Man do I love summertime. I still keep up the school work twice a week or so, but it’s still a chance to kick back and ease up on the little shamblers. (My daughter has especially enjoyed the break. Try to master graphing equations when your brain’s rotting out of your skull.) The little rotters worked hard this year, and we all deserve the break.
Some families use the summer to plan elaborate and expensive vacations, which I will never understand. It just sounds like more work to me. Every time I get the urge to travel, thinking about the realities of traveling with an undead family of five makes my skin peel and my hair fall out. Or maybe I need to use more sunscreen.
Sure, we could go someplace exotic and exciting like Paris or Firenze. Beautiful scenery, delicious local … cuisine. But there’s that airport security to worry about now. If you think they overreact when someone tries to bring a bottle of soda or a nail file on board, you should see the looks we get when they open my bag and see what I packed for the kids for a snack. Like I’m going to hijack a plane with a severed head. It doesn’t even have a sharp edge.
And then when we finally reach our destination, I could see the kids getting us kicked out for dropping fingers and toes off the top of the Eiffel Tower, or eating an exotic zoo animal. It’s happened before. We’re not welcome in Chicago anymore.
Travel by train is relaxing; it’s like traveling in a giant pantry. Comfortable seats, friendly atmosphere, lots of fresh, breathing meat—much of it hungover and sleepy. The meat seems to have a problem with our presence, though. That’s another reason we haven’t been back to Chicago in a while.
Road trips by car are out of the question. They always end the same way: some prejudiced breather spots us at a gas station and pretty soon we’re being blamed for every missing hitchhiker for a hundred miles around. That’s ridiculous. Like I’d even let my kids eat something as unsanitary as hitchhiker. I don’t even like them using gas station bathrooms.
Nope, just give me good old lair-sweet-lair for my summer vacation. It’s quiet, it’s relaxing, and I know where the bathrooms are and when they were last cleaned. Best of all, I know the town and the neighbors well enough that I never have to tell the kids, “Let that go, you don’t know where he’s been.”