Let’s Just Wrap Up This Road Trip So We Can Move On To Other Things, OK?

When last we left off, the Aarons family had just enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner complete with cheese pizza and a throwdown between two whackjob mothers. Many of you asked if I happened to catch this insane incident on camera and sadly, I did not. I blame this on my husband who wouldn’t let me wear my helmet cam to dinner:

He has no idea what kind of moneymaker that baby could be, especially if I cruised around PTO meetings with it on my head. Seriously, just one, “Hey, Susan, Laura said that if you send her one more Reply All email about Cupcake Day, she’s going to shove a Duncan Hines frosting tin up your big white ass” and boom—I’d have my very own cable channel by next Tuesday. What can I say, the man is not a visionary.

He is, however, an Outlet Mall Slut. My husband loves, loves, loves outlet malls, which isn’t a good thing when you’re in Florida because there’s an outlet mall about every three miles. I don’t know why. Maybe Floridians are all huge fans of irregular Rocky Mountain Fudge hunks and Van Heusen sweaters that smell like decaying mice and rice vinegar.

But all throughout our trip, we’d be calmly driving along the interstate and suddenly, Chris’ eyes would bug out, his fingers would start to twitch and next thing I knew, we’d be barreling hellbent toward a Nike Outlet while he loudly hummed “Flight of the Valkyries” and  screamed things like, “WHAT SIZE SPORTS BRA DO YOU WEAR? DO YOU CARE IF IT HAS THREE CUPS? HOW ARE YOU SET FOR BLACK SWEAT SOCKS? GOOD? ARE YOU GOOD ON BLACK SWEAT SOCKS?” Seriously, factory seconds make him totally bust a nut.

It was at our fifth outlet mall in six days that I was treated to the loveliness of an employee in the Cole-Haan store yelling to a co-worker that she doesn’t like gang bangs, so he should just stop asking. Now, that sweet sentiment raised a lot of questions, like 1) Were some of the shoes marked 70% off for a really nasty ass reason? and 2) Why wasn’t that charmer working at Shoe Carnival? I mean, I once bought a pair of flats from some woman with fresh stitches on her head at Shoe Carnival. Shit goes down at da damn Shoe Carnival.

But I guess I can’t be too holier-than-thou because Sam and Jack weren’t exactly on their best behavior on the beach where they were yelling, “SOFA KING AWESOME!” to the horror of a gaggle of senior citizens. Here are the two comedians running away from their parents:

Then in the middle of lunch, Jack somberly told us that you should “never eat candy that someone’s cell mate made in jail.” Wha? I honestly don’t know what that kid does every day after I wave good-bye to him on the bus. I should probably watch him a whole lot closer.

Luckily, he makes it really easy to spot him because he regularly wears an all red suit that makes him look like a junior member of Kool & the Gang:

Finally, after being gone for a whole week of fun, we decided to make the entire trip home in one day. I told Chris that I’d help him drive the 13 hours, but he quickly found out that by “help,” I meant “not help.” But I really couldn’t drive because I had to take pictures of our fellow motorists. Like this gorgeous RV we passed:

It was probably Siegfried & Roy on their “The South Shall Growl Again, Girlfriend!” Tour. Either that or a couple of retirees busy doing any bat shit crazy thing they can to squander their kids’ inheritance. (Which is something my parents would totally get behind.) We also saw this Nobel laureate:

Fun fact: the elite of Mississippi wear backwards Tweety Bird hats and soiled wife beaters and dine at the Popeye’s Chicken attached to the gas station. (“ELITE 2” was most likely too busy solving the global economic crisis to eat wings right then.)

Besides my artful photography, I kept myself busy for the 13 hours on the road by tallying all of the Waffle Houses we passed. Waffle Houses are like the Starbucks of the South. Seriously, if you live in Florida, Alabama or Mississippi, you are never in any danger of a waffle withdrawal. It’s probably a very comforting thing. Here’s my tally:

Sixty-one, friends, plus the four I saw after I took the picture—so 65 total Waffle Houses. Whoo-hoo! And to think, at one point in my life I thought my career would be spent cataloging antiquities in a museum, not counting batter shacks on I-10. So naive!

After the long, long, loooooong day of driving, we finally screeched into our driveway at 9 p.m. and immediately did our standard “run in four different directions and nobody talks to anyone else for at least a week because we don’t like each other right now” schtick that ends every vacation. It’s a very special family tradition for us.

Sadly, this was our last road trip for awhile. However, just in case you want to know what the Aarons Experience is really like, allow me to share with you the comedy bit/song the boys sang for the entire 13 hour drive home. That’s right, THE ENTIRE 13 HOUR DRIVE HOME. I loved it as much as I loved accidentally brushing my butt against the trucker wearing an “Official Sex Inspector” t-shirt at the Houston Burger King.

Just imagine this brilliance from two preteen boys in the backseat for 13 straight hours:

Next time, I think I’ll just shove some damn waffles in my ears to stop the noise.

That’d be sofa king awesome.