Don't Even Get Me Started

I moved about a year and a half ago and a few months ago I kind of took stock of the number of friends I had made in my new hometown and let's just say that didn't take long. Aside from a couple of work friends I really didn't have much to show for myself. Plus, I don't really believe that work friends actually count as "friends" until you are able to sustain the friendship outside of the working relationship. So technically unless I quit my job tomorrow and am somehow able to maintain those friendships I actually have made no new friends since I've moved.

So in an effort to kind of get out there and meet some of the locals I decided to join a softball team. It seemed like a pretty harmless way to get out there and mingle with some of the laid back country folk in my area. I'm starting to wonder if I might end up with more than I bargained for.

My first interaction with my new teammates was during a fundraiser we held a couple of weekends ago. I wish I had known in advance how painful it was going to be because I would have offered to donate both of my kidneys to science just to raise enough money to avoid this extremely painful social experience.

So for starters I didn't know anybody there. This obviously shouldn't have been surprising since this was what got me into this mess in the first place. What a vicious cycle this was turning out to be! Not to worry though I knew that once I got my magnetic personality into gear I'd have this group in the palm of my hand. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that I was going to need a plan B stat. As I sat alone in the corner of the room feverishly planning my next move, one of my new teammates came by and started talking to me. Well this was a relief. I guess the old magnetic personality was doing the trick after all. That or the sad and lonely look on my face. Either way this was progress. So we started talking and by “we” I mean her. Turns out she wasn't really looking for someone to talk to so much as someone to talk at. Well, beggars can't be choosers right? It sure beat sitting and thinking of ways to fake a diabetic coma...or so I thought.

My new friend worked in the mental health profession and so I thought that this would mean she would have many interesting stories to tell. Unfortunately it turned out to be more a case of "birds of a feather...". So in the two hours she talked at me she never did get around to any interesting stories. Instead she talked about the most random crap. Like when she told me in detail about the breast reduction surgery she had just had. I thought to myself at the time "I'm sorry, correct me if I'm wrong but did we just meet 10 minutes ago?" After I thought about it I kind of understood where she was coming from. If there's one thing I've learned about successful teams it's that honesty and communication are paramount. The last thing I'd want to happen is that a couple of months down the road I find out that the person I've been shagging flies with for the last two months used to be a 34 DD and I had no idea. Talk about being blindsided! (Actually, she was a 34FFF but that's just one of the many insignificant details she felt the need to share with me.)

Finally, at some point between the talk of breast reduction surgery and how to properly zest a lemon a couple of our other teammates made their way over to our table. Sure they may have just seemed like a couple of regular people but to me they were saviours, my own personal United Nations relief mission if you will, except useful and with an actual mission. After a few minutes, one of the girls pulled a Houdini act and actually managed to interject herself into the one way conversation. Somehow she ended up talking about a new refrigerator she had purchased. Under normal circumstances this would be an instant cure for insomnia for me but because it was someone else talking I was truly riveted. She could have been speaking Swahili at this point and I would have been transfixed. Sure enough, as this girl starts to talk about her new appliances my old friend "The Dominator" pipes up and says "Oh, don't even get me started on appliances." I instantly thought to myself "She doesn't seriously have a story about appliances! And don't toy with me. If you're serious, then please tell me how to not get you started because I need to know post haste how to not get you started!" As it turned out, she was just bluffing and she actually wanted to get started and did get started. Eventually, after a half an hour discourse on self-cleaning ovens I was left alone with her again as my friends from the United Nations abandoned me. Not surprising I suppose given that organization’s track record.

Fortunately, I eventually was able to finagle my way out of what seemed to be the conversational equivalent of the Bermuda triangle. The only problem is that if this is any indication of things to come it looks like it's going to be a long softball season...but don't even get me started.

The Journey is the Destination

I do believe that life is more about the journey than the destination. When it comes to vacations though, it's about a little bit of both for me. I'm planning on taking some vacation at the end of the month and I've been thinking about what my options are. The thing is, I just don't have a lot of patience for air travel. I resent having to spending any part of my vacation dealing with the frustration of air travel which over the last couple of years has only gotten more painful.

So for my money it doesn't get much better than an old fashioned road trip. Unfortunately, I had to be ten years removed from my childhood to really gain an appreciation for the road trip experience. This was due to the fact that my only road trip experiences were the rather fateful ones I took with my family as a child. They were without a doubt some of my most unpleasant childhood memories.

The first problem with family road trips was that we always chose to enjoy the open road in the middle of the summer and usually when our car's air conditioning had crapped out. It almost seemed like my dad would come home one day and tell my mom "Honey, the air conditioning in the car just went on the blink." At which point they'd look at each other and in unison declare, "Well, let's grab the kids and a cooler and hit the road before temperatures drop below 85 degrees." Despite the many mechanical malfunctions of every vehicle we ever owned there was one thing that never seemed to break. No matter how many prayers I said, that tape player never stopped churning out those songs my dad enjoyed so much. It was such a great reminder to me that the good Lord did indeed have a sense of humour. I didn't ever get his jokes but one of these days that punch line's going to hit me and I am going to have the laugh of a lifetime.

It also didn't help that whatever vehicle we were driving at the time was always way too small for a family of six. This meant the four of us kids were always gunning for those two coveted window seats. There was nothing worse than being stuck in the middle of a sibling sandwich for ten hours. Unfortunately it seemed that window seats were assigned based on seniority and since I was third in line I rarely secured one of those. When I did manage to get a window seat it was like a little slice of heaven. If I closed my eyes, plugged my ears, and turned my body at just a slight angle I hardly noticed anyone was there. Plus, I could use the window ledge as an arm rest. One year I got the most amazing one arm tan. At first I thought it looked a little odd but eventually I just decided to own it. I've always thought that symmetrical tanning was overrated anyway.

So I've learned a few things about road trips since those fateful childhood trips. One of them is that the key to enjoying the road trip experience is finding suitable road trip buddies. Choosing road trip buddies can be very tricky business. Even people that I love dearly are not necessarily compatible road trip partners. For instance, my best friend and I took a road trip once. Let me emphasize the word ONCE because that mistake was not made twice. We literally did not talk to each other for six months after that fateful trip so we have not shared a car ride for more than a couple of hours since then.

Next on my list of people I can't do road trips with are my parents. Let me just say that I love my parents dearly. However, it's just something about them and me in a car that just doesn't work. Whether it's my mom howling at my dad to slow down or not follow so closely, it's my dad driving two miles per hour whilst making three calls on his cell phone while also singing and whistling to whatever cassette tape he managed to salvage from the collection left behind by Noah (as in the ark). The problem is I can't tune any of this out because we're in a five foot by foot space. Plus, no matter how loud the music is in my headphones it's never louder than my dad's whistling unless I want to risk irreversible hearing damage which I have to admit for a moment seems like a pleasant alternative. So at this point in our "vacation" I'm feeling like a Dixie Chicks fan at a Republican convention and I'm looking for the nearest exit. Unfortunately, we've just pulled out of the driveway and the only way to make a quick exit involves throwing myself out of a moving vehicle. Sure we're only moving at three miles per hour because my dad's making another phone call but I'm pretty sure that would still be painful and also hard to explain. Honestly I'm not even sure it's the road trip thing that's the problem with my parents. I have a feeling that they could find a way to make a full body shiatzu massage stressful for me because that's just the way they roll.

So if I can't travel with my best friend or with the two people responsible for my existence on this earth you might be asking who can I travel with? Well, it's obviously a short list but there are actually a few people that I've managed to road trip successfully with. If I can't talk any of them into joining me this time I can always go it alone I guess? Of course it's not ideal but I've always been more a fan of the road less traveled anyway.