Stepping On Rolling Stones

So we are still in the motherland. A small fortune, several headaches and lots of rescheduling later, we finally have a date to go back to our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous apartment in Canada. We can only hope it is still standing.

My dutiful spouse, P, and I are living proof of Newton's laws of motion. I exemplify inertia. I have a barnacle-like clutch onto our couch and I don't budge until a strong nagging forklift-like force, usually by the name of P, literally jet propels me.

My for better or for worse half, on the other hand, would keep moving around like a tumbleweed if I didn't lay down the law and put a spoke in his wheels of motion. Then of course there is our four year old, Lanes, who is an equal and opposite force to balance out our madness.

P makes authoritarian decisions on places we go. These are the gems that come out of his mouth--usually in the middle of the night when I'm too confused to refute: 'Let's move to Canada', 'we're going on holiday to Sri Lanka', 'let's fly through Seattle even though we live in Vancouver', 'let's move out of the ghetto two days before we take a major vacation'. 

I, on the other hand, have supreme control over other things, such as all purchases big or small, the precise angle of the toilet seat and the exact destination in the general area P wants to relocate to/visit/grace with his presence.

Strongly opposed to spending time in a tin can hurtling over the Atlantic, I left the travel plans for P, because of his determination and also because it was likely not to happen under my purview as the gravitational pull to my sofa is too great for me to be an active participant in the scheduling of flights.

My only comments were that I think it's better to fly out of the airport closest to us as opposed to another one in another country, and that it's always a good idea to get trip insurance. P nearly flipped his lid over my last suggestion.

My brain is wired to prepare for all eventualities and I anticipated that with our hectic schedule in the motherland, we would probably catch a bug or two. I call myself well prepared and sensible. P calls me negative.

P's brain is wired to understand numbers, airline deals, sunshine and lollipops and he decided it was far more economical to fly out of Seattle than Vancouver. Insurance was not needed because everything was going to be just wonderful. His plan was to spend the night at my nutty sister's in the US and then fly out the next day.

Since we left Canada we have been going through one hurdle after the other.  My sister and family got the stomach flu and her husband was kind enough to surf the web and find us a literally last minute hotel because we all felt it was inadvisable to stay with them and possibly get sick before a flight.

We got to the motherland, caught a really virulent viral fever and missed our flights back.  It is inevitable here, and I was not mad, despite all the chaos because I anticipated it. P was left literally and metaphorically winded by this.

In the land of our birth, compatriots love to do the kiss, kiss, while inhaling and exhaling exuberantly.  Once you are released from their zealous clutches, they immediately brief you on how sick either they or their next of kin have been with the flu, diarrhea or some other equally attractive contagious malady.

You are left to utter the appropriate words of comfort and support all the while wondering what you can possibly do to get the germs washed out of your face and scrapped out of your nostrils. At the end of the conversation, you concede defeat and make a metal note to down a Bacardi (P's solution) or scrub your hands and face with an antibacterial wipe (my solution).

Any old how, we caught the virus at a fabulous party we had with friends---someone had attended this party with a super bug and wiped out 90 percent of the guests and subsequently their children too.  We were quarantined in my childhood room for a week because we were staying at my parents' house and my father has stage IV cancer and can't afford to get sick.

It was challenging to say the least and I had to come up with ingenuous ways to keep germs away from him. P had to make several phone calls and pay a small fortune to change our flights. We had to use my parents' phone so I wrapped Lanes' shower cap around the handset in an effort to keep the phone clean.

I asked P to retain the shower cap and hand over the phone to me for further disinfecting with Chlorox wipes when he was done but he had chucked the shower cap in the garbage with phlegm soaked tissues so that was that.

I didn't even bother to say anything to P about it because right about then he was wishing he had listened to me and gotten trip insurance. He is still waiting for the ‘I told you so’ from me, but I think he has been through enough and he is still coughing up a storm.

Any old how, to get back, we have to go to the US first and get to my sister's house. Only thing is that with our trip delay, our arrival coincides with her vacation and she will be out of town.  The problem is she has custody of our car, which we need to drive back to Canada.

Our car keys are inside her house and we have to break in, secure the keys, and despite being exhausted after an 19 hour plane ride, drive 3 hours to our apartment the same day because P has no more leave. He has to report back to work the next day. I don't envy him this.

To further complicate matters, my sister has a super efficient, hyper sensitive alarm system and I can only hope that I can crack the code and snap a lock efficiently before the cops descend upon us. Last thing I need after this holiday is to have to make a snap decision between impersonating my sister to the police or explaining my farfetched story to them.

To make matters worse, I can't call my sister on that day for her to explain the situation to the cops (and possibly post bail) because she will be without cell reception on a mountain---on the other end of the country. At least it will lead to an interesting drama filled blog next week--I can substitute my one free call privilege for usage of a computer I suppose.

The positive thing is that we are all more or less recovered now, and we got to catch up with friends and family. Sadly, we couldn’t call or meet everyone we wanted to, but as my grandfather used to say, always save something for next time.

And next time, we are taking the best insurance there is to offer and flying out of Vancouver because P will listen to me. I wish I could post the look on P's face when he conceded not verbally but with a slight shrug and a look fitting for the before picture in a laxative commercial, that I was right and wise.

With that I must sign off and start packing as we leave tomorrow night. We had a really enjoyable time in the motherland, hiccups aside. Please send us good vibes for a safe journey and a successful stealth break in to my sister’s place. More musings from BC (I hope) next week…