I would like to begin this recap of mine and The Police's vacation with a mini-rant. And this is how it starts. The woman who is the voice of our GPS system is drunk with power, teeming with sarcasm and must be stopped. That slightly-computerized-but-just-human-enough-to-sound-derisive voice is maddening and seriously threatens my self esteem as both a driver and a human being. So I made a wrong turn, so what? It's no big deal, people all over the world are currently making wrong turns at this very moment, and it has yet to bring on the apocalypse. But this chick that lives inside our GPS says "recalculating, please make a legal u-turn as soon as possible, you stupid ignorant sorry excuse for a driver." At least, that's how I remember it. And just because she knows where everything in the entire world is located does NOT make her better than me.
So, suffice it to say, our vacation began with me spending significant portions of the ten hour drive to Florida screaming at the GPS to "SHUTUP!! I KNOW I MISSED THE TURN!! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE ALREADY!!". I know I have issues. It's alright. You can silently judge me and I'll never know. But I seriously think it would be easier on my ego if I could learn to navigate using the stars, like the Vikings. Or something. Anyway.
We spent a lovely week at a seaside resort with my family, wherein my body and brain entered the beginning phases of atrophy due to the fact that I did nothing but lie on the beach, sit in the hot tub/steam room/sauna, lie on a lounge chair on the balcony, and eat. And eat. And eat. I did attempt to fend off my guilt by visiting the gym a few times, but never made it past a leisurely walk on the treadmill, which frankly anyone's great-grandmother could have done. But, there were dolphins. And the presence of dolphins makes everything okay. At least it does for me.
While the week was beautiful, and glorious, everything it should have been and more, I did make a discovery which shifts up the order of things in my world just a little bit. Here it is: Seagulls Are Scary. I'm not one to give in to an endless string of completely baseless phobias, and have even recently triumphed over a crippling fear of spiders (I'll tell you about that some other time -- because if anything will keep you reading this column, it's the promise of a spider story). But I guess that leaves room on my roster of fear for something new.
Have you ever had a seagull the size of a healthy chihuahua leave the ground and come at you, flapping its huge wings and hovering about six inches from your head, giving you a death stare and screeching like a banshee, all because you didn't want to give it another Garden Salsa Sun Chip? Well I have. And that is some Alfred Hitchcock worthy stuff, my friends. I shouted at the seagull, and waved the giant book I was reading at it in a threatening way, and in general pretended not to be afraid that at any moment it would dive bomb me and take out my eyes.
The seagull was not fooled, and neither was my mom, who sat in the beach chair next to me and laughed, nonplussed by the seagull menace. Man, I wish I could be her sometimes. My mom has mad seagull-whispering skills, apparently. She tossed them food, and said something about them being God's creatures which needed care. I tossed them food, got attacked, freaked out, and then said something about them being the spawn of satan who would peck you to death for a crust of bread. From my mom, I inherit my compulsive need to count everything in my immediate environment, but not the ability to control wild maritime animals. What's up with that? Probably I reek of fear and the desperation to hold on to my snacks, and the seagulls can smell it. Or maybe they can just smell the snacks. Anyway, it's time to move on with my life. Apparently the seagulls will test your gangsta.
I'd like to close with a few more bits of wisdom I picked up over the week: You can get sunburned in December, if you try hard enough. If you eat Greek food, seafood, and meat loaf all in the same day, you will probably get sick. Also, there is a show on Animal Planet called The Skunk Whisperer. And it is fascinating. Not that I stayed up till the wee hours one night watching it. I'm much smarter and more sophisticated than that.
Happy trails.
sharris@blythevillecourier.com