Christmas is over and I for one am glad it is!
We managed to get through the holidays and for the most part it wasn’t as bad as we anticipated. Of course there were a few moments when one or both of us were hit with the realization that someone who was supposed to be there wasn’t. But for the most part, we made it through a whole lot better than we thought we would.
Yesterday (Tuesday) as we were driving home we decided this whole Christmas was an adventure and have nicknamed it our MAD Adventure. MAD stands for Melissa and Dave – original, huh? So while there is no truly crazy story, the sum of our trip for Christmas has left us feeling like we’ve been in the spin cycle of the washing machine for a few days.
We left on Christmas Eve for my parents. One day with them, my sister and an ancient, deaf cat. More on her to come. We did the whole presents and dinner thing with them and then busted out the Wii. This was our saving grace there because it filled the space that normally would have been silent as people read or watched TV. Instead, it gathered us all around to bowl and hang out. Melissa and I skipped church that night, you should try it cause it was great to not go! Yes, you can think what you want but then go back and read my post on the thoughts I’ve taken from some of our counseling. We retired to bed that night and here is where some of our adventure began. Remember the cat? She is 18 years old and has ruled the house for that long. Melissa is allergic to cats. See the problem? We had it figured out though – we brought our own bedding (Mom, if you’re reading this, sorry but we thought it was best not to tell you. We just didn’t want to deal with Melissa coughing all night.) No matter how hard you try, there is no way to remove 18 years of cat dander from a bed so our own sheets and an electric blanket were just what we needed. Another thing about my parents house – they don’t believe in heat. Really, they don’t. We normally freeze when we spend the night there, no matter how many blankets you add to the bed. So this year we plugged in the blanket and toasted up the bed. Except we got the dual controls mixed up and Melissa, who likes her bed hot, turned hers way up and Dave, who likes his bed cold, turned his way down. It wasn’t till the morning we discovered that the controllers were mixed up, so we both slept very uncomfortably without taking in the other 2 factors. First, the mattress on the bed must be at least 20 years old and it sags a little. So when you are sleeping on the edge of the mattress you feel like you are being rolled towards the middle. So I (not sure about Melissa) felt like I spent most of the night under a SUPER hot blanket fighting the momentum of rolling towards the center of the bed. Now we’re back to the cat. I mentioned she is deaf. Can’t hear a thing. Which isn’t an issue during the daylight but at night I’m not sure what happens, I’m guessing she loses some of her bearings and begins to howl. In the hallway. Outside our room. If you’ve never heard a cat howl it is not a pleasant sound and even less pleasant when you are trying to sleep. All that happened in the span of 8 or 9 hours. We both woke up feeling like we hadn’t really slept.
We left my parents about 11 AM on our way to her parents for dinner and more gifts. If you know where her parents live you know it requires driving the Natchez Trace to get there. If you know me, you know I HATE, I mean HATE HATE HATE driving the Trace. You see one tree, you’ve seen them all. You go around one curve, you’ve gone around them all. And the speed limit is 50. 50! So you have to choose to speed and risk a ticket (I choose this option) or go the speed limit and take forever to get anywhere. Plus there are deer and turkey that are suicidal living out there. So you have the combination of a drive that lulls you into a vegetative state and animals that want to hurl themselves into your front bumper so you have to stay alert. That is enough to make any person who isn’t driven by a desire to see family want to simply call with your holiday greetings.
We get there and have to head to family dinner. And when I say family dinner I mean 50 people crowded into a house that really shouldn’t be able to handle more than 25 or so. I’ll spare my rant on conversations because they are family and all but lets say the high point of the conversations I was in was being invited to the shed to teach someone how to play 80’s hard rock…of which I can’t play a lick. Eventually we ended up back at her parents opening gifts. That was a blast watching Grant open his gifts and help us open ours. Did I mention I brought a Batman outfit with me to Mississippi?
Now before you think I’m a total dork, which it may be too late for that, let me say I don’t own the outfit. Our youth ministry does. And no, I didn’t choose to buy it. One of my leaders did and it was too big for him so he gave it us. Grant is 4 and loves Batman so we thought it would be cool if Batman showed up. Somehow it wound up being me in the outfit. Which is too small for me. So fatso Batman goes out into the yard while Grant is playing the garage with his remote control cars and I run around for his amusement and then totally freak him out when I go to the window so he can see me up close. Of course, I had to cover my chin so Batman wouldn’t have a goatee which I’m pretty sure I made myself even more scary to a 4 year old. Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll post a picture of me as Batman (in case I don’t - envision a black unitard, molded plastic chest piece boots, gloves and cowl, plus a huge cape. Then add my bushy goatee and you’ll have a good idea of how ridiculous I looked!)
Friday we went car shopping. I spent the morning repeating to myself “We aren’t going to buy a car” and then somehow we wound up in the managers office haggling over price. Lucky for us, I freaked out over the idea of another car payment and had to walk away.
Saturday I woke up and death seized me. Literally – I know what death feels like cause it was trying to claw it’s way out of my body. It was coming out any way it could and if it could have found a way out of my elbow it would have. I was so sick that if I’m never that sick again it will be too soon. We were also supposed to be going back to Cookeville Saturday but the death in me was just what Melissa had hoped for so she could stay at “home” a few more days (but she tells me she really wasn’t). It took some calls but we let Cookeville know I wouldn’t be there for church on Sunday. Sunday I just lay in bed. And ate crackers. The death was still in me but it wasn’t trying to get out anymore.
Monday I was able to move about and found out my father-in-law had spent the 2 days I was down and out looking for cars over the Internet. He found 2 or 3 and I then had to hear about them. While trying to get my strength back and only able to eat soup. Now I don’t about you but I don’t handle a lot of information well when I’m tired and hungry and can’t stand for more than 20 minutes. So after hearing about all of them I managed to get totally confused and had to go back to bed. Eventually I got up again and we visited Isabellas grave. While the emotion is still there, it was good to go. We knew Tuesday would be our go back home day so we headed to bed. Of course that night I couldn’t sleep again. I was still up at 2 AM with a 6 AM alarm looming.
I forgot to mention the reason for an early alarm. One of the vehicles we discovered was a really good buy so we were going to get it before we headed home so we thought an early start would be good…cause the car was in Atlanta…6 hours away from where we were. Yup, you got it. We drove 6 hours to get this car. If you ever want to see Melissa have a panic attack take her through Atlanta traffic, she doesn’t like it. I lived there a few years so it only took about 5 minutes for me to “rediscover” the race car driver in me. I’m pretty sure Melissa was cursing me under her breathe but since she couldn’t get good gulp of air as the cars went zooming past us, barely missing us, I’m simply assuming that. We got to the dealership, waded through all that goes with getting a car and 3 hours later we owned a new car. That’s another posting and since you stopped reading this a long time ago I’ll save it.
The last part of our adventure was getting home. We were north of Atlanta and didn’t really want to drive back into rush hour to get to I-75 so we looked at a map (and confirmed on GPS,. I really don’t recommend the Garmand – very robotic sounding and it is annoying as it recalculates all the time when you choose to go straight instead of turning.) We decided to try cutting NW on a state highway. Have you ever driven on country road you don’t know? Imagine 2 and a half hours of that. Curving left. Curving Right. Getting hungry. Speeding up. Hitting the brakes. Wondering if a deer is going to come out of the dark and crush your new car. I will never avoid Atlanta rush hour again. At least you can people watch and there are plenty of interesting things you’ll see on Atlanta’s interstates (yes, another post another day). We finally got home a little shy of 10 PM. 13 hours of driving and haggling with a 30 minute dinner break. The things we’ll do for a great car deal!
Our MAD adventure. Told in 1813 words. Way too many if you ask me!
