Next week I am embarking on my annual vacation with my best friend Sarah. Our vacations are not tropical destinations or floating on the Riviera or jetting off to Paris. Our vacations are designed for working moms who are outnumbered by the testosterone-fueled fellas we reside within our homes.
It used to be a weekend after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. This resulted in the first night of staying up WAY past our bedtime and chatting. Then we would probably go to the mall to do our Christmas shopping and maybe catch a movie. Our kids were young then and involved in EVERYTHING! I know many of you can relate!
Once our kids graduated high school, some of the pressures let up – some! We started coordinating our vacations in the summer and 2-3 days during the week – oh my! Typically we would find some event or new place to check out and have a pool day. But, last year was a first. We were done. We were tired. We were one sink full of dishes away from going on strike (and, yes, I have gone on strike – more on that in another post). We threw caution to the wind and said forget that Van Gogh Immersive Experience, that mall will be there next year, that movie probably sucked anyways, who needs wood-fired homemade English muffins (well, actually, you do because they are the bomb!) and decided that we were going to have a TWO day pool experience!
We mixed up our sangria, got our snacks together, threw in a couple bottles of water and by 10 a.m. we were soaking in the rays. Sort of…
Our pool days are legendary. Something always happens. Actually, SOMETHING ALWAYS happens when we are together. It started our senior year of high school. Sarah wasn’t old enough so our other friend Joni and I put her in the trunk of Joni’s car and we snuck her into the New Moon Drive-In…an X-rated drive-in theater. Yep…we laughed at all of the lonely men in their cars and before the actual movie started we were out of there. We also got lost coming home from our local mall one night. Called our parents from a pay phone asking for directions. That story never gets old! We also decided to go out for lunch one day (something we were allowed to do back in the day). It was snowing pretty hard and when we returned to school it seemed kind of…empty. A teacher approached us and asked what we were doing. Bewildered, we said coming back from lunch. She gasped and said you went OUT today?! Umm, yeah? Well, due to the weather school was early-released and the busses had already left. Sarah had her car, but I was a bus rider. Needless to say, my dad and uncle had to drive the farm truck into town to pick me up…fun times! But, I digress…
Day 2 Pool Day – we learned our lesson from the day before and got down to the pool even earlier so we could snag the good lounge chairs and pick the best spots. We were all settled in and ready to relax when…Cape Cod arrived. Middle-age, fake tan, a “Dad-bod”, and layers upon layers of gold chains around his neck. He looked like a Soprano reject. I thought Dear Lord don’t make eye contact! We were toast. We were the only people at the pool with this Saskatoon wanna-be (If you have ever watched the movie Grown-Ups you will know exactly what I am talking about. If you have not watched it, shame on you!) We quickly learned that he owned many homes, but was most fond of a place in Cape Cod, loved to travel, was here visiting some family, had his own swimming pool, had lots of money (which usually means they have nothing), and oh wow – wait – hinted about us going to see an 80’s rock concert with him and his ‘friends’. I was completely over this guy and his malarkey within a few minutes. I was polite, but when we got up and walked to the other side of the pool he got in the pool and swam over to us. I was done. I just stopped interacting with him. But, Sarah is the nice one and I am pretty sure he smelled that because Chatty Cathy Cape Cod just kept on going. I don’t know if it was me mentioning our husbands for the 20th time, or those gold chains were starting to turn green, but FINALLY Cape Cod left the pool! Once he was gone, my eyes couldn’t roll fast enough and my head was shaking and the words Dear God came out of my mouth!! And then, we laughed and laughed until our sides hurt.
It’s funny how the people you never expect end up becoming part of your favorite memories. Somewhere out there, Cape Cod is living his best life, completely unaware that he became a permanent part of ours. Every time I watch Grown Ups and the Water Park Stud from Saskatoon appears, I just shake my head and laugh. Here’s to the people who unknowingly become legends in someone else’s story. Thanks for the laughs, Cape Cod. You have no idea!
Until next time,
-Molly