When You Gotta Go …
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[0 Comment]It was supposed to be the perfect antidote for a months-long crescendo of frazzled-parent burnout. It was supposed to be a long, relaxing road trip, alone with my husband, Mark. It was not supposed to be the Olympic trials for bladder control.
I had anticipated this get-away excursion with all the desperation of a working mother on the brink. The morning of our departure, I brewed a pot of coffee and mentally rehearsed our trip. The children were safe at my sister's. There would be no negotiations with our three-year-old son over what constituted "finishing" a bologna sandwich; no arguments with our nine-year-old daughter over whether bangs as big as tidal waves were appropriate coiffure for third-grade girls.
Today, I would be an adult. I poured another cup of coffee, and my fantasy unfolded like a Lexus commercial. I was cruising along a tree-shrouded two-lane in New England with the man of my dreams, savoring leather upholstery, intimate conversation and a deliciously grown-up recording by the London Symphony Orchestra. All our mundane problems were swept away by the bubbles of our sparkling mineral water and waves of surround-sound Mozart.
Never mind that we were really just an average husband and wife, deserting our comfortable bed before dawn to slip into K-mart sweats and strike off across eastern Wyoming in a used mini-van. I had already booked passage on the fantasy.
As we loaded the van, I took a deep breath and commented on the fresh, cold tingle of the pre-dawn air. Mark hummed a tune and happily commented that we could get 25 miles to the gallon if we'd set the cruise on 65 and keep the van moving.
I should have seen disaster coming.
The first 30 minutes of the trip we almost managed to remember what adults talk about. Then my early-morning coffee caught up with me. "Let's stop here," I said, pointing to a small, roadside gas station.
"Already?" Mark checked his watch and raised one eyebrow, but patiently pulled over.
"I won't be long," I promised. I ran in for a quick rest stop and bought a fresh cup of coffee for each of us. We headed back onto the open road—for all of 30 more minutes.
"But we just stopped," Mark protested, as he parked the van at a truck plaza. I could see the record-keeping whiz I married, mentally calculating our loss in gas mileage.
Two more truck plazas and one convenience store later, my nervous bladder was proving a serious antidote to fantasy. The intimate conversation I'd imagined devolved into frustrated silence after a heated exchange about "you women and your weak bladders!" and "you men and your stupid gas mileage!" I searched for a classical station on the radio; I found nothing but country and western.
When nature called again, I couldn't bear to tell Mark. Requesting yet another pit stop on this fascinating tour of Wyoming's restrooms might well result in my hitchhiking the remaining miles to Cheyenne.
Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 1998, Summer
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