Destressification and spacification…
I hate departures. Or maybe it’s just the long goodbyes that can accompany departures that I hate. It doesn’t matter who’s leaving, me or someone else. I just suddenly get the gotta-gits and I *have* to be outta there, or whoever is leaving needs to leave (already). No “just one more cuppa” or returning to get that one forgotten thing (unless it’s a phone power cord) or one last bathroom trip — well okay, a bathroom trip is certainly reasonable. Still, those who are on a journey need to get going and those who are left behind need to settle back in to life as usual.
Once upon a time we were leaving Florida. We had been at my in-law’s house for a week or thereabouts. I loved my in-laws and we had had a fantastic time in Florida but it was time to go back north and we were ready. The beach urchins were strapped in to the Exxon Tanker Valdez and I was nursing a loverly swimmer’s ear infection. My ears are (or once were) prone to produce a lot of wax, which trapped water, and I think the salt that was blowing around everywhere that year exacerbated that situation. Anyway, we were ready to launch. Beam me back up to the Great White North, please!
We were in the driveway saying goodbye to our kids’ grandparents and someone made the mistake of saying something about getting breakfast on the way outta town. Now, our plan was to grab a drive-thru breakfast at a Hardee’s. Hardee’s? I do not know what we were thinking, except that we were thinking fast food and coffee. The Grandparents began rattling off all of their fav-o-rite restaurants for breakfast. They were really trying to be helpful and I’m sure those places were all wonderful but they all required going in and sitting down and w-a-i-t-i-n-g for food. We wanted to be in Georgia in, well I dunno when, but an hour earlier than stopping to eat a sit-down breakfast would have gotten us into Georgia. (Not to mention that it was a crap shoot as to whether or not one or both of the beach urchins would eat *anything* they were served at a restaurant (or home or anywhere) — do you have air on your menu? I might eat that.)
In the end, Hardee’s was a *terrible* choice and I have never been back to one. The woman running the drive-thru was reeeeeeallly reeeeallly nice (I am not being sarcastic) but I choked down about half of my breakfast “sandwich” and threw the rest of it into the trash. I’m sure the coffee was tolerable but I think a ziplock bag of my all time fave utility breakfast Froog food Cheerios would’ve served us just as well in terms of sustenance that morning.