Recently, I went on a vacation with my brothers to Florida, where
we enjoyed the many expensive pleasures of Universal Studios. This was a
momentous trip for a number of reasons.
First, it was smack dab in the middle of my brothers' extended
visit to the North East, a visit solely for the purpose of seeing their older
sister (and bringing me my cat from Oregon - more on that later).This trip to
see me was I am sure for them, NBD. Just a vacation, a chance to see Boston,
spend time with their un-hip, un-cool, older sister - no big deal.
But for me, it began to take on epic proportions. Before they came
I spent countless hours trying to plan out the best sleeping arrangements,
searching the internet for fun things to do that two under 21 year old boys
would enjoy (deciding on a Blake Shelton concert as one definite activity). I
hoarded money away in my savings account in preparation for the visit, read
countless reviews of restaurants on yelp, made lists of where I wanted to take
them, and then made more lists. I was determined that this trip would be
awesome with a capital A.
It was the first time my brothers and I
have spent an extended amount of time alone without supervision from our
parents. Normally when I am home visiting, there is a moment when I regress and
become an obnoxious older sister and they become pesky younger brothers, and
then there is yelling and maybe some pushing and slapping, and either my mother
or father break it up by screaming
"ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS???!!
ELEANOR. HOW OLD ARE YOU??? Stop this instant and go to your room."
It’s almost a small ritual, the definition
of roles in the family structure. Mom and Dad are the authority figures, I am the
bossy older sister, and the boys are the annoying younger brothers. There is a
sense of comfort in the consistency of this structure. We fit and belong, it is
the way of things, and we don't need to examine the new structure that the
family is taking on. We have in a real way all become adult children, each with
our own lives and dreams, and the ability to make our own decisions and
mistakes. That is one of the things I felt most keenly on this trip, my
brothers have grown up. There was (at least on my side) no temptation to fight
and fuss, only simple enjoyment at being able to spend time with them. A wish
that they would be more verbose in describing their lives, wishes, dreams,
hopes, and a subtle easing of the semi-present homesickness that I often carry
around with me.
The idea for a trip to Florida rose out of
what I thought was my need to attend a conference my company hosts in Orlando.
I was to be sent down to manage an exhibit booth and contribute to the company
presence at the conference. (FUN!) I talked with my Mom about the timing of
this trip, as we had already booked the tickets for the boys, and we decided
that flights were cheap enough that we could just get the boys to Orlando with
me, and they could spend their days in the theme parks and I could spend mine
working. This seemed exceedingly unfair, but because my age has lent itself to
responsibility, I swallowed my jealousy and stiff upper lipped it. Lo and
behold, after all the tickets are booked and the trip is looming on the
horizon, I am told that I don't need to go after all to the conference.
After a moment of breathless panic, and a
desperate call to my mother [“They don't want me to go to Florida! BUT I
ALREADY BOUGHT THE TICKETS!"]
My mother suggested that I go anyway, find
a cheap hotel by the theme parks and spend the days in the theme parks WITH my
brothers. This seemed like a good plan, so I arranged it. At the time that I
was buying the flights to Orlando, I was still under the assumption I would be
at the conference. So, I booked us on the first flight out to Orlando on Sunday
morning. Allowing me at least one day in the theme parks, (most importantly -
one day at Harry Potter Land) I was determined that I would get butter beer and
see Hogwarts, so help me God. After I no longer needed to go to the conference,
I remember having a vague thought about the fact that we still had an early
morning flight, but it didn't really concern me. I was too busy prepping for
the imminent arrival of the brothers, and moving to a new apartment. Flight
times were to be dealt with closer to flight dates.
Mere days after their arrival, the Blake
Shelton concert happened, and we headed off to see him play. He was playing the
large concert arena about an hour outside of Boston, on Saturday night. Despite
my personal experience with the traffic jams leaving this concert arena, I naively
assumed that we would be home around 12ish, and still have PLENTY of time to
sleep and get to the airport the following morning for our Florida trip. I was
WRONG.
The concert was amazing, the traffic
terrible. We got home around 2AM-ish. And I looked at the flights and realized
that no, we did not have to be at the airport at 6, our flight LEFT AT 6.
Meaning we had to be at the airport at 4:30ish. So, a short nap later, my
brothers and I straggled in to the airport, looking kind of like death warmed
over.
On the shuttle to the airport there was a
particularly obnoxious and precocious little girl, who seemed intent on telling
the strangers on the bus her life story:
"My name is Gracie, and that is my
little sister, and she is still a baby, and she cries sometimes. And that is my
daddy, his name is Robert, and that is my mommy, her name is Allison. I am
looking for seats for all of us, but there are none."
She was wearing bright colored Disney
princess pajamas and had tangled curly brown hair, and she looked so utterly
confused at the prospect that there were no seats. How could there not be any seats for her and her family? I had the sense that she was thinking,
there had to be seats, because after all she had just arrived, and surely there
was nothing happening before that. Because in the sheltered way of childhood,
we forget there is a world outside of ours.
At this prompting, I encouraged my brothers
to stand up so the beleaguered parents of this chatty child could sit during
the pre-dawn journey to the terminals. The father began to barter with his
child. "Would she be quiet and sleep on the airplane if he bought her a
treat? No? A special treat? No? A super special treat?" The daughter
resisted this pitiful attempt at bribery and decided instead to rain kisses on
her squirmy little sister's face. This was not something her sister seemed to
want, so she began to push and scream.
The mother, looking utterly exhausted, said something like,
“Please don't touch your sister. Please leave her alone"
To which the child answered, "But I
just want to love her, because I am the best big sister." And lip
quivering began to tear up at the thought that her sisterly affections were not
wanted. Jumping in, the father tried to save this situation by telling his
eldest daughter that she was the best
big sister and her little sister loved her very
much, but was tired and cranky and needed to be left alone. At which point
the older daughter rationalized that if she was cranky she clearly needed
kisses to make her happy and resumed again with the kiss attack.
I watched the parents of these kids with a
feeling of pity, and also a smile, as their precocious daughter did have a very
special charm. However, it looked like it would be a long flight ahead for
them. The family got off the bus, the father still trying to convince their
daughter to leave her sister alone, and they faded away, the brief shared bus
experience over.
At this point, my brother looked at me and
said "That is exactly what you were like as a child isn't it?" And he
was right. From the matted hair, to the Disney pajamas, to the over-sharing
with strangers, to the not taking no, to the belief that my world was the only
one of note, that little girl was almost a carbon copy of me at that age.
And you know what little girl? It’s going to be ok. You will turn
out great. Keep believing that all we need to fix a cranky mood is a kiss. That
kind of optimism is precious.
We finally got to the airport, sailed
through security, onto the plane, and slept our way to Orlando. Once we landed,
we had all reached the cranky stage of sleep deprivation and were starting to snipe at each other. We got
to our hotel and dropped off our bags. Orlando was much hotter than we
expected, and the leggings and tunic I had worn on the plane were sticking to
me and I felt a desperate need to change, but did not want to paw through my
luggage in the luggage storage room behind reception looking for something
suitable, so I decided to just deal. The first order of business was to find breakfast;
we needed some food and caffeine ASAP. Looming out of the distance was a store
called “Bargain World”; I could practically hear it calling my name. And next
to it was a restaurant offering an all you can eat breakfast buffet. This was
destiny. I muttered to my brothers that I was going to check out Bargain World
and that I would meet them in the restaurant. I entered the store and it took a
moment for my eyes to adjust from the bright light of the street. I stood in
awe in the doorway of the store, racks and racks of cheap vacation sundresses and
clothes lay ahead of me. I must have looked particularly stricken, as the woman
running the discount ticket booth just next to the entrance of the store called
out to me. “You lost honey?”
Me: No, I am not lost. My brothers and I
just got here to Orlando today and are going to get some breakfast next door.
We didn’t get much sleep last night, and are starting to get a little surly. I
just wanted to peek in here first.
Maybe it was seeing the little girl that
morning, maybe it was the exhaustion but suddenly I found myself oversharing
with this woman. She began to pump me with questions…
Woman: Where are you staying?
Me: Next door at the Avanti hotel.
Woman: Did you know that it was a
remodeled Travelodge?
Me: No I didn’t. How about that, it seemed
nice from the pictures, and you can’t beat the price.
Woman: Where are you from originally?
Me: Oh, we came in from Boston today. But
we aren’t really from there, I just live there now. We are from California,
well Oregon originally, Southern Oregon, but I was down in California for
awhile.
Woman: OH! Really? Whereabouts? I am from
California!
Me: Um, Northern California, the San
Francisco Bay Area, the East Bay specifically, Oakland, actually Piedmont, but
near Oakland.
Woman: Oh! Wow, I was out towards the
Sacramento area. Some days I miss it, some I don’t.
Me: Isn’t that the truth.
(At this point, I had the feeling that
this conversation was spiraling out of control, in the last minute, I had said
more state and city names than was even close to acceptable)
Me: Well, I’m going to just have a quick
look around.
Woman: You looking for anything in
particular? There is a nice plus size section right over there.
(Mildly offended at being pointed to the
plus size section, after all, I don’t consider myself THAT large, I sniffed and
hedged)
Me: No not really. I just came in to browse;
we just got off the plane and are feeling a little travel worn.
Woman:
Just browsing? Did you forget something
you needed back home?
(And at this point, something inexplicable
happened. This sense of shame washed over me, like it was not socially acceptable
to just want to browse at Bargain World, that there had to be a reason WHY I was
at Bargain World. Like, “Oh shoot, we forgot the swim suits, sunglasses,
sunscreen etc. Guess we have to go to Bargain World.” So…in an almost blind
panic and spurred on by exhaustion, I opened my mouth to speak, and the most
ridiculous straight up lie poured out.)
Me: Actually, no. I don’t have my luggage,
it got lost at the airport. Airlines these days are just awful aren’t they?
This prompted the woman to gasp, clutch
her heart, and say:
Oh my dear! Well you have come to the
right place. There is plenty to be found here.
And dazed, confused, and unsure what had
just happened, I hustled off to find something to wear that was better than the
suffocatingly hot leggings I was currently sporting.
Thumbing through a rack of one size fits
all sundresses; my brother stormed up and said, “LOST LUGGAGE??? Ellie! You are
a pathological LIAR, this is ridiculous! Let’s go! I am HUNGRY!”
And ripping the dress I was holding out of
my hands, and tossing it back to me he stalked off and stormed out of the
store. Sensing that we were on the verge of a dicey situation, I scampered up
to the counter with my newly acquired shorts and sun dress, and made my
purchase quickly.
The woman waved as I left, saying “Glad
you found something sweetie! Hope they find your bags soon! Damned airlines!”
Waves of guilt slapped me in tempo with
the waves of heat, as I stepped back out to the Florida sunshine. I found my brothers and we went into the
breakfast buffet, out of curiosity I asked my brother how he had known that I had
said the luggage was lost.
Brother: I went into that store looking
for you and that lady just started talking to me. She was all like, “You must
be the brothers! I am just so sorry to hear about your bags! Do y’all need some
T-shirts or shorts? Toothbrushes?” And I instantly knew what you had done.
Brother 2: Yeah, I was totally confused
for a second and about to say, I think you must be thinking of other people, we
didn’t lose our bags, and then I realized that you probably told that lady they
lost the luggage
Brother 1: Because you are that
ridiculous, who else would make up such a stupid lie at a place called Bargain World.
We just told her that we carried on our bags and they only lost yours. But seriously,
ELLIE. It is SO TYPICAL.
My brother’s scorn made me think. Was he
right? Am I a pathological liar? Or just a storyteller prone to exaggeration? I
prefer to think the latter. While undeniably fabricated, the story of the
luggage lost was just that, a story. One that poured from my exhausted, hyperbolic
lips, and gave this strange woman the context she seemed to need and me the
face saving I seemed to feel I needed to have. Should I have told the truth,
and said that I just wanted to get a sundress and something cooler to wear?
That I really did just want to browse at Bargain World and couldn’t resist a
good bargain? Yes. I probably should have, I should have owned my love of cheap
vacation schlock.
I am a firm believer that the truth is of
the utmost importance. Listening to the truth of ourselves, and our lives,
telling the truth to others and being in touch with the reality of things is
vital to success and survival. But it can be a lot harder to practice this than
to preach it. There are constant forces pulling us and pushing us each and
every day: what we think of ourselves, what others think of us, how we see
ourselves, how we see others, all of these become factors that color our
vantage point. And for the storytellers, for the dramatic ones, for the precocious
charmers, at what point does exaggeration of the truth become an untruth?
Sometimes, the better story comes when you smudge the edge of reality a bit, when
you dramatize just the right details to enhance the humor or drama. So, my moment
of inappropriate hyperbole in a Floridian Bargain World, urges me to think
deeper thoughts, and ask tougher questions, and come to some realizations.
What are the lessons learned?
Know the line between truth and fiction,
and recognize one from the other. Exaggeration can make a story better, but
playing up the details can’t change the facts and those should be remembered
and protected.
