Bad Habits - My craptastic vacation - July 25 2001

I don't look for much in a vacation. Central air is all I'm after, really. Maybe some pleasant scenery, a salty breeze from the shore. That's all I was expecting from my little jaunt to Charleston. But the best time I've had here so far has been the hour I spent curled up in the fetal position in a Papasan chair.

At least the air was cold. And nothing was crapping on me. In one of those inversely proportional quirks, Papasan chairs are the ugliest chairs ever invented, but they're also the coziest. They're comfort chairs, and right now I need comfort.

I know that I shouldn't travel in summer during peak daylight hours. The air-conditioning doesn't hold up to the searing sun and dog bodies. And yet, in my haste to leave the city, I did exactly that. Things were OK, of course, until we were almost there. Everything happens when you're almost there.

Sarah — my black and white Border Collie-Lab mix — climbed up front to stick her face in the air vent. And to matter-of-factly throw up on the brake handle and under my seat.

Is that when I should have pulled over? But again, we were almost there, the last half-hour of a five-hour trip. Plus, she throws up on occasion. That's just one of the things she does. No biggie. Then she jumped to the back seat and threw up there. OK, I thought, we're almost there.

Things were good for a few minutes. Until I smelled the unmistakable smell. I looked back and screamed, "Noooooo!" But it was far too late.

Have you ever been riding down the Interstate with no exit in sight and had a dog start jumping back and forth from the front seat to the back seat having projectile diarrhea? No? Well, then.

I felt bad for her. She looked helpless. She's well-trained and knew that it wasn't "right" to be doing this in the car. She looked mortified. She even tried to back up off of the seat, but the only resulted in her crapping in the door well, which was not so fun trying to clean out later. Meanwhile, Maddie, my Shepherd-Lab mix, was trying to get the hell away from the horror in the back seat, so she came up front. And so did Sarah. I was sweating like a fiend as the air-conditioner had all but given out, and was being kept company in the front seat by two crap-covered dogs. So, pardon me if I was driving a little erratically. I was just waiting for someone to pull me over — I was going 50 in a 35.

"Yes, officer, but as you can see, my car is covered in shit. If that's not a good reason for speeding, I don't know what is."

So I arrive at my brother's house, and am greeted in the driveway by my brother's boyfriend who is holding some white poodly thing. "So how was your trip?"

I get out of the car and say, "Well, as you can see, I'm covered with shit. So, it wasn't so good."

And here I am, after much scrubbing. The white poodly thing, Hercules, has been whining for an hour straight. Which is better than the two hours he whined this morning. When he's not out trying to eat or pee on the carpet, his hobby is whining. I locked myself (with Hercules) out of the house three times today, all before 9 a.m. while cleaning out the shitmobile. And either the doorbell is broken, or my brother and his boyfriend are deaf (or they're just assholes), but I ended up outside for an extended period each time. In my pajamas with my hair looking all skanky.

My throat is scorched from the smoke from the Kool menthols that my brother's boyfriend chain-smokes inside. And I can't leave. Not until nightfall. Not until I cover the car seats in plastic.

Until then, I'll be in the Papasan.??