBRN if anyone wants it). Next, you enter the patient's account number and then REG for regular diet. Easy, right?
I typed in my employee number and secret code LBRN. The computer replied, "Not a valid code. Please try again."
"Look", I reasoned with it, "you may not like my secret code, but it is valid. Take it!" I typed it in again.
"Please enter code." it said.
"I did." On the third try, the damned computer, as it is affectionately called, finally took my code, and with relief, I typed in my patient's account number. Quickly, a patient's screen came up. Unfortunately, although not unexpectedly, it was not my patient's screen. I tried again.
"This is not a valid account number. Please try again."
Not one to give up easily, I typed in the number again, being very careful to hit the correct keys. Another patient screen came up. Not my patient's, of course. "I will order this diet or die trying." I punched the keys furiously. I think I heard the computer chuckle. In went the 6 digit account number. The screen went blank.
"Janice," I asked the secretary, "Could you please order this diet for me?" Using the same 6 digits, it took Janice about 10 seconds to order the diet.
I sighed in defeat, just another casualty in the war between man and machine.

Highway 95 Revisited

Recently, my husband and I took a car trip from Connecticut to Florida. He was the driver and I was the navigator - a job that gave me plenty of time to reflect upon the vagaries of travel with one's spouse and upon the nature of travel in general. Furthermore, I have discovered several basic tenets that may help some other hapless navigator. Read and learn:
1.) Now, I have always considered the belief that men don't ask for directions to be nothing more than a humor writer's device at best, or at worst, an unfair generalization. However, I have learned that, not only do men not ask for directions, they also do not take directions - even those directions offered freely, willingly, lovingly, and with the best intentions from his wife/navigator.
2.) Two people, having partaken of sustenance at the same time, traveling at the same rate of speed, in the same vehicle, will never, I repeat, never need to use the bathroom at the same rest stop. It must be a sex thang.
3.) The concept of comfortable bucket seats takes on a whole new meaning after the first 200 miles. And yes, it is possible for one buttock to fall asleep.
4.) All interstate highways have black holes that suck up belongings that the travelers are sure they packed. They never suck up car trash or the soda spilled on the back seat.
5.) If your spouse has been driving for eight hours straight through heavy traffic and is hunched over the steering wheel with that vein throbbing in his temple and while he is doing this, he tells you that after careful consideration, he's decided that George Bush is really a sane and rational human being who has been harshly misjudged by the American public, it's OK to say you couldn't agree with him more.
6.) The importance of trivial details such as who forgot to pack the toothpaste increases proportionately in relation to the length of the trip.
7.) If, when driving on the interstate (a place fraught with curious tourists and children), you're struck with the sudden urge to get romantic, it's probably better to use the motel and not the transportation vehicle. Just take my word for it.
8.) Even scenic little hamlets lose their charm when they have no gas stations open.
9.) Women, when checking into a motel, first inspect the cleanliness of the bathroom, the amenities and the decor. My husband, immediately upon entering said room, hones in on the clicker and checks out what's on TV. He'll sleep on the floor as long as the motel has cable.*
10.) If you are traveling with a trailer and your husband thinks he can back it up around that little round driveway in front of the motel, quickly disabuse him of this notion.
11.) If, when staying at a motel, you happen to see your next-door neighbors carrying out a television set and it's two in the morning, and they're loading it into the trunk of their car, odds are it's not theirs. However, considering the proliferation of guns and bad temper in the U.S. these days, it most likely would not be a good idea to run out there and say, "Don't take that TV. Stealing is wrong!" No, no my dear. Shooting a nosy hotel neighbor is wrong. Stealing, in this case, is merely none of our business.
12.) Yes, the hotel management really does expect two people to dry themselves after a shower with those two little white dishtowels.
13.) In my opinion, "Continental Breakfast" is stretching the definition of breakfast a little too far. I'm just saying.
14.) Road signs are often deceptive. For example, the sign that portrays what I always thought meant "curves ahead", according to my husband, means "go faster". Ditto the signs for "yield", "merge", and "deer crossing".
15.) "Scenic Routes" often have more route than scenic.
16.) Finally, as you drive along America's highways battling traffic, swearing at other, less skillful drivers, and searching, with legs crossed, for a clean restroom, remember - this is your vacation - relax, have fun, and reconsider the benefits of air travel.

*This makes one wonder - are men genetically predisposed to have the ability to not only find, but keep control of the clicker? A sort of electrical survival of the fittest akin to dogs being able to sniff out other dog's shit to roll in? I predict that this clicker ability will become more dominant and more finely honed with each generation.