Family Vacation

Some people go on family vacations.

Some people go on family vacations that they planned as road trips, but changed to flights in the interest of spending more time with those whom they are visiting. From time to time, those families discover they are all ill prior to their flight, but can't do jack about it because 'Murican Airlines makes it prohibitively expensive to change flights, even if you are a family of 4, possibly dying of the plague and rabies (this is based on extensive googling of our symptoms).

Families in this position often go to sleep on Wednesday, hoping they will wake, magically spry and healthy on Thursday, they don't, and the baby has added PINK EYE to her list of maladies. Being responsible human beings, and wanting to avoid sharing her bacteria laden eye snot with the world, these families despair their inability to change flights (see above), and instead opt to run to the pediatrician when they open at 8:00am before they catch their 10:30 flight, then they can at least start antibiotics as soon as possible.

When these families manage to arrive at the airport by 9:30 am, they are delighted to discover that their carefully packed suitcase is 56 lbs, and they get to transfer 6 lbs of joy into their various (even more carefully packed) carryon items. These people make their flight, by 10 minutes.

Upon arrival at their destination, families of this persuasion wait for their luggage as they contemplate the 5 hour drive they are about to undertake because they thought it would be neat to see a little bit of the Land of Enchantment on their way to their final final destination. During their contemplation of said idiocy, they can't help but notice that the luggage carousel is conspicuously lacking in booster seats, which is strange, since they brought a booster seat with them, and even turned it into the custody of 'Murican Airlines.

Two hours later, these families are on the way to the pharmacy with their loaner booster seat (which is not a big deal to grownups, but LIFE ENDING to a 4 year old BTW), and an assurance that someone must have taken their own booster seat off the carousel, because THAT'S way more likely than 'Murica's baggage handlers dropping it behind a conveyor belt somewhere (don't we all troll baggage claim for pink booster seats in our spare time???). While they wait an hour for the baby's prescription, staring in horror as her eye has become a study in mucus and despair, these families might just get a call from 'Murican Airlines stating that the errant booster has been located, and the delivery guy (no he doesn't know where they found it) can either wait at the terminal for them to come back and get it, or he can **SIGH** drive all the way to their final destination and bring it to them. They return to the airport.

These families then spend the next 3 days participating in various events and hoping that tomorrow, TOMORROW, they will feel better, but they don't. On Monday, after a particularly touristy and awesome day, they decide to seek help. Urgent care tells these families that, "No, Kahn hasn't dropped a parasite into the 4 year old's ear, and no, the mother's sinuses aren't actually filled with tiny creatures obsessed with inflating party balloons even though there isn't any room in there!!!." However, the baby (who has recovered from Pink Eye and seems to be in perfect spirits) has a double ear infection. These families go to the pharmacy, again, and get a prescription, again.

Typically, people who go on these types of family vacations, wake up on the morning of their departure to a baby with hives, Yay! Penicillin allergy!!

These families do their best to tidy up their vacation rental, but end up leaving it looking like a murder scene because they spent 20 minutes trying to shoo a bird out, as he systematically bludgeoned his head on the ceiling in what can only be described as a morse code of gore.

After their 5 hour drive, and 2 flights (with only the minor complication of 'Murican Airlines losing their plane and sending them back and forth between two terminals for the duration of their hour layover in Dallas. As well as the Mama's "not a sinus infection" causing her eye to literally bulge from her face like an overripe grape during cabin pressure changes. ) these families finally arrive at home, relieved and seemingly no worse for the wear. When they see their pediatrician, they discover that the baby didn't even have an ear infection...at all.

Now, one might be critical of people like this, who choose a family vacation with so many, shall we say, intricacies. However, these families know something you don't, they know that the universe simply couldn't contain the astronomical AWESOMENESS of this kind of trip sans hiccups. See, these families have so much fun with their friends, in such an unbelievably beautiful place, that, had the trip gone off without a hitch, the multiverse would have collapsed in on itself due to the gravity of unadulterated raditude centered on them. They don't want to snuff out trillions of lifeforms in  an instant, so....they get pink eye. You're welcome.