Going Places and Doing Stuff

As I mentioned previously,when we were in Denver last summer en route to the Grand Canyon we took a voluntary bump in exchange for $400 in United travel vouchers, each. So that was $400 for my sister, who used them to fly up to Boston last fall, and $400 each for 98, 96 and me.  I felt like I had won the lottery. If I recall correctly, we arrived at our destination within about an hour of our original arrival time, so, except for when I cried in the middle of the airport, it was a win all around.

So what do I do with the $1200 in vouchers I received? The vouchers that say right on them, "Cannot be replaced if lost or stolen". Yeah, those vouchers. I had big plans for those vouchers. Big plans indeed. Said plans involved girlfriends, and the Windy City, and, most importantly, no damn kids. So what do I do with them? I leave them at my sister's house. Stupid vouchers not growing legs and opposable thumbs in order to get themselves into my luggage like I expected them to.

Given their transferable status (anyone could bring them to United and book flights; the names on the vouchers did not have to match the names on the new tickets) my sister wisely carried them with her when she came up to Boston (using her vouchers)  a couple of months later. But somehow, despite seeing each other daily for her whole trip neither one of us thought to grab those vouchers. Those same stupid vouchers never once thought to holler out, "Hey girlfriend, don't forget us! We're in here waiting for you!" How rude.

So Jeanne left them at my mom's house, and I guess as a lesson to me now the vouchers decide to grow those legs and thumbs and hide in a folder with some other paperwork. No match for my Mom, though, the vouchers finally surface, literally 24 hours before I decide to buy the tickets and give up on ever finding them. Now I feel like I've won the lottery all over again.

Only now it's not "Chicago with girlfriends" anymore. It's omg-not-again vacation with the  kids again.

Hotels booked. Car reserved. Triptik ordered. Now we just have to listen to that incessant tick-tock tick-tock of the clock ticking down until ... "omg-not-again vacation with the kids" time.

And  for some peripherally related content ...

So while 96 and I are having a our annual "Where do you want to go on vacationWhy do we always have to go places and do stuff?" conversation, I am saddened to learn that I have unwittingly doomed my grandchildren to boring, lonely George Jetson summer vacations filled with boring flying cars, mind-controlled 3-d antigravity video game consoles, and invisibility cloaks while their friends travel to Norway or an asteroid or at least Fresno for summer vacation because their parents weren't forced, forced I tell 'ya, to travel all day, every day, day-after-day, all summer long ten days a year. I have roooooined travel for 96 and 98. Don't mess with me:  I'm mean that way.