When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time To Go Home (9 page)

Turning to my husband I said, “Is it too early to order a beer or what?”

“You want a cerveza,” he said. “You have just ordered a head.”

“I knew that,” I said. “I just wanted a cabeza on my cerveza.”

The son with the verbs helped.

Four years at USC and finally something was paying off. He could use the phone to confirm our reservations, tell the staff what we wanted to eat, order fresh towels, and get information on tourist sites.

There was no television or radio in the house, which didn't matter as we wouldn't have been able to understand them anyway. So we were left to our imagination to fill up the evening hours. It had been a long time since we had done that. Someone had the foresight to bring along a game, Trivial Pursuit, and every night we would gather like the Brady Bunch in the library. It has always been my theory that the family that plays together gets on one another's nerves. I have no reason to change my opinion.

I am too impatient to play games. Especially thinking ones. If I don't know the answer to something I say, “I don't know and I don't care” and I pass the die on to the next team. I play games to get them over with. Other people play games to have a good time.

My son was the worst. Every time he got a question, we lost another ten minutes of the game. He contended there was no answer you couldn't come up with if you used logic. Logic took time. Lots of it.

“All right,” said my aunt, drawing a card, “for Science and Nature, how many compartments does a cow's stomach have?”

“He doesn't know that,” I said. “Pass the die.”

“Wait a minute,” he said, “give me a chance.”

“You know nothing about cows,” I insisted.

“You don't know that,” he said defensively.

“I know you entered a cow-naming contest when you were seven years old and named the cow Big Bill. You do not know anything about cows.”

He went into his hypnotic state and said, “Let's see, a car has one compartment for gloves, a submarine has at least one compartment, a sleeper on a train is a compartment. I say a cow has four.”

“Right,” chirped my aunt. “Roll again.”

It wasn't just me. As the evenings wore on, we all got a little testy from too much togetherness.

One night my mother drew a question. “What bodily function can reach the breakneck speed of two hundred miles an hour?” She answered quickly, “My husband's feet hitting for the bathroom when I pull in the driveway with groceries to unload.” My father was not amused. He said if she was so smart, then how come she didn't know how many stars were in Orion's belt. If it had been Joan Collins's belt, she'd have known.

I was angry at my husband because he couldn't remember the answer to “In her book, what does Erma Bombeck say the grass is always greener over?” and all in all, we agreed we had to get out of the villa more.

The upside to being in a home atmosphere is that everyone can pretty much do his own thing. It's probably one of the most relaxing vacations you can plan. By this time, Ascension and Marguerita were able to tune out all of us, and I kept smiling and Mother kept patting her stomach (which was growing before our eyes) and saying, “Yummy, yummy.”

Our sons and their friend left every morning to cruise up and down the Costa Brava shoreline in search of topless beaches. My parents and aunt played cards, and my husband and I climbed over the rocks of our private beach watching the blue waters of the Mediterranean. He did a little fishing from the shore and I needlepointed. One day as we swung down to our familiar spot, we heard voices. They belonged to two totally nude bathers making their way toward the water. For a full five minutes, my husband and I turned to salt.

The naked woman nearest us resumed her way to the water. At one point my husband cleared his throat and I thought he was going to say something, but he didn't.

Finally, she entered the water and swam out to a rock about fifty feet away and stretched out lazily to catch some sun. My husband turned to me and said, “Did you see that! She wasn't wearing shoes. She could have cut her feet to ribbons on these rocks.”

“You really are certifiable, aren't you?” I asked after a minute. “Here's a tramp who invades our space and the only thing you see are her tender feet!”

“How do you know she's a tramp?” he asked. “She looks like she has a nice personality.”

“She has the personality of a food processor.”

“You don't know that either,” he charged.

“When you leave an ankle bracelet on in salt water you're not too bright.”

“Well, she obviously comes from a good family. Probably military.”

“How can you possibly arrive at a revelation like that?”

“Her posture. It's superb.”

“Men! I suppose you'd want your son to marry someone with a tattoo of a duck on her hip.”

“That wasn't a duck. It was probably a family crest of some kind.”

“Right. And Prince Charles has two lions tattooed on his bicep. Why are you so stubborn about this loose woman who cavorts around in the buff?”

“And why are you so vindictive and judgmental about a person you have never seen . . . fully clothed. Frankly, I'd like to see her become a member of our family.”

“She steps a foot in this family and I'm outta here,” I said, jamming my needlepoint in the bag.

“Is this an ultimatum?”

“You bet your sweet bird it is.”

At this point, the other figure, a male nude bather wearing only a wedding ring, jumped into the water and joined our nymph friend on the rock.

My husband said, “Now he's slime.”

“It's funny,” I said, “he struck me as someone who would be very kind to his mother.”

The iciness between us was still there at dinner. When Marguerita served us the soup I tapped her on the arm and pantomimed taking off all my clothes and pointed to the beach and waved my arms like I was swimming.

“She doesn't understand you,” said my aunt.

“Does the word slut have any meaning in your language?” I shouted.

She looked puzzled, then smiled and went to the kitchen. When she returned, she had a picture of the man and woman we had seen on the beach without clothes. She pointed to the woman, then cradled her arms like she was rocking a baby.

“She is telling you those people in the nude are her daughter and son-in-law,” said my husband.

I turned to my son, smiled, and said, “Give me a nice noun and a verb . . . quick!”

On the next to the last day at the villa as we summed up our three weeks, it was a miracle we had survived. We had pantomimed our way through Perpignan, France, where we took a day trip. No one in our party spoke a single word of French. We had made it to the bullfights in Barcelona, and every other day we actually looked forward to going to the marketplace where it was more social than necessary.

When we were told the owner of the villa, an Englishman, was due that night, I must admit we were all pretty excited at the prospect of speaking English again.

He invited us for drinks to the guest house where he was holding forth. His first words were, “Well, ahsposeyuvad a raaathaventrous time at the villa?”

We all leaned forward, straining for something we thought we had missed.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I say . . . iopeather . . . you mericansadnuf of ah jolly whatimeto retn.”

My God, he talked like “Masterpiece Theatre” on fast forward. None of us had a clue as to what he was saying.

I positioned myself in front of his face and said slowly in a loud voice, “HOW LONG HAVE YOU OWNED THE VILLA?” As he answered, we all nodded and smiled from time to time. Mother grabbed an hors d'oeuvre, rubbed her stomach, smacked her lips, and said, “Yummy, yummy.”

Six Worst Arguments

on Vacation

A good argument, when conducted properly, takes the time and full attention of two people.

When performed at home, an argument suffers from too many interruptions and outside pressures. The phone rings. Someone is late for work. Children must be fed. Sometimes one party will break in with, “Are you finished? 'Knots Landing' starts in five minutes.” You get busy.

On a vacation, however, there are no limitations on how far you can take a disagreement. For most couples it is the most time they have spent together since their honeymoon. Courtesy has given way to time. Some of our better arguments have erupted on foreign soil.

topic: “Why can't you admit you're lost?”

place: Copenhagen, Denmark

length of argument: Thirty-six hours

highlights:

“What's with you men? Would hair stop growing on your chest if you asked directions somewhere?”

“I did write down the word you gave me at each corner. How was I to know it was the Danish word for 'street'?”

“What do you mean, 'Does anything look familiar'? I just got here, remember. I'm not taking another step until you are sure you know where you're going.”

“I don't want to panic you, but our plane leaves in four days. We are going the wrong way. You didn't believe me when I told you the smoke alarm in our kitchen needed batteries either.”

“It's hereditary. Your mother couldn't find her way out of a phone booth if you turned her around. I love your mother. I love your whole family. All of you just need to be supervised at all times!”

topic: “Only an idiot jogs here!”

place: African bush in Kenya

length of argument: Three days

highlights:

“Was it your intention to bring me to Africa married and send me home a widow? Because if it was I'm going to cash in the insurance policies now, have my entire body lifted, and go straight to the French Riviera.”

“If you are not back in two days, we're leaving you here. This is my final word. No one is going to feel sorry for you because you're stupid. We're going to ship your body home and prop it up in the Boston Marathon. It will be hours before people realize you're not moving under your own steam.”

“There's danger out there. Don't you realize that? You can't outrun a cheetah doing a twenty-minute mile.”

“Honey, I'm only saying these rotten things because I love you and I care about you. I cannot imagine what I would do without you.”

“OK, be stubborn. If you break your leg, don't come running to me!”

topic: “I am ready to walk out the door and you have to go to the bathroom. Why am I not surprised?”

place: Europe, Asia, Mideast, South America, South Pacific, Orient, Caribbean, Mediterranean, Mexico, Australia, and every place we've ever visited

length of argument: Time it takes to go to the bathroom

highlights:

“I swear you have kidneys the size of lentils.”

“I could go too if I thought about it long enough, but I don't want to inconvenience all the people who have to wait for me.”

“Why do you think you will never see another bathroom during the next six hours? They're everywhere, you know.”

“It's nothing but a habit. You see me going out the door and your mind instantly goes to your biological functions. You are so programmed, you see an open door and run for the bathroom.”

“I know what you're doing in there. You're killing time. You have to put the lid down, refold the towels, dry off the soap, replace the washers, alphabetize your toiletries, and look at your teeth.”

topic: “What do you mean I don't need a rug?”

place: Athens, Greece

length of argument: Ongoing today

highlights:

“I've got arthritis and I don't need that, either. It's not like I'm buying a country.”

“I wouldn't dream of asking you to carry it. Just give me my airline ticket and I'll sit on the wing so you won't be embarrassed.”

“Hey, you're the one who bought a Vuitton suitcase in Hong Kong for $36 and Vuitton was misspelled. Don't tell me about shopping carefully.”

“I am spending my own money on it and am putting it in the hallway. If you want to walk on it, there will be a toll basket at each end. You can either toss in coins each time or you can buy tokens.”

“How do I know it will fit? How do I know Wednesday follows Tuesday? I just know it, that's all. If I don't know, who's to know?”

“I heard that! And I could not get the same thing for less at Wal-Mart.”

topic: “I am not going scuba diving.”

place: St. Thomas

length of argument: Twelve hours

highlights:

“I wish I were one of those perfect people who do not have a single fear, but I'm not and that's my final word on the subject.”

“If God meant for me to crawl around on the ocean floor, He would have given me anchors for feet.” “Why is it when I don't want to do what you want to do I'm always wrong? You love making me feel inferior, don't you?”

“Every time I've seen a diver on Jacques Cousteau specials, he has fear in his eyes. Enough said. Case closed.”

“When I started this trip I said to myself, 'How can I ruin his vacation?' and I answered myself, 'Refuse to go scuba diving with him. That will make him crazy.' You wanta know the truth? I've been planning this for weeks! My final word.”

topic: “I never said I'd meet you under the clock.”

place: Shanghai, China

LENGTH OF argument: Twenty minutes at high volume, two hours in silence

HIGHLIGHTS:

“You misunderstood me, dear. I always return to the bus and you know it.”

“There is no need to shout. Everyone on the bus can hear every word.”

“Why are you so sensitive? The people applauded when you boarded because you held the bus up for thirty minutes. It was a joke. Can't you take a joke anymore?”

“How could I have said I'd meet you at the clock when I don't know where the clock is?”

“I am sorry you wasted all your shopping time looking for me. I will fill out the necessary papers to have you canonized the minute we get home. Now put a cork in it.”

“Aha! I wondered when you'd dig up the Greek rug!”

Death by Drivers

I can't remember which airline it is, but just before their plane docks at the gate, a captain comes on the intercom and announces, “You have just completed the safest part of your trip.”