The Bumpy Road to a Perfect Afternoon

It was a confusing weekend leading to a big fight. You'd think after 10 long years of being married, it would be smooth sailing from now on. You'd think…

 

The original plan, about 4 revisions ago... was my folks were taking the 3 youngest grandsons, or  as I refer to them the three stooges, camping in a rented rv for a week and we'll meet them for the weekend. Their original destination was up near Dallas. About three days into their adventure dad decides to head to our favorite park near Corpus. Even better.

 

So I tell bobby what a perfect weekend this would be. We'll get there about 4ish Saturday, we'll have dinner, reunite with our son, fish til about 1 in the morning, and the next day head to Corpus to have lunch at Pappaduex  and the beautiful water, Maybe an old friend in Corpus can meet us too.

 

We stuck to my plan about 5 seconds. We did reunite with our son, although he would have been good, say another month, without seeing us. We had a excellent mom cooked dinner. Then we spent an hour debating whether it was going to rain or not… Outvoted, they decided we'd go to bed early and just fish in the morning…

 

From the second my head hit the pillow, I realized I was wired. I could not sleep to save my life. By two in the morning, I was playing hand puppets on the wall pretending the sheets hanging from the upper bunk bed was hiding management. 3 people are laughing their butts off. I'd try to explain it but its one of those things. (it's a television show reference I swear.)

 

We "woke" to the sounds of rain. $!@$% Great. More debate. We decided to pack it up and just go on. Nicholas wanted to ride home with his grandparents, we'd pick him up later.

 

So bob and I begin our travels and ya know the old fork in the road… one leading to Corpus, one home… My husband took the one home. Bob's friends are like so?… My girls are like UMMMMM, She's gonna kick his ass.

 

Granted it was still a yucky day. And my friend who I wanted to meet had to work. But still I wanted to have lunch with my honey by the stormy sea. Moreover, I wanted him to see the romance in it all.

 

I'm fuming as we are driving down the road. And he's fuming because I'm fuming but doesn't quite know why I'm fuming. He just knows there's a Pappaduex 5 miles from our house and refuses to drive 90 miles out of the way on a weather iffy, non-meeting-Janay day.

 

20 miles later, I'm still cursing under my breath and I see a pier. I boldly announce I was going fishing. I'd desperately hoped he'd stop the van to check out the pier but in my frame of mind, I wasn't above tucking and rolling and hoping for the best. I called my mom who was a few miles behind our van to meet us at the pier. Partly because I knew they wanted to fish too, partly out of self preservation… Long pier over deep water, and oops, short circuited electric wheelchair accidentally going over the rail in tragic bizarre death. Who would question it… he just seemed a little to eager to stop.

 

We agreed on a truce. And we tried to stay at odds just on the principle of being in the middle of a knock-down-drag-out fight but it was just too nice. We immediately started to truly enjoy the cool overcast afternoon, both knowing this was the unplanned perfect day. The fish were biting. My folks were in good humor. And I knew this was a day Nicholas would always remember fondly. And Bobby had a perfect picture-postcard Fathers Day,