Legend of the Ham Room

As I slide into the end of my 30s and head towards middle age, I begin to appreciate the stories that make up my family’s ridiculous history.  As a kid, you really don’t comprehend the great tales that make their way around the dinner table at Thanksgiving or over beers and dogs at a BBQ on the Fourth of July.    If you’re lucky though, the stories get told enough times while you age.  

This latest and greatest comes from the master yarn spinner himself, my father.  Growing up in Layton, PA…

Trust me, you won't know where that is unless you are from the area. 

Seriously…

OK, do you remember Silence of the Lambs?  

That house at the end?   Layton.

The tunnel that Clarice Starling and Jack Crawford go through on their way to the funeral home to inspect the body of the first girl killed?   Layton.

Can I continue?

OK, so, growing up on the farm in Layton, PA, my father’s bedroom was basically an icebox.   Before he came along, it was used to hang meat, usually pig, from the closet.  It had exterior walls on three sides of the room, so it kept quite cold in winter.    On January mornings, he would wake up, put on winter clothes and a coat and play in his room.   His room was a modern day nerd’s wet dream; a room that smelt of bacon.

My uncle, around 10 years my father’s junior, moved into my father’s room and it became his.  In 1980, when HE married, they renovated they the house to accommodate the styling of the latter quarter of the 20^th century.  This included redoing what had become known as The Ham Room.   My uncle’s belongings from his youth still resided in the room.  Odd ends and bits adorned the tops of dressers; a marble here, an interesting rock there, all frozen in time. 

It was summer and the room’s lack of insulation made it as cold blooded as a reptile.     Shirtless while he worked, combating the heat, he and my uncle increased the depth of the shelving in the closet, where pig carcasses once hung.  My father, not as svelte as he was in his youth, had the makings of a belly that passed onto his youngest, me.  After finishing, he spied a black marble, which he originally mistook for a cow’s eye due to its size.     The wheels began to turn in his mischievous mind.  He instructed his younger brother, now in his 30s, to go fetch my mother.    He often sent his brother on errands, as older brothers do, usually with devilish intentions.

He came down to the kitchen, where my mother was working on cleaning up from lunch or dinner, not sure which, and made up some reason to bring her upstairs to the ham room.  She obliged and climbed the rickety old steps up to the second floor.  She opened the door to the empty room where various tools and remains of carpentry sat.   My uncle said she needed to look in the closet, for whatever reason he invented.

My mother walked to the closet, and slowly opened the door.

There, in the top of the closet, was a large, stark white mass of something, with an eye fixated on her.  If filled the entire space in the doorway and actually crept out an inch after being freed from captivity of the closed door.   A scant of hair adorned the top and bottom right sides.  By definition, it could be a large scale, actual, hairy eyeball.  The blobulous eye-thing stared at her and for a moment, there was thought to be a blood curdling scream forthcoming.   Instead there was simply a sigh and “Oh, George!” that escaped her lips.   She turned and went back to her work, shaking her head in disgust.

This fleshy beast was simply my father, propped up on the shelf in the closet, shirtless, with his stomach hanging out.  His arms and his feet hidden on in either side of the door frame.  That onyx marble he found was positioned square in his navel like some kind of side show belly dancer from East Germany. 

How my father managed to wedge himself, shirtless, in the closet is a mystery.  How he managed to not succumb to the intense heat of a Cool Hand Luke style imprisonment is an amazing testament to his fortitude.   How the shelving managed to not crack and disintegrate from his weight is simply a nod to his carpentry skills.  Go dad!

And so it was the legend of the ham room was born.

2012 D-Bag Awards: Abridged

I was going to post an entry for the D-Bag awards sometime this week. Things have changed, though.

I had already compiled a list of all the nominations including entries from Sports (The Pirates, The NFL, The NHL, and Lance Armstrong), to celebrities like Chris Brown or Donald Trump.

Businesses featured prominently due to the cutting back of workers and benefits after the upholding of the ACA and/or gay marriage issues.

Politics was huge among the entries, and it was hard to keep them to four. There were so many d-bags eligible.  Everyone, from the Rape Republicans to the constant lying and misinformation during the campaigns, made it hard to choose a clear winner in that category.  The fiscal cliff issue alone should have been the winner just on principal.

The Hollywood or Entertainment bracket was going to be great thanks to NBC’s colossal fail at the Olympics or the release of Honey Boo Boo on TLC.  The vast amount of remakes and childhood mining for material in Hollywood added a tough competitor to the mix.

Lastly, the category with the most impact this year started to unfold. The Life category had the Christmas Creep, a new nominee competing against the likes of The Mayans and Mother Nature, because of the whole apocalypse and Hurricane Sandy business.   But when I started listing all of the names of people who died this year for the stats of Death, a perennial contender, I found that it was clear where I needed to lay the award.

It wasn’t bad enough that a lot of great and influential people died this year. Yes, there were a lot of celebrity deaths, which is normal because THEY get reported more than anyone else, but we also had the attack in Benghazi as well as the Colorado, Oregon, and now Connecticut shootings. Prior to last Friday, it was somewhat of a tossup as to who would be taking home the title. I was going to say the Mayans and post the results on 12/22. What? Did you honestly think this was some kind of scientific or statistically measured tournament? Sorry. I’m just a guy with an Internet connection and a lot of voices in his head.

So, as I was saying, when I started listing out all of the names of people who had died and were listed on the news, I left it open, because there was still time on the clock. Then, the Newtown shooting happened.

As a 20 something, Columbine was hard because I was only a few years removed from that environment. Virginia Tech was even harder because it was closer to my age. However, since I am a father of a five year old girl, who is just about the age of most of the victims, I reeled when I found out. I caught the early reports on the radio, as I was rushing around getting things done on my day off, Friday.  Immediately, my heart sank.  I was going to meet up with some coworkers to see The Hobbit and would probably not be home in time to kiss my little girl goodnight. I texted my wife to tell her to give her an extra hug and kiss as I was near tears most of the day.  Then, I got a call from them and got to speak to her. She was so earnest in her little voice explaining what had happened.

After the movie, I got another call because she was going to bed and I wanted to say goodnight to her. Her sleepy little voice reminded me how much I love being her Daddy.  For all the bad times, the tantrums, the repeated requests to watch the same four episodes of Wild Kratts OnDemand, the intelligence and sweetness she brings into grown up conversations just melts my heart.

And realizing that she had to go to school today, in a different world, again, made me realize that there was no more need for discussion.

Therefore, I give you this year’s D-Bag of the Year Award winner, Death himself.  He recaptures the title after winning it the first year. Well played, douchebag. The amount of lives lost this year in senseless fashion just bolster my decision.

Now, some may wonder why I just don’t give it to the guy who did the shooting. Well, that’s because I don’t feel we need to give this sorry excuse for a human anymore recognition than he deserves, which is none.

If I could give away an opposite award for the best example of a human being in this world, I would give it to the teachers and principal at Sandy Hook. They were heroes. None of them with any kind of training or weapons. They protected those children and gave their lives to stop more from dying. They deserve a medal. Yet, all we’ll do is debate mental health and gun control until their sacrifice is nothing more than a Facebook photo of a candle.

The Dagobah Spa

Growing up, the one thing I always wanted to have was a pool. For the first ten years of my life, I lived in a house without air conditioning. We didn’t even have a window unit; just box fans to make the sticky July nights somewhat more bearable. Because I had become accustomed to that constant hum from the fans in the window, I sometimes would have to have them going in December just to sleep at night; white noise at it were. But something that would have made the summers even more enjoyable would have been a pool.

When my parents built a new house in 1984, AC included, I thought that perhaps we would finally get a pool. The backyard was flat and open. It was the perfect location for a pool. Now, at our old house, the back yard sloped right to left with a drop off onto the grass driveway before going further down as it neared our neighbors’ house. There was no conceivable way to put a pool there, other than the baby pool I had as a kid. This new yard was so much better. Two acres with plenty of space. Never got that pool, though.

Now, my wife, on the other hand, had a pool during her childhood. However, when she got older, her father did not want to keep taking care of it, so they took it down. So, here we were, two different pool backgrounds; one that always wanted one and never got it and another who always had it but chose to get rid of it. I never could understand how someone could NOT want to have a pool. Now, I do.

When my brother built his own house twenty years after my parents built theirs, he got a pool. Of course, when you build a house, it’s hard to justify such a luxury. That’s what my parents had to do. They prioritized. But in the days of everything is possible, they came out with pools that were simply a liner, held together by piping. That INTEX pool may not have been the prettiest looking thing but it did the trick. So, when my wife finally wore me down into getting one for her and my daughter I thought it was a justifiable $400.

Of course, being the cheap bastard I am, I didn’t really want to pay that much. I was happy to pay $10 for a Saturday at the local public pool. Sure, you had to deal with the crowds, the chance of urinated water, and wet pool bathroom smells but it was still a pool and someone else’s problem. I mean, we did it growing up. We belonged to the Bullskin pool near our house. It was somewhat of a relief to go out there and swim. Still, my wife gave me that look and I cracked. Fortunately, my brother stepped in and helped out.

They had recently got a NEW pool. They got a bigger pool; a better pool. So, in pure family fashion, I got the old pool. Whether it was clothes or a car, being the youngest child meant hand me downs. This one, I could truly appreciate. I save $400 and made my wife happy.

I was never happy again.

Like my first house, growing up, my current house resides in a hilly area. My yard is about as level as Mordor. But, we managed to clear out a space that could be level enough for a 16 foot round pool that runs on paper cartridges and enough HP to power a car driven by a hamster for ten minutes. Constant trips to WalMart to buy more cartridges and chemicals proved to be futile as I could never get the right size filter. The trees in my yard, two oak and two maple, kept providing my wife with hours of enjoyment as she spent the better part of an hour skimming them out of the pool. Her first order of business was always to “MAKE A WHIRLPOOL!” I thought we got a pool to relax, not run around in circles tripping on the ladder every ten seconds.

At the end of the summer, she hated letting go of the pool and tried to keep it open until the last possible moment in September. Then she’d go off and work every weekend at the farmer’s market, leaving me with a toddler to close the pool by myself. In the Spring, after the cover blew off, the water had froze, and one out of every four leaves on my four trees ended up at the bottom of the exposed pool, I had to turn the green and brown cesspool into a clean and sparkly magical oasis of fun. Repeat the cycle.

The outcome was always the same. Try as we might to clear the pool with chemicals, the only option was to drain it, scrub it, and fill it. My water company just loved that. Because of our efforts to get it clean through chemistry, we always ended wasting most of June before coming to the conclusion that we just needed to drain it. Then, in the fall, I attempted to close it by myself and tore the cover and said, “EFF IT!” June came around, I drained it and restarted. However, this was a new year.

We could see the paper filter bit was not going well. In fact, because I could not find the exact filter model I needed, I had to use a table saw to just slice off the bottom off of the (A or C) filter model because it was big enough to just cause the cover of the filter to not close right.

Over Memorial Day, an old friend and teach of mine sold me a Haywayd DE filter and pump. That’s like sticking a HEMI engine on a moped. My father-in-law and I spent the better part of a week making various connective pieces out of what we were given and what I had, coming up with a strange hybrid of hoses for the intake and output. By the end of June, we had a working pool and I decided to be smart and buy a new cover. I was convinced that I was not going to drain the pool next Spring.  Come December, the pool cover was snug and secure in its box in my garage. The leaves were snug and secure in their watery grave at the bottom of my pool.

I did manage to dismantle the filter and pump and stored them underneath our porch which is out of the elements but still cold enough to weaken the top of the filter basin which cracked when I put it on this past May. Green water gushed out of the top and I was forced to consider the possibility that I would have to spend a good $200 to fix my $200 filter on my free pool which cost me $200 in a water bill last August.

Luckily, another friend had a filter and pump he looked to get rid of in June. And, by mid month, I had a working pool. A working pool that looked like the swamp on Dagobah that Luke crashed into in Empire Strikes Back. “DAMNIT! I AM NOT DRAINING THIS BASTARD! TO THE POOL STORE!” I took a gallon jug of my water to see what I needed to do to clear up the pool. I knew I still had leaves on the bottom, but I couldn’t see them. I needed to be able to see what was in there in order to clear it out. The pool store looked at my jug like I had just brought over a sample from Karen Silkwood’s bathtub.

I told them that I was all prepared to just drain the pool and start over, but if I could save the water, I’d prefer it. Well, of course they don’t want me to drain it. No. Because I would lose whatever chemical base was already built up. They did their little tests and came back with a regiment for how to treat the pool.

Now, when I looked at the chemical makeup of this water that would make Swamp Thing go, “DAFUQ?” I was a bit skeptical. Chemical makeup? The chlorine level was less than my tap water. In fact all of the levels were a third or fifth of what they should be. Yet, I spent $200 on chemicals and a new skimmer (The old one broke) in order to save my precious chemical base.

I followed their directions and by step three, when it says, “Your pool water should now be clear.”, I said, “EFF IT!” I bled that bastard faster than a Nigerian banker bleeds a naïve grandmother. When I walked out Sunday morning and saw what was left in my pool, I thought a new life form was going to crawl out of the ooze with plans to take over the top spot on the food chain. I half expected to find a dead cat carcass in there, amongst the leaves and inch of green algae. Although, I don’t know how that would compare to a “live cat carcass.” Would that have been Church from Pet Sematary?

Anyway, I now have a crystal clear pool ready to swim in and it’s only the second of July. Plenty of time until I have to scramble and get the cover on in October. Of course, the $200 I spent in chemicals will be nothing compared to the $450 I will have to spend in August. I left the hose on overnight, with the assurance from my wife that the pool would not overflow. I had a river in my backyard this morning.

The point is, if you are a lazy bastard like I am who keeps forgetting to close his pool properly at the end of the summer then you will have to spend the money to fix it in the Spring. The question is, do you spend $200 on chemicals to make your algae soup highly chlorinated, or do you just drain it and start over. Most pool store employees will tell you to use chemicals. I mean, why not? You spend the money on them and if it doesn’t work, you spend more money because now you have all that chemical base built up. Win-win.

But, if you have a 5000 gallon pool, like I do, you are better off draining it. Yeah, it costs a lot of money but now I’m $500 in the hole because of the chemicals I did buy and the fact that I drained my pool. Rest assured, I will be PROPERLY closing my pool and keeping the chemicals I didn’t use for reopening the pool next year. I will also put my pump and filter in my garage which is more climate controlled than the room under my porch.

It’s your own judgment, I guess. If you have anything bigger than a 16 x 48 pool, you might want to consider keeping the water and fixing it through chemicals. At that point, I would go to sever pool stores with a sample before making that decision. A lot of them will test the water for free if you buy something. If you have a pool, you’ll need chemicals anyway, so buy a bag of shock or tub of chlorine tabs at each place.

Now, I know why my father is one of the smartest men I know. Yes, we never had the pool, but he never had the headache.

2009 D-Bag Awards Heat Two: D-Bag Dads

In this match up we have three dads and a dead guy competing for the chance to move on to round two.

• Richard Heene
• John Phillips
• Jon Gosselin
• Roman Polanski

The heat is a bit lopsided as we have three live contestants and a corpse. That shouldn’t be too much problem as Team Phillips has submitted a substitution for John in the form of his daughter, Mackenzie Phillips, carrying the urn containing her Dad's ashes. As we await the start of the match some of the contestants are doing some unusual pregame warm-ups. Richard Heene is conducting some weather experiments and Jon Gosselin is trying to get the digits of some coed in the stands with a Penn State sweatshirt. Apparently there’s a frat party immediately after the match and he’s offering to make a beer run. I tell ya, he better focus on this competition instead of her Levis or he’s not going to fare too well.

Ok, as all the contestants and ashes of contestants come up to the line we get set to go. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with this contest, we’ll explain. The playing field contains numerous structures in which children are hidden. The object is for the fathers to locate their actual children among the structures. Now this will be a hard task for Gosselin as he has to find all eight kids, while Polanski and Heene have only two and three to look for. Mackenzie, standing in for her dead father has to find her half siblings and that gives her the edge because she’s already found herself, so she comes in one up on the others.

There’s the whistle and they’re off like a shot. Roman Polanski sneaks from structure to structure to avoid detection. His work is amazing as the camera really follows him well. The shots we are getting in the booth are fantastic. Jon Gosselin manages to find the older twins right away but loses them in a bitter custody battle with his wife. He seems to be distracted by another coed in the stands. Oh, look out. His wife whisked the kids right out from under him. We’ll have to get a judge’s ruling on whether or not that counts towards his final goal.

Mackenzie is taking the course one day at a time and seems to be unsure on whether or not she should check out a particular garage. She opens the door and there’s Chynna. Wow, that was an "Impulsive" move to check out the garage. Now, there’s a fight over allegations that their father carried on the affair with Mackenzie, while high. Chynna is saying "Release Me." This could be a setback for Mackenzie.

And where is Richard Heene? He’s still at the starting line conducting some experiment. Now, he’s done and heading out into the field. There are a few places he could start looking. My bet is the tethered Mylar balloon immediately to his right. But the crowd seems to be shouting at Richard to check the garage where Mackenzie Phillips found her sister Chynna. Apparently, they are yelling about Falcon being in the rafters of the garage. Oh, and now we have a new development, the balloon that was tethered to the field has just snapped its line and is floating away. Boy, you have to hate when that happens. You go to a sporting event and someone loses a balloon that just stops all the action as everyone turns to watch it float away.

As attention focuses back on the field we now have our first disqualification. Roman Polanski stopped looking for his children and followed a 13 year old girl into a replica of Jack Nicholson’s house. That’s not even the half of it. Chris Hanson and a troop of Swiss officers were waiting inside to ambush Polanski and he has been taken into custody. Turns out that 13 year old girl was really an undercover cop who just looks young for her age. Still, I don’t see how this is a disqualification for Roman…Uh oh, they found Quaaludes on him. Yeah, that’s the reason. Performance Diminishing drugs are a no-no. As Polanski is hauled away we can see his children Morgane and Elvis sitting with Mother Emmanuelle Seigner in the stands. It was all a ruse.

The remaining contestants have continued to scatter about the field. Gossellin has managed to find all but one of his kids and is constantly complaining about the lack of coverage he’s getting from the cameras. He also seems to be yelling at the officials over his compensation for appearing in the games. Well, that will hinder his performance a bit. Meanwhile, Richard Heene has found Falcon. He was indeed hiding in the attic and we’re waiting from a ruling on the field over whether or not Heene had previous knowledge about Falcon’s whereabouts. The other two kids are nowhere to be found but there is a rap video playing on the jumbo tron in the center of the field which looks to be starring Heene’s other kids. I think the FCC will have something to say unless we go to a seven second delay, here.

Mackenzie has just stopped searching for siblings and is instead doing a bunch of talk shows, so I guess we can count her out, too. Looks like we are down to Jon Gossellin and Richard Heene. Oh, wait. Spike TV offered Jon a talk show for single guys and he immediately dropped all of his kids. That leaves Richard Heene, who enticed his other kids out of hiding with a combination of Mountain Dew, pixie sticks, and the DVD box set for Deadwood. He is the winner. What a surreal finish.

Here’s the final breakdown.

John Phillips is dead so we can only take his daughter’s ramblings to anyone who will listen as evidence of the actual abuse.

Roman Polanski was the coyote to the Swiss Police’s roadrunner and fell for the old "Come-accept-this-reward" ploy. He was arrested and is finally going to start the proceedings into the case. Now, whether it will be a "rape, rape" case or just a rape case remains to be seen. The fact that this happened 30 years ago puts him out of the running as he is only guilty of being an idiot for getting caught in 2009. He would have won the 1978 award hands down.

Jon Gossellin is just in it for the money, so I say we just make him go away and hopefully he will take his ex-wife with him. That whole train wreck of a divorce and custody battle shouldn’t even be talked about let alone put on camera.

Richard Heene rises above the competition. Jon Gosselin may be a cheating scumbag who wanted to cash in on his 15 minutes but Richard Heene tried to buy his time by reporting an incident that never happened, wasted taxpayer money on the wild goose chase, including diverting air traffic from DIA. Not to mention, his kids are YouTube rap stars that just shows how bad of a parent this guy is. He needs to be taken to D-Bag prison camp and water boarded. But instead, he floats away to round two while we go around and collect the rest of Gosselin’s wayward children.

Today’s match has been brought to you by the medical doctors of Holder, Roper and Nutter. Physicians who specialize in proactively performing castrations on potential d-bags before they can procreate. They save the tax payers money and the general public much needed brain cells by disallowing idiots to reproduce exponentially in order to get a reality show. They are medical insurance friendly. If only they would have been around to stop Kevin Federline and The Duggars after kid four. Honestly, does she just have a zipper on her abdomen, or what?

Rejection Is Not a Four Letter Word

This is a response to a great article from NPR. Rejection Is A Fact Of Life. Employers, Do It Right!

Quick summary. The author’s teenage son applied for an internship to which after he never received a rejection letter.

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been rejected before. I know you must find it surprising to hear that with all this talent and charisma, someone like The Mongo, who, besides pretentiously referring to himself in the third person, has been rejected. It’s true. I’ve been rejected more times than I care to remember.

Now, that’s not to say that rejection is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, rejection is grist for the mill. The moment you accept rejection as a final answer is the moment you fail. Of course, I’m not telling you to keep asking for acceptance when rejected. It is certainly a case by case basis. Persistence can lie somewhere just below stalking. Sometimes you have to know when someone is rejecting you for the right reasons and move on with your life.

But back to me, because it’s all about me, right? Rejection is an old friend of mine and sometimes I wonder why he hasn’t called sometimes. I mean there have been countless times in the past when I have applied for some job and never received a response. Worse yet, when you get an interview and then you never hear from someone again, that can be a little worrisome. Was I supposed to call them? Did they try to call me and I missed them? If you become too self involved with the job hunting process you could end up being Jon Favreau in Swingers. You get a little glimmer of hope, like an interview, or even a second interview and then you begin calling and calling, leaving countless messages with the company that become more erratic with each instance. Soon, the company has blocked your number. If they would have just told you the moment your application became an afterthought you could have regrouped or applied somewhere else or even just decided to go in a different direction.

I can only begin to imagine the reasons for not contacting someone in regards to their application. It might be because they have to wait until the position is filled to contact those candidates that were not chosen. It might be an automated process within an HR recruiting application that spits out a list of tasks associated with applicants not being considered. There might be some underlying bureaucracy that hangs the position out to dry and until it is finalized they cannot contact all interested parties. Both cases offer a different reason for prolonging the inevitable but when a position hangs out in the HR aether for over a year because a suitable candidate has not yet been found, I think it should be safe to contact the “also ran” crowd and let them know they can exhale.

I have also been rejected as an artist. I’ve gone on countless tirades about how CafePress moves one of my images into pending status with either no explanation or one that is contradictory to why another, similar, design is considered allowable. Frankly, this is more about principle than about being right or wrong. I accept, wholeheartedly, that there are some designs that should be flagged, but at least be consistent about it. That’s all the page space I’ll devote to that abused expired equine.

I’ve certainly been rejected in love, many, many times. Yet I have come to accept that it only put me on a better path to where I am now. There’s no way to know what might have been had another woman accepted my affections, without the use of a DeLorean equipped with a flux capacitor and 1.21 gigawatts of power, but that could create a huge paradox and unravel the fabric of the space time continuum. Of course, but making that previous statement you have the answer as to why there is no need to wonder what might have been. Regardless, it wasn’t the right time or place for that to occur. There have been plenty of “Let’s Just Be Friends” moments in my life and a few cases of uncontrollable laughter that followed such declarations of feelings but one thing has always remained true. I’ve never found myself so distraught that I could not get up in the morning after being rejected. Rejection is a part of love as well as life and it should be embraced.

I’ve also been rejected as a writer, too. This must come as a complete shocker to you as part of the “reader elite” that makes up the average 20 hits I get per day. Just in case this isn’t coming across, this post is heavily laced with sarcasm. After all, I’m topical, humorous, grammatically proficient, and quite honestly engaging and worthy of a good read. But on four occasions I’ve had a screenplay rejected. The first one came in 1996. I submitted a screenplay directly to MGM. However, they sent it back unopened with a letter stating that they do not accept individually solicited screenplays. What did I know, I was 21 and thought I had a killer idea. I also believed that if I mailed myself a copy of the script, that was as good as a copyright. I was mostly wrong, on both parts.

The other three occasions came from the a screenplay I submitted three times as part of those Project Greenlight contests that happened back in the front five of this decade. In this case, a screenwriter submitted a piece of work and had to review and judge other pieces. Then a selection of the best pieces based on votes from other screenwriters would send a script to the next round where a panel of judges in the industry would narrow it down further. The winner would get their screenplay produced into a film with a budget of one million dollars. In the first two instances the winners came up shy of box office totals that exceeded their budget. According to my own suspicions I felt that the early judging process was a little slanted. In order to win, most people are going to trash other people’s work to give theirs a higher score. The actual percentage of objective critiquing going on there was probably small.

In my own house, I get rejected a lot, too. My gut feeling to do more work on leveling out the yard before putting up the pool was rejected in favor or getting the sucker up before the summer was over. Not that we’ve had a lot of great days to go swimming this last two months of summer. It’s been unseasonably cold and wet. However, there, in my yard stands a monstrosity that is 16 feet round and four feet deep…on one end. It’s also moving as the support pools are leaning to one side.

I’ve also been rejected on a lot of ideas I’ve had for how to get things done. My wife and I try to work together to accomplish goals like cleaning the house, running errands to the store, or general care of our two year old. Yet, we always seem to tackle these jobs together in the same space but with different approaches. I’ve constantly told her, “Let’s split up and tackle these simultaneously. I’ll go to the store, you stay here and give the baby a bath” or vice versa. Still, she feels compelled to go as a group into the fray and usually there is bickering and trampling of each other’s toes.

In every instance that I’ve ever been rejected it stings. A lot of times it pisses me right off to no end. But rejection is there to balance things out and keep you grounded. I’ve spoken before about how I detest the trend among community sponsored sports where there is no sense of failure. Soccer games that have no score and other sports where everyone gets to play and no one fails. Now, I can understand that to a three year old, failure is a rather moot concept and giving kids a sense of accomplishment is a good thing. So is a sense of reality for that matter. Kids need to know about failure. Kids need to understand that, in life, you can’t always get what you want. It’s going to get a lot tougher out there and the sooner they are able to process rejection and move on they will be able to not let it be a detriment to their character or persistence.

My kid fails on a regular basis. She falls down, clunks her head and cries. We kiss it and make it better and she goes on about her business. She constantly wants to take more stuffed animals in her crib with her at night and we tell her no. She gets a little upset and even goes into shut down mode which involves throwing herself on the floor in a crying heap. Eventually, she gets over it and goes to bed without further incident. She got rejected, processed it, and moved on to another thing.

So, the next time you get rejected think of it as a little more fuel for the engine in your spirit. Of course, I say that and I feel that my engine isn’t getting as good of mileage from rejection as it used to. Perhaps there is a program like Cash For Clunkers when it comes to rejection. If anyone actually read my work or shared it with others or even donated to the cause or bought a shirt that would be nice. Nope? Rejected again. Maybe next time.

The Great American Vacationer

I get it now. I understand my Father. Well, I understand some of his motives, anyway. The man may have done some strange things while I was growing up but yet, though this be madness, there is method in’t. Now, your typical everyday American nuclear family with its 2.4 kids customarily takes a vacation during the summer. I know there are those that skip the idea whether it be a monetary issue or whatever, but for the most part, a family vacation is woven into that tapestry of Americana upheld by the our forefathers like Clark W. Griswold.

However, for as many summers that I can remember going on vacation there were twice as many when we did not. For awhile, I thought we always went somewhere each summer but the gaps in my memory kind of blended together forming this one long running vacation that lasted three or four years. That’s the thing about being a kid. You tend to think a week’s vacation, lasts a lot longer than it really does. Whereas adults find themselves getting completely unpacked and settled only to get back in the car and head for home.

So, there he is, my Father, the master packer of a truck or car or camper and he doesn’t like to go on vacations. Why? These reasons only became clear to me in the last ten years. When I worked my previous position, I was responsible for day to day activities regarding customers individual events. I could go away for a week, return, and the work would have been done while I was gone. Now, I have a more long term responsibility towards my customers and that means that whatever work I leave will ultimately be there when I return. I’m not really getting away from it all, as it were. My Father understood this.

He’s in insurance and those people that you build up relationships with over 30 years tend to feel comfortable calling you at home and it would be nothing for me, as a preteen, to answer the phone from someone who had just been in a car accident or had a tree fall on their house and write down all the particulars to be handed off to my Dad. Usually he was away at some other activity whether it be Lions Club, the Municipal Authority, or helping to take care of the family farm where he grew up with his brother. Even though we were technologically behind with cordless phones and answering machines, there would be a stack of messages for him when he got back to the office after our trip. It became more of a hassle to go away for a week, then it would to just stay home.

But what is the fun in that? Anybody can spend a week at the PorchView Resort but only the bravest few will attempt to wrangle a family together and plan a trip that will go down in the annals of recreational escapes. Again, my Father understood this concept.

It’s hard enough coordinating a weekend at home with a two year old let alone having three kids between the ages of 10 and 20 to deal with in terms of travel. First of all, where the hell are you going to put them? We didn’t have a minivan in those days. We had a Chevy Custom Deluxe with a few slight modifications in the form of a homemade insert that my Dad made for the bed of the truck that could act as two bench seats with a table or fold down into a full sized bed. In those days, no one thought about safety issues and the three of us kids would sit in the back of the truck for seven to ten hours playing Tiger electronic football or Trivial Pursuit.

As my siblings got older, we could downgrade to the family sedan since they opted to drive themselves in order to head along with their friends to another destination afterwards. While my parents did show concern over having another vehicle drive on major highways to other states by persons under the age of 25, being in insurance after all, they weren’t paying for gas so they didn’t mind as much. It saved them money having to take a vehicle with less fuel efficiency. Still, there is a lot of planning involved. What do you take? What can you get there? What do you really need? Are you even going to need slacks and a nice shirt? I tend to come from the school of thought of packing 5% extra clothes, 10% extra underwear, one pair of jeans.

Then there is what you leave behind. What about someone to conduct mail pickup, look after the yard, any pets you might have, and or even just leaving an empty house in general? The possibilities are endless for someone who thinks too much about the negative. But it does happen. Freak accidents cause your house to become damaged, a pet to escape, anything and everything can happen while you are supposed to be relaxing.

So, yeah, my father didn’t like taking vacations and now I am heading in that direction. I am currently getting ready to head for the Outer Banks and that in itself is always packed with drama. The last two times I was there I faced a hurricane and some strange dead alien looking creature on top of a cigarette vending machine. To add to the mix is the addition of my two year old daughter. This will be her first trip to the beach. This could totally throw her world into chaos and for that matter, ours.

The trip prep is crucial. We have to have the house ready for a week of no one really taking care of it. We need to shop, of course, for new things to drag 600 miles away to use at the beach and then back home, which will conclude their usage. For the next trip will probably buy more of the same forgetting that we already have those items, much like Christmas lights. You have to go online and check out all the activities in the area and order a beach guide so you can do your homework. And of course, for every road trip, you have to have a soundtrack and I’ve been trying to update my iPod for this year. I hope you kids see what a silly waste of resources this is.

Then, there is my in-laws. My wife’s sister is getting married on the beach, which is what prompted this trip. They are travelling separate but I will have my wife’s parents with us in a house. I’ve had to work on securing a rental vehicle in order to take all of us. I’ve had trouble explaining to rental agencies that an SUV won’t cut it because while I have only five passengers, I have a two year old whose Earthly possessions take up a lot of space. Also, we need to make allowances for my Mother-in-Law who recently had brain surgery and has to keep her feet elevated to alleviate swelling and we’ll be stopping periodically to keep her from having issues with blood clots.

I’ve had to find a house that will fit our budget and our needs. My Father-in-Law has an artificial hip and will need to have close access to the beach and amenities at the house. I have to take into account safety for my daughter, crib arrangements, chair and umbrella rentals. These are all the things you need to consider when taking a large group to the beach.

After a whole week of that, I will come home and then have to pick up the pieces of the outside chores as well as some inside. Granted, we are having someone house sit so out cats should be in good hands but I don’t expect anyone to have to cut my grass. My hill is a test in Eustachianary fortitude as well as a test of footing.

Still, I will do it and I will enjoy it. I probably put ten times more effort into the planning of this than is necessary. I give myself heartburn and ulcers and white knuckle my way through 12 hours of bickering and screaming for fun. I will listen to people complain about issues that are so far away from being important because they don’t ultimately understand that this is supposed to be fun and somewhat of an escape from suburbia. Why? Because I am the Great American Vacationer, like my Father before me. We are a dying breed. We must preserve our heritage and continue to do things the way our ancestors have for decades. This above all: To thine own self be true.

A Job More Important Than Brain Surgeon

I haven’t been posting with my normal frequency. A couple of posts back I went into great detail about my Mother-in-Law’s diagnosis with a brain tumor. For any of those of you who are wondering, the prognosis is good. Let me start off by giving a big thanks and kudos to the staff and doctors of UPMC Shadyside. Anyone familiar with medicine and hospital care has probably heard of the UPMC Health System. Being a resident of the Southwestern Pennsylvania area, we have access to some of the most cutting edge technology in hospitals. Granted, there are bigger and more advanced facilities but we hold our own here. The care my Mother-In-Law received was excellent and the staff should be commended on their skills. I’d also like to send a big shout out to Wendy’s for their Baconator Combo Meal and PBS Kids Sprout, but more on that later.

Last I had stated, my wife’s Mother went through an MRI and was admitted to hospital for testing. Two days in the ER and two days in the Neurosurgery wing later, she came home and prepared for surgery. They had given her steroids to reduce the swelling which had caused the loopy behavior. Now, they were going to go in and remove a tumor, roughly 5 cm in size. She was going to endure about four hours of surgery, three to four days of recovery in the hospital and two weeks’ worth of home recovery before going back to work. Truthfully, that’s not too bad. They don’t expect any rehabilitation or adverse effects from poking her in the head. They’re were off on their estimates.

Now before you start to sink and think the worst, realize I said they were off on their estimates. I didn’t say how. It turns out she was in surgery for little more than an hour and a half and was awake immediately after. She spent Wednesday evening and most of Thursday in ICU recovery and then got moved to a room in the Neurosurgery wing. She came home on Friday. The only hurdle we have left to clear is the two weeks of home recovery. See, no doom and gloom.

While I can’t go into any great details about her experience I can give you a glimpse into what it is like as a spectator to the event. Because, as you know, it’s all about me. From my perspective, I’ve had to watch from the outside looking in on the ups and downs of my Mother-in-Law’s health issues. Only recently have I become a more active player but the recent events have been more of an exercise in child management than moral support.

When I got the call from my MIL, as she will be referenced here on out, I was sitting at my desk like always. I had been conversing with her cousin about her impeding MRI and she had mentioned about my MIL stopping at mailboxes and running red lights on the way there. She had been acting rather distant and confused for a month. She seemed meek and this is a woman that is a mama bear. She will knock you down and tell you like it is. For her to have this look of confusion on her face when trying to eat her dinner, you know something is wrong.

And the MRI almost didn’t happen. She had an appointment with her PCP and was planning on telling them everything was fine. My wife, a new mama bear on her way to full membership, was going with her to make sure they understood what was really happening. She helped to get the MRI in the works. Then, my MIL coworkers kept the wheel spinning when my MIL decided she was going to just cancel or reschedule the MRI because she felt fine. They forced her to go…but nobody offered to drive, unfortunately.

So, there I am twiddling away the afternoon when I got the call. “You need to go home now. I need to go to the ER and you won’t have a babysitter for the afternoon.” I didn’t really understand how it all worked. I just did what I was told. I left work, and started home. She called me on my cell and asked if I was on my way. I missed part of the message. Originally, I thought I was going home as her husband, our babysitter, was going to be on his way to pick her up for the trip to the ER. Apparently, I was to take her home, first. Luckily, I was only at the other end of the road her office is on and turned around.

In the car, she quickly tried to contact some people and seemed with it more than usual. I asked her if her or her husband had told my wife, yet. They hadn’t and I specifically told them not to. I would take care of it when I got there. My fear was that one of them would call and tell her on the phone while our daughter was in her presence. Knowing my wife, I was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face and her distressed look would upset the baby. Since our daughter is still less than two years old, she doesn’t quite understand what is about to happen but she does sense tension and despair and her empathic ability carries over into her mood. Her world was going to be thrown upside down and I wanted it to try and stay clear of the debris.

I dropped my MIL off and headed home. The three minute drive from one house to the other wasn’t long enough in my opinion. Here I was about to tell my wife that her Mother was going to the ER and that she needed to contact her oncologist and have him consult with a neurosurgeon. There’s no easy way to cram all that medical jargon into a more digestible chunk without sounding insincere or flippant. I practiced again and again how I would tell her. Not to mention, I was going to have to somehow deliver the bad news with a smile and upbeat demeanor so that my daughter doesn’t catch onto it. I decided to wing it as I pulled into the driveway. My wife was just getting out of the shower and was puzzled as to why I was there instead of her Dad. She had already sensed something was wrong and I immediately asked her if the baby was napping. Luckily, she had just gone down and my wife had every opportunity to act naturally.

She only caught three words out of my entire speech. “ER”, “Oncologist” and “Neurosurgeon.” Everything else was white noise. She began wandering around the house not making any logical motions. Putting things away that didn’t present any issue being out. Trying to get ready to teach lessons that she was going to have to cancel because she was going to go to the hospital. I asked her if she wanted me to take her or to stay with our daughter while she went. She needed me to be there so, I called my Mother to come and sit with the baby. While my wife called her students, I made every possible provision to ensure a smooth stay for my Mom because I didn’t know when we’d be back. I filled up the gas in our car so that if she had to travel, she had a baby seat. I moved all of the cats, their food and their litter box into our room. She’s allergic. I got out different foods and snacks for them to have for dinner and I started listing all of our cell numbers and what hospital we’d be at on the refrigerator.

Our daughter woke up right before my Mother arrived which is nice because she sees us first. That keeps her life simple and normal. We left for the ER and found out that there was some kind of mass on my MIL’s brain and that they needed to reduce the swelling first. This was the cause for her mental state. That state seemed fine to me as she and the nurse attending to her in the ER had a very upbeat and snappy banter about needle sticks, health care, and all around bedside manner. I don’t know if she was using humor and snarky comments as a defense mechanism but it worked. The nurse was laughing hysterically as were we.

After three more days in the hospital, my MIL came home with a plan of action. The surgeon was confident about procedure and she was scheduled for a Wednesday surgery. I took off work for the last half of the week and got the marching orders.

Wednesday: My wife and FIL were going down with my MIL for surgery. I was staying home until the baby awoke and then will transport her to my parents and join my wife at the hospital.
Thursday: My daughter had a doctor’s appointment, so I was going to be with her, then probably wouldn’t see my wife until late.
Friday: Everything was probably just status quo in recovery and I could go to work and then take over watching the little one while my wife goes to the hospital.
Weekend: Play by ear.

I did what I could to keep busy in the quiet of my house while my daughter slept. I fiddled with my computer, caught up on my DVR recordings and generally became bored out of my mind. Meanwhile, my MIL was having her head cracked open like a walnut so that they could look inside for something that didn’t belong. Once the baby was up, I fed her, packed her whole world into the car and left for my 40 minute drive to my parents. After running down the list of things I could remember, I parted with my daughter and headed for Pittsburgh. One thing I will share with you about this experience. I’ve acquired some new skills. I am now able to eat a full meal from Wendy’s, including a frosty, while driving 65 mph on the Turnpike. Previously, I had always required two hands to eat a Frosty. They require a fork. A straw just doesn’t cut it. I managed to be able to place it in the cup holder and spoon out the frosty goodness without dripping. Both Friday of the last week and today I had to grab my lunch on the go from Wendy’s and I have gained a huge love of the Baconator sandwich. I highly recommend picking up one…or three.

I got to the hospital around 4pm and sat with my extended family in the ICU family lounge. As I stated earlier, surgery was abnormally quick. It was the kind of situation where you think the worst. The kind where the doctor informs you that there was no way to do the operation because of the tumor or that she arrested before they could even get it all out. Seeing a doctor that quick is enough to make your stomach fall out of your ass. Luckily, it was just a quick surgery.

We were allowed to see her in ICU soon after and she looked like a reject from a punk show or someone that had passed out at a party before removing their shoes. Her hair was all messed up with red and yellow patches of color and there was marker writing near her temple. I couldn’t read what was written but in my sick and twisted sense of humor I asked if that was where they notated to “DO NOT CUT” or “CUT LEFT OF HERE.” She had a pounding headache which was normal but had very good cognitive skills.

My wife was a bundle of nerves and constantly needled the doctors for more information prompting my FIL to ask for some Duct Tape. I could understand her state of mind. She and her Mother are very close and ever since her first diagnosis of renal cell cancer in 97, she has become very attached to her. I fear one day it will be very, very hard. I just hope that it’s a situation where she goes in her sleep as a very old woman from natural causes. It’s never easy to lose a parent but this is a connection that transcends normal Mother-Daughter relationships. You have to admire that. One of the aspects of this family that I have grown to love is how Daughters take care of their Mothers, young and old alike.

Finally allowing her to get some much needed rest, we went to pick up our Daughter to get some normalcy in our evening. She was very good for my parents and my wife decided and her parents recommended that she needed to stay home on Thursday as nothing new was going to happen. No test results were going to come in on the tissue that was removed. She wasn’t going to have any changes in care. She needed to just rest and my wife needed to let her. She also needed to go with me to our Daughter’s doctor appointment as I am still a novice when it comes to handling all the particulars.

Come Friday, my wife was simply going in with her Father to help get her Mother home. This was a highly improbable event. After having major brain surgery on Wednesday, she was coming home on Friday. I understand that patient turnaround in a major hospital is essential to maintain, but I just couldn’t believe that she was cleared for this. Granted, when my wife was in for the birth of our child, she opted to come home a day early because she was ready to climb the walls. This was something she regretted as she really needed another day of recovery in a hospital setting. You live and you learn. However, cesarean births and brain surgery are two different matters, yet my wife was in the hospital longer than her Mother in this respect.

While my wife got her Mother settled in and cleaned up around the house in preparation for the inevitable guests and well wishers to arrive, I stayed home once again and watched our Daughter. Since I wasn’t going to be dropping her off anywhere it was just a Daddy-Daughter day and we watched television. First there was Zaboomafoo. Then there was Barney & Friends. Next, was Play With Me, Sesame. Finally, there was Caillou. My Daughter was enthralled and sat on my lap with her “Blangy” (Blanket) and her “BaJoose” (Bottle of Juice) during most of the block of kids programming. Otherwise, she was playing with her Mrs. Potato Head or other toys scattered about our living room.

By Saturday, things were returning to normal. My wife was slowly getting back into her routine. My MIL was slowly recovering all her faculties. And I was slowly recovering from all the junk food and Baconators I had been eating over the last week. Wanting to do something special for me in all this, my wife said we should go shopping and said it was time to get the Wii. This is the same Wii I have mentioned in Free Wii 4 Me: Parts One and Two. I finally got it and boy are my arms tired.

So, while I wasn’t an active participant in all my wife’s family drama concerning her Mother and the tumor, I played, what I felt was an equally important and vital role. Because sometimes, the biggest impact and contribution you can make in any stressful and complex situation is to just keep the status quo for the smallest of affected individuals. In any crisis there needs to be that one person who maintains a unified front, calming those who need it the most, even if it’s just being a chauffeur or a television buddy. That was me. You may be the brain surgeon, but I am the Daddy and that makes me more important here.

How to pack a life in a car

It seems rather premature to discuss vacations and road trips when outside my window I still see salt covered cars and ice dunes in the parking lot. However, let us turn our thoughts towards warmer weather and packing the car for trips. You don't have any choice, so just sit down and stop bugging your sister or I'll turn this blog around so, help me, I swear.

As I look at what it takes to go anywhere with my eight month old, I'm reminded that this is payback for my parents. They, of course, packed all of us kids into a truck or a station wagon for long trips to the beach and to college. I considered my Father a master packer, being able to utilize every available space in the vehicle for storage of our stuff. I took that same approach when purchasing a replacement vehicle for limping 97' Chevy Cavalier three years ago. While my younger, less experienced packer of a wife, wanted a car with a good sound system. She even went as far as to suggest the ability to install extra speakers. That way, we could blast our greatest hits of Snoop Dogg and Maroon 5. After patting her on her head and chuckling at her naivety, I reminded her that, even though this would eventually become her car after we have a child, she would need the extra space for a car seat and everything the child owns.

Back to my Father. The man drove a Chevy Custom Deluxe Truck with a cap on the back. This truck had seen it all. When we went camping, it was able to tow a camper that contained all of our stuff, yet the cab of the truck could not contain all of their kids. My Dad became the inventor of the wonderful thing, which I thought was me, until the age of ten. The wonderful thing is simply a metaphor for something that previously existed in nature as some other sort of object or objects which have been disassembled and rebuilt into another functional object for which it was not originally designed for. One example of the wonderful thing was a charcoal grill built entirely out of a 55 gallon drum, lawnmower wheels, my childhood swing set, and counter top remnants. This fully functioning grill gave my Dad backyard supremacy in the realm of burger and hot dog grilling, allowing him to simultaneously cook for an entire graduation party without having to reload the grill. Another example of a wonderful thing was a homemade forge constructed out of a kettle grill and a shop vac that he used to build other wonderful things.

The most wonderful thing my Father built was an insert for that Custom Deluxe. The components for the insert have been regarded as a trade secret but I can tell you that part of it was fashioned from an old table top. The insert mirrored the functionality of the eating table in the camper. By day, the table and its bench seats served as a place to eat breakfast and play Pit and UNO. By night, it transformed and became a bed for my sister. Just like the camper, the insert slash wonderful thing was more than meets the eye. It also consisted of two bench seats that could be opened up for storage and a table post affixed to a base that slid into the bed of the truck. On long trips it served as a place to store three adolescent kids, playing Trouble. You could only play Trouble in the back of the truck, because all the pieces fit securely into holes on the board and the die was encased in the "Pop-O-Matic" container. We tried playing Trivial Pursuit once but some dumbass cut my Dad off on I-95 and cards flew everywhere. We no longer can finish the game as the pink game piece, nor will we ever find out how many cherubs are located on the game board. (In case you wondered, there's actually 19. Two on either side of every "wedge" square, six around the hub in the middle, and one in a pink category square somewhere on the board. But, I digress. ) By night, the post could be removed and the table top positioned in between the bench seats. All four cushions came together to form the mattress. This is where my brother slept. Where did I sleep? There was a bunk right above the couch in the camper that I wedged myself into for about 4 years until I kept banging my head on the ceiling getting in and out.

The 1980 Chevy Custom Deluxe

Alas, the insert was laid to rest along with the truck when my father had replaced the Custom Deluxe with a Dodge Ram in the early 90's. The Dodge also got some packing use out of it when I started college. For some unknown reason, I felt the need to move all my Earthly possessions with me to South Carolina where I was enrolled at Coastal Carolina University. Hey, you never know when you might need something and being 12 hours away didn't help. My father managed to pack everything I owned including another wonderful thing in the form of a headboard with shelves. This technically wasn't a wonderful thing, but considering that it used to be a tree, let's not split hairs. The cushions from the old insert survived the transition from Chevy to Dodge and I rode the entire 12 hours on them in the back of the truck in a space that reminded me of the bunk from the camper. Funny thing about traveling south in the back of a truck. If you leave home wearing shorts, you arrive wearing shorts. I transferred to the University of Pittsburgh in January of 1994, and found myself wearing shorts when we left Mytle Beach, and then having to put on more layers somewhere around Virginia after dark.

A 1984 Pontiac Firebird similar to mine

College moves and desertion of an apartment in under three hours aside, my father was able to pack a car or a truck to the hilt, never necessitating the need for more than one trip. This is something I have studied and tried to hone as a marketable skill. My first car, a 1984 Pontiac Firebird didn't really allow for a lot of trunk space, but the "Plugger" in me decided that I would not be deterred by such obstacles. In 1994, I packed enough stuff for myself and my girlfriend to take a vacation to Ocean City, Maryland. For anyone who has ever owned a 80's model Firebird knows it has a shallow trunk with a big hump between it and the back seat. Without sacrificing visibility out of the rear window, I managed to pack for a week long trip. My second car was, of course, my Chevy Cavalier. I loved this car for two reasons. Aside from some starter problems, it never let me down in getting from Point A to Point B. I drove that car everywhere. Staring from my home in Southwestern Pennsylvania, it went to Ohio, New York, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Canada. Secondly, it had a fold down bench seat in the back which allowed for great packing possibilities. Again, I managed to pack enough stuff for a week's vacation without sacrificing needed visibility. When I bought my first Christmas tree (It was artificial as I am allergic) the box, containing the seven foot spruce, slid smoothly into the trunk and onto the folded down back seat. When I bought my first 32 inch television, it fit in between the back seat and trunk laying face down on a blanket to guard the screen. Unfortunately, I had to remove the set from the packing box as it did not fit in the car whole. Still, I managed to do it.

1997 Chevy Cavalier

In 2005, after nearly 150 thousand miles and a blown head gasket, I sadly said goodbye to my Cavalier in favor of my new car, a Malibu Maxx. This five door sweetie allows me hatch functionality with 60/40 split fold down bench seats in the back and a fold down passenger seat for hauling long items. I've yet to max out the storage space even with the little one.

2005 Chevy Malibu Maxx

While, I revel in my accomplishment of being a master packer, I take no credit as I was taught by the best. However, I'm sure I'll be faced with challenges in packing strategy in the future as I will have to now pack for three people to go to the beach, losing a portion of my coveted backseat to a car seat. Not to mention having to eventually pack the entire life of my kids when they go to college. By then, I will have moved on to another vehicle, but will always keep an eye on how much storage space comes with my purchase. Perhaps I will echo my Father's creative side and construct some sort of enhancement for maximization of minimal space. After all, I want to make sure I have lots of space to move my wonderful things from point A to point B.