And so once again we come to the part of the year where Clark Griswold loads up the wood-paneled station wagon and sets off for parts unknown... or in my case, barely sleeps, gets up at 3am to get to the airport and then flies off to somewhere to (with any luck) listen to the sound of the waves meeting the land... this year was no different except that the plans were changed due to circumstances beyond our hero's control... the BW's father has been in and out of the VA hospital, i won't go into what and why other than to say it's part lack of taking care of himself and another part having chemicals dumped on him way back in the jungles of Southeast Asia... i won't go into the shit show the VA has turned into in the last six months as that's a post in and of itself but it harkens directly back to a draft dodging, supposedly bone spur having fat man named the Orange Shitgibbon... a sentence that now may get me detained and shipped to scenic and lovely locales in Central America...
The original plan this year was to head back to Negril in West Jamaica, a place i love... and it looked to be sailing right along towards that until the BW started having second thoughts... first it was the fact the boyos were way to up for it... the I-mac would be legal to booze in Jamaica which meant when he and Disaster went roaming around the resort in the evening his big brother could get him drinks... not to mention their love of a certain plant (i guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree), a plant readily available on this island... needless to say their mother had some reservations and began voicing them as she felt the trip was shaping up to be a non-stop party for her two boys... the funny thing is she always enjoys the trips to Jamaica (this would have been the fourth) due to my amenable and easy going demeanor i have when there, i can sit and listen to her pontificate on various thoughts in her head mainly due to my being pleasantly stoned from morning until night... every day i wake up and smoke a small joint and eat some ganja cake, head to breakfast where i drink some delicious Blue Mountain coffee, and then set off upon the day where i smoke every few hours along with more bits of ganja cake until the evening when the BW tends to wind down goes to bed and i sit and listen to the ocean while getting righteously stoned...
It was becoming abundantly clear that she was not feeling great about this trip and then when one tossed in her father's health issues it got even worse... granted i understood where she was coming from, sort of, her father having been an asshole for most of his children's lives was lucky his two middle kids, the ones who got the least and shit on the most, took an active interest in his well-being... the oldest and youngest? the ones handed money, the typical way the old man showed his love, well they couldn't be troubled with daddy's health and tend to visit only when they need another handout... also a post for another time... and so with shit piling up i agreed and said she should cancel Negril and look for a place in Dumbfuckistan so that if something did happen while she was away it would be easier to get back...she also had been calling him daily and while it's not a huge issue being out of the country makes that a bit more difficult though i noticed she called him maybe once while we were away so why that became an issue i don't know...
And so i watched Negril fade into the ether... i would not be imbibing in my favorite weed and homemade Jamaican ganja cake, no jerk chicken or peas and rice (peas being beans), no stellar fucking coffee... and that's okay... add in the fact that last year's foray into the Caribbean ended with us being in Grenada and caught in a hurricane which severely altered the trip and the BW wanted what she wanted, and let me add that she and her family take great pride in their vacation planning, maybe it's foreign to me cuz my childhood vacations were spent in Ocean City, Md. where it was pretty cut and dry what one did... her clan is much more into far off places now and love the planning of "excursions" and the like... the amount of research into places to stay, flights, things to do, borders on obsessive...
So what was the back up plan? Enter Key West... and truth be told as an alternate i was excited to head down to the southernmost point in Dumbfuckistan to check out a place i had never been... unfortunately the boyos were not so excited and one does not need any foreshadowing to understand what that meant... i spent a few weeks leading up to the trip talking to Disaster about it as he was the most gutted about the situation and i knew why... see the above about big bro sneaking him booze and getting high... in fact i told him as such and explained that between last year when his brother, being able to drink in Grenada, going completely off the fucking rails and the prospect of both of them doing that this time i was a bit apprehensive about the trip, mainly because it would quickly devolve into a fucking mess where the BW would be raging about "all the money she spent" and how it wasn't for some week long party with arguments most likely breaking out on an almost hourly basis... and guess who the referee would be? i would also be the one subjected to long diatribes by the BW as she complained about the boyos when they were off partying and how she'd never do this again... it wasn't exactly what i was looking forward to and i explained to Disaster that if the BW was having a miserable time the rest of us would be having a miserable time... he said he understood but i wasn't exactly convinced...
If there was one pleasant part of the trip down it was the fact it would only be one flight... no stressing connections or late luggage and we still left ridiculously early, something that Disaster loves, he loves getting up and going to the airport super early, he's been doing it since he was a toddler and i understand that it's one of those memories he'll carry with him... granted when one (meaning me) barely sleeps due to the eldest boyo fucking about and staying out too late and then sleeping less than two hours the day can get mighty fucking long... add in the fact it's tough to sleep on planes when one is 6'4 and by 10am i was fucking well spent... of course the BW decided not to put anyone else as a driver on the car so after landing and collecting luggage i got to drive the 3 hours and change to Key West, an interesting drive to say the least but not when one is so tired one wants to pass out and even tougher given the straight line drive on a single lane roads... it was a real struggle to stay awake...
The place we stayed was lovely, i may be a snarky bastard when it comes to the BW and her fretting and worrying over places and plans but she always seems to find excellent places... this one being a two bedroom condo with a full kitchen and two bathrooms... why two bathrooms? the I-mac is a fucking nightmare when it comes to the bathroom, veritably locking himself in for hours it seems while doing nothing other than scrolling his phone and sitting on the toilet or taking showers the length of baseball games... it's fucking irritating to say the least and i often remind him of the water he is wasting (he pulls the same shit at home where i have been known to flat out shut the water off), even better the place had a screened in porch which was brilliant! no mosquitos and like which meant i could sit out there in peace without having to bathe in bug spray... (more on this later)
As for the rest of it? well we'll refer back to the title... but in reverse... the boyos had a decent time but the fact is Key West wasn't exactly their bag especially when they were banking on Negril, granted they got along for the most part but the fact is they were bored a lot of the time and it was a bit different than what they were used to... yeah white suburban kid problems... that said they did seem to make some of their own fun and since the I-mac has a pen i'm sure he shared it with his little brother, we also bought some beers which they could partake in while in the condo but they didn't get to run around and get wasted like they had planned... granted the last two nights we spent in Hollywood Beach near Ft. Lauderdale where they could roam freely, (Key West was a little more difficult as we stayed on the far end from Duval St. which wasn't far but too far to walk... they could have hopped a bus or a cab but i don't think either of them felt the need especially since there were a few girls hanging around the place at night who they had been trying to talk to...)
The biggest issues, other than the boredom, were mainly with the I-mac... granted they both got to snorkel near a reef, parasail, jet ski and wander Duval St. but the eldest boyo kept up a steady stream of complaints about not being allowed to get fucked up... seeing as he spent most of the previous vacation in Grenada drunk of his ass due to his ability to get his own booze it was more a relief to his parents but to him it was a crime against humanity... to call the boy self-centered and for lack of a better word, spoiled, is an understatement... he has a bad habit of bitching about all the things he doesn't get while not seeming to grasp all the things he does fucking get... something which pisses his father off royally as it hasn't exactly been a life of hardship for the boyo...
On the last night, in Hollywood Beach, he finally found some guy to get him booze and came home fucking hammered... i was not amused... he proceeded to pretend to not be blitzed and then immediately went to the bathroom to throw up... something that lasted until roughly 3:30am and which kept me awake due to the noise and the need to make sure he was okay... the BW slept through most of it and i believe silently delegated me to deal with it... don't get my wrong, Disaster wasn't exactly sober when he got home but even at his age does a better job of hiding it... toss in the following day where the I-mac decided to have one of his patented meltdowns in the Miami airport, basically pissing and moaning at his mother, who was now almost in tears, and it was more than a bit embarrassing... so in stepped the bastard aka me... i explained that it was not the time or the place to be having this discussion and that i'd gladly discuss it with him when we got home... he understood the sly smile on my face would not bode well for him once back to the Burgh and so he gradually got over his dumbfuckery and realized once home he might be a bit fucked... at one point he whined about his parents wanting him to move out to which i explained that's not what was said but that while said parents were providing much financial support and the like if he didn't like the current situation and the rules that went along with it he was free to pursue his own living accommodations which also meant supporting himself... it wasn't long after that his tone changed drastically...
To be fair i understood it wasn't what they had planned on and in all honesty they did manage to entertain themselves and have a decent time to the point Disaster actually has spoken about how much he liked Key West and the I-mac pondered the idea of working down there for a summer in the future... then again the I-mac is a master at grandiose plans that never come to fruition... to be cont...
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