Our first Family vacation to St. Loius started L.A.T.E. on a Saturday night.
Okay, technically it was a Sunday morning, but who’s telling this tale?
I may have waited until about 30 minutes prior to our departure to
pack my stuff. I mean, I was stressed. I was shoving two vacations into
one and not sure what I needed to bring. How I wanted to look.
But that is a story for another time. Today, we talk
of Pocahontas, IL, one of the last places in IL before you get to MO.
I know, I know it doesn’t say Pocahontas Restaurant. I was just as
baffled as you are. Hubs actually argued with me
that it was called that. But since he had been up for nearly 27 hours
straight at this point I wasn’t going to argue with him.
We went inside the restaurant, only to discover they didn’t take VISA
and I had neglected to get money out of the bank before
we left Ohio. Of course, for our convience, there was an ATM
located inside the restaurant that we could use, at the tune
of $3.50 per transaction PLUS whatever our bank charged us.
(incase you were wondering its $1.25) Why yes I did use that ATM
because conviently the one located across the street that
only charged $2.00 per transaction was Out of Order.
But this post isn’t about the overpriced ATMs or the insane
amount of pecans that they put in Giggle’s pancakes.
(Seriously folks, I think they actually lost money with all the pecans in
there.) It isn’t even about how there were whole carrots and large
chunks of broccoli in my vegetable omelet. (Note to self-ask for
veggies bite size next time) It is about how the lovely Chicken,
who is bubbly and smiley most of the time is N.O.T. a morning person.
We go into the restaurant and she orders a glass of water,
a cup of hot cocoa and a slice of bacon. Yes, you read that right
A FREAKIN SLICE OF BACON. Of course, you can’t order a
slice, she got a side of bacon, in which she ate A SLICE.
Also she is very quiet. If you have met The Chicken you know that
this is not the norm for her. She usually will talk
your ear off. Then she will pick it up off the floor, put it back on
and talk it off again. Seriously folks. This is only true
after she has been up for about an hour. (I have no idea what time
we are going to have to get her up when school starts
being that she has to be there at 7:23 AM and I don’t want her to
murder any of her teachers) She has always been an
anti morning person. When she was a toddler I would just give
her her juice cup and stay the heck out of her way. She took
TWO naps a day until she was five. The girl loves her sleep. For realz.
After we finish breakfast hubs tells the girls that if they need to use the bathroom
to do it now because we were about 3 hours out from our friends’ house and
didn’t want to stop if we didn’t have to. The Chicken claims she is fine
and Giggles went to use the facilities.
At the car hubs gives The Chicken some drink containers to
throw in the garbage. She starts in with the moaning, and
the groaning about how she has to do everything. She doesn’t
know where the trash cans are and really, why can’t
we just do it ourselves-we should really be responsible for the
stuff we bring into the van.
Now at this point I have to give credit to hubs, he normally doesn’t
have the patience for morning Chicken, as he isn’t
all roses & sunshine himself. But he looks at her and says
very calmly “Look around there is a trash can around here
somewhere. Take your time and just DO IT. Don’t make me ask again.”
At this point The Chicken loses her shit. She starts bawling and
crying that there isn’t a trash can all around and why are we being so
mean and hurtful towards her. This is the WORST vacation
ever and she wants to go home.
Note, she has not moved, nor looked around to find a trash can.
Hubby tells her to look for the trash, there is a restaurant, a hotel,
AND a gas station all in the same parking lot. There IS a trash can and she
needs to find it. He may or may not have mentioned that she could walk the rest
of the way to St.Louis if she didn’t bother to find it.
She walks around the car that is parked in front of us
and starts flailling her arms up and down.
“I CAN’T FIND IT! WHY ARE YOU DOING
THIS TO ME? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
I am so tired, I really want to just take the damn trash from her
and throw it away in the trash can I plainly see at
this point, but I don’t want the hubs ticked at me for the rest of
the journey so I just laugh. And Laugh A.LOT.
I may have been concerned with wetting my pants I was laughing so hard
Her sister finally rolls out of the bathroom and asks what is wrong
with The Chicken. I think it was at that point
The Chicken found the trash can and climbed back into
the van as if nothing had happened.
I am still laughing-I think it is the tiredness that kept me laughing,
because I am still not sure it was THAT funny.
After the laughter dies down and the Chicken isn’t all peeved
with us, she mentions that she should get a
reward for her trash hauling duties. An American Girl Doll.
