Road Trip

 

ROAD TRIP

K.R. Schneider

There are a multitude of things that can be done in ten hours. You could listen to American Pie 70.2 times, get anywhere from 12 to 20 colonoscopies, watch 27 episodes of Will and Grace, make approximately 15 birthday cakes, die from oxygen deprivation to the brain like 86 times. And let me tell you: any of those things would be better than spending six hundred minutes packed into a vehicle with three of my four jerk siblings.

I've never been entirely sure why, after my mother gave birth to the travesty that became my older sister Denise, they didn't just give up on humanity all together, but they decided to have another four goes at it. So I guess they either didn't think Denise was the incarnation of evil or they're just really bad with birth control...both options kind of make me want to puke.

INTRO: Life in a family full of siblings you detest is tough enough, but ten hours in a car with the T-Swift loving, mood-swing having Denise, car-sick, soft-spoken Carl, and nervous, new driver Nathaniel, is enough to make anybody go a little crazy. Let’s hope Lucas and the gang can make it to Nana’s birthday on time in ROAD TRIP by K.R. Schneider

The aforementioned queen of darkness is in the front passenger seat next to sixteen year old Nathaniel (the youngest of the brood) who everyone insisted drive us the entirety of the trip because “he needs the practice”. And with a grand total of three weeks as a licensed driver and zero highway hours under his belt...I'll just say my near death experiences have tripled since we left my parents'  driveway.

I am stuck in the back with nineteen year old Carl who, despite his horrifying affliction of back seat motion sickness, didn't have enough spine to fiddle Satan for the front seat. So Denise is screeching Taylor Swift lyrics at the top of her lungs, Carl has barfed out the window twice, Nathaniel appears to be forming his very first ulcer, and we are on our merry way to my grandmother's hundred and eighty second birthday party. Or maybe she's just a hundred and fifty, I've lost count by now. All I can tell you is the dementia kicked in at seventy three and she's been calling me anything from Eddie to Moses for the past fifty eight birthdays. (okay...ten).

“Our song is the slammin’ screen door. Shut up! When we’re on the phone and you talk real slow Shut up!” 

“No one is talking, Denise!” I shout at her as Nathaniel veers back into the proper lane.

“Hey guuurl! Shove a sock down your throat, Lucas. I'm on. The phone.” I just barely resist the urge to bash her face against the dashboard, lean back in my seat and imagine strangling her with the cord from Carl's headphones.

(nervously) “Lucas!” Nathaniel is rapidly turning his head to me and back to the road and back to me like he has some heightened sort of turrets.

(Denise) “Shut up! Yeah, my grandma's like a million or something and Marcus is gonna' be there.” Marcus is my older brother, the one that falls between Denise and me. And the only sibling I can actually tolerate for long periods of time. Maybe because he's some sort of missionary and I only have to do it once or twice a year.

(Nathaniel) “I missed my exit! What do I do if I missed my exit!?”

(Lucas) “You didn't miss your exit, Nate, it's like fifteen miles away. Calm down.”

(Denise) “I don't know, on the ocean. He was in like Cabo or something.”

(Lucas) “Haiti! Marcus was not on vacation, Denise, he was in like the worst place on the entire planet!” 

Nathaniel starts breathing so hard I wonder if I should get him a paper bag. 

(Denise) “Ugh, my brother's being a tooooool.” 

Carl is bent over beside me with his head as far between his knees as he can get it, moaning quietly that his life is crap.

(Lucas) “Uh, Carl, you okay, man?”

(Denise) “OMG, Lucy, it's a BLIND date. It doesn't even MATTER what you wear...”

(Carl) “I'm gonna puke.” Carl is turning a rancid shade of puce and his heavy breathing times up with Nathaniel's.

(Denise) “Okay, whatever, God. Well if he has working eyeballs you can't wear the pink skirt, it's disgusting.”

(Nathaniel) “Lucas, how much longer until I have to do something!?”

(Denise) “And it's mine anyway and I want it back. You've had it for like three weeks!” Denise leans over, cell phone still pressed against her face and pops her gum. “Geez, Nathaniel go the hecking speed limit! Grandma's gonna DIE before we get there!”

(Carl) “Oh god, I'm gonna' puke...”

(Lucas) “Carl if you puke in this car, I swear to God.”

(Denise) “No, you can't wear that dress you look like a walrus in that dress.” I'm gonna' throw her cell phone out window. “I don't even – Oh, my God, Lucy I don't even know why you're mad at me -”

(Lucas) “Denise, hang up the phone!”

(Denise) “That's the nicest – BITE ME, LUCAS! - That's the nicest way I could have said that. YES.”

Okay, that's it. I lean up over the center console and hit the eject button on the CD player, successfully turning off the soundtrack for teen girl angst. I flash the disc in front of my sister's face. “Get off the phone and shut up,” I warn her. “Or Taylor Swift gets it.”

“Oh. My God.” I'm not sure I've ever seen my sister look as furious as she looks at this moment. “Dont. You. Dare!”

I press the button on my right and my window rolls down. I raise my eyebrows at her. “Get off the phone.”

(Nathaniel) “Lucas, can you roll the window up! I can't focus.”

(Lucas) “Just drive, Nathaniel!”

(Denise) “Lucy, I can't talk right now – T. Swizzle is on the line!”

I reach my arm out the window and dangle Taylor Swift from my fingers. “Denise!”

(Denise) “Fine! Lucy I have to go!” She hangs the phone up and tilts her head at me with dramatic flair that only my sister is capable of. “Are. You. Happy. Now?”

(Nathaniel) “Lucas!?”

(Carl) “I really don't feel good...” 

Carl makes a dry heave, gagging noise that spooks Nathaniel who glances at the backseat in the rear-view mirror just long enough to hit the rumble bars as I move to pull my arm back inside the car. And Taylor Swift slips from my fingers. My surprised, wide-eyes tell Denise exactly what has happened and she thrashes around in her seat to grab a fistful of my hair and pulls.

“What. Have. You. Done?”

“Ow, Ouch! Let go!”

“I will kill you, Lucas!”

Swerve. Another rough patch over the rumble bars and Nathaniel pulls the wheel back hard enough to toss the seat-belt-less Denise back into her own seat with strands of my hair between her fingers.

“Gaaahhh!”

(Carl) “Oh, God, I really am gonna' puke..” Carl is making gagging noises again that are sounding more and more realistic.

(Nathaniel) “Luuucas?”

(Lucas) “Just. DRIVE.”

(Denise) “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

(Lucas) “Denise, get it together, stop!”

Gagging noises from Carl. Sound of a cell phone ringing. Lucas checks ID.

(Lucas) “Everybody shut up!”

(Denise) “Jump out the window!”

(Lucas) “MOM IS CALLING ME.”

(Denise) “Tell her you destroyed my happiness.”

(Nathaniel) “Ohh...guuuys.”

(Lucas) “Hello?...Mom, we're like five minutes-”

(Denise) “LUCAS WANTS TO DESTROY EVERYTHING GOOD IN MY LIFE!”

(Lucas) “We're like five minutes away. We'll be there-”

One giant heave from beside me and all of a sudden there is warm vomit down the side of my leg and flowing onto my shoes. “Ugh, Carl!” … “No, Mom! I can't talk to you right now, Carl just barfed all over me and the Princess of the Underworld is having a meltdown!”

(Nathaniel) “Luuucas?”

(Lucas) “Oh my-- WHAT, Nathaniel!?”

(Nathaniel) “...is that my exit.”

(Lucas) I watch the green sign as it passes my window. Super. “Yeah.”