Vacation

Okay, so let’s get this out in the open right away. How many of you when you go on vacation forget something? Invariably this happens, right? A toothbrush. Razor. Socks. UNDERWEAR!! No matter what it is, it becomes a bit of a hassle. Now let’s not get it twisted; the above items are usually available to pick up fairly easily wherever your destination may be. Other than the very cool event you are on an African Safari, there shouldn’t be too much trouble finding them.

Let’s get to it. We got back from spring break vacation with our 2 high school girls where we visited my wife’s cousin and her family in Sacramento. Sounds great right?!? Especially since we live in the Midwest and have been freezing as of late. Well, it started out fine. Our flight left at 5:50 am, so we agreed on the expectation of leaving our house at 4:30. Everyone gets packed the night before. Check. We all get up and shower the day of leaving. Check. We leave the house at 4:30 on the DOT! Check (so far so good, right?). We get to the airport with plenty of time to spare so all’s good in da’ hood. Check. We even have TSA Pre-check so we can cruise through security; this is GREAT!

And here is where the proverbial shit hits the fan. While we are going through security and I am emptying my pockets, I realize I don’t have my phone. Normally this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but I am expecting an important call the following morning. Damn it! At our connecting airport, I call my provider and have my number forwarded to my wife’s phone. She says to me that this will be a good lesson in unplugging for a week. Whatever. Crisis one averted.

Now we are in line to board our second leg and my wife asks if I have her phone. What the hell??? No, where is it?!?! We almost forget her phone in the 2nd airport which would have been really bad (more on this in a moment). I find her phone as it was she had been charging it a few rows away. Crisis 2 averted. We get on the plane and have smooth sailing into our destination of Sacramento. YES!!!!

Cuz picks us up from the airport. We are now officially on vacation and have made it to our destination without major issues. Oh but Murphy, (that dirty little pirate whore) has more in store for us. Once we get to our abode for the week, we unpack and set off for our first little bit of whatever. My wife, her cousin, her kids and our kids decide to go shopping, leaving us boys to do what we want. Cool – here comes the bar! We boys walk down to a local watering hole where I’m told has some great craft beers. We get to King Cong Brewing and I order a Stratus Clouds. It’s an American IPA and is quite delicious. Much like when Calgon washed over the stressed-out woman in those old t.v. commercials, the beer goes down smooth and washes over me. Yeah I know it was a cartoon woman, but leave me alone I didn’t have my fucking phone!

We have our beer and decide to get home before everyone else does. We are about halfway home (MURPHY CONTACT….LEFT) and my partner in crime realizes he doesn’t have his wallet. We are not in a sketchy part of town, but it’s still an unsettling feeling when you lose your wallet. We truck back to the bar and luckily a nice young guy noticed the look of terror on my compadre’s face and says “it’s at the bar.” The bartender hands over the wallet. My partner checks and the contents are all still there – he buys the guy a beer and we are on our way home again. Crisis 3 averted – take THAT Murphy!!

We get back to Cuz’s house and are chilling when we get a call. The girls say they were about halfway home when my oldest daughter says she doesn’t have her purse. They turn around and head back to the mall so she can find it. She says it can only be in 2 different stores so she runs back in. WTF Murphy, I’m supposed to be on vaca and you keep jackin’ with me!!! She finds the purse and they roll out for home again. Okay, crisis 4 averted, but I’m starting to get nervous about the rest of this trip. AND IT’S ONLY DAY ONE!!!!

Skip ahead to Thursday, and we have plans to go to the Golden State Warriors basketball game. We’re psyched and ready to get our bball on. We get woken by my wife getting a phone call from our cleaning person who says “I can’t get in your house because the inside garage door is locked. Are you guys okay?” While this is an incredible gesture of kindness and concern, it is clearly an unfortunate mistake on our end, but we’ll just Fed-Ex our key to her. SHIT! We took our daughter’s car and left the main house keys in the house. Wait, how the hell are WE going to get in when we get home? MUUUURRRPPPPHHHYYY YOU BITCH!!!!! We call a locksmith and have a police officer friend of ours go with him to get the house unlocked. Crisis 5 averted, so moving on to the game.

We get to the stadium with plenty of time to see the players warm up when WHAM – Murphy kicks me in the seeds yet again. Our tickets are not at the will-call window where they are supposed to be.

…this shit is getting ridiculous!! We make a few phone calls (yes, on my wife’s phone of course since mine is m.i.a.) and get it straightened out. Our tickets get reprinted and we are in. Decent seats, so we’re all happy and get to watch the players warm up a little before the game. I have 2 big beers, and we watch the Warriors blow out the Pacers! YAY sports ball (as the kids say these days).

The rest of the vacation is great, and there are no more issues with Murphy and her stupid-ass law. Both families go to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and have a great time. We play some catch, ride some rides, and eat some carny-style food.

And as Chris Penn’s character Tom Drake says in the movie The Wild Life, “It’s casual.”

We go back to Sacramento and I take my younger daughter to one of my favorite Sacramento pizza joints, Pizza Rock. This place has a semi-truck suspended inside, above the bar.

Totally gnarly to see, and the pizza here is fire! I think the owner is from Sicily and has won pizza contests all over the world. She loves it, and of course, I love it. Murphy doesn’t rear her ugly head!

Luther the family dog!

We make it back home without any issuses (thank the Lord!!), and as Nicole putting things away in the house, the girls and I leave to pick up the remaining family member from lock-up.

Our boy Luther is very excited to see us, and he lumbers his big-ass 90 pounds down the hall to greet us. We go home and all take a nice little breather to prepare for the upcoming school and workweek.

Vacations are great, and it’s best to reflect on the fun rather than getting bent out of shape when unplanned things happen. If we had let those issues get us angry, we may not have had a bit of fun. Instead, we were able to laugh about our mishaps. And every so often, our kids ask to see the pictures I took on my phone. Brats. 😎

Until next time…us