Say It Ain't So: My Life Has Become a Vacation Movie

My buddy, Joe Jones, once told me a man should be able to throw everything he owns into a duffle bag and hit the road at a moment’s notice.

I wish I could say it ain’t so, Joe, but those days are long gone for me.

A trip to see my family for Thanksgiving turned into one of those “Vacation” movies with Chevy Chase where everything that could go wrong did.

Let’s start with packing. Before Sydney, traveling was fairly easy. I pack my bag. Brooke packs here three. I pack some food for the dogs, put their beds in the back of the SUV and off we go. The dogs are in the back, the luggage in the back seat, Brooke and I captaining the ship up front.

After Sydney, life gets a little more difficult. Now, I pack a bag. Brooke packs ONE bag. Then she packs THREE bags for Sydney. Then she packs a breast pump. Then I pack a Pack and Play. Then I pack a stroller. Then I pack her bathtub. Then I pack food for the dogs. Then I pack the dogs’ beds. Then we pack Sydney herself.

What does the car look like now? Well, the dogs are still kings. They are lying in the back by themselves. Sydney is in her car seat. Brook is now in the backseat with her. We stuff a couple of Sydney’s smaller bags on the floor of the back seat. This leaves the passenger’s seat for our bags, Sydney’s stroller, Sydney’s tub, Sydney’s other bag, the Pack and Play and the bathtub. When it is all said and done, I can’t see the side view mirror over there and we have to rearrange everything just to be able to pull out of the driveway.

We hit the road by 2 p.m. Wednesday. I know this is the biggest travel day of the year, but I figure we are leaving early enough to make the 3 ½-hour trip in 4 hours. I am allotting a half hour for bad traffic in Columbus.

The first hour is uneventful. But as we approach Columbus, I can see the cars lined up, bumper to bumper, like they’re waiting for the start of the Indianapolis 500. Interstate 71 has become a parking lot.

Now, those who know me know I am not a patient person. If we go to a restaurant on a Friday night and there is a wait, chances are I am moving on. I absolutely won’t wait more than 30 minutes. It is not just that I hate to wait, it actually makes me angry. I will start to notice open tables and wonder why the restaurant has not hired or scheduled enough workers to open up the WHOLE restaurant. After all, that is there business, right? Friday night crowd catch you by surprise? Were you expecting around the same numbers you have on Wednesday mornings?

Talk about letting money go to waste. Can you imagine the Bengals or Reds telling fans they can’t come in because those 20,000 seats over there are being left open?

But I digress.

So, we are sitting in traffic for about 30 minutes before I proclaim that every Wednesday before Thanksgiving for the rest of my life will be a vacation day for me. I will NOT travel on this day again.

I get the idea to call one of my Columbus buddies to see what my options are on getting through Columbus on a route other than 71. He refers me to 315 and that looks like it is moving fairly well, so I hop on. And for about five minutes, things are going smoothly. Then I hit another parking lot. Have you ever been caught in traffic after a concert? Where you crawl inch by inch toward the exit for about a half hour? That was my situation.

To cut the suspense, we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic for about two hours. We then were in slow-moving traffic for another hour. But that is not the interesting part of the story. Remember, I am traveling with a BABY.

Babies mostly sleep when they are traveling. But when a 3 ½-hour trip turns into a 6-hour trip, babies wake up. And they get antsy. And they get hungry. And they have to go to the bathroom. If all of this happens while you are angry about sitting in traffic and your two dogs are going crazy because they are cooped up in a small space….well, things can get a little tense.

Here, in no particular order, are the things that happened during our two hours of moving about 10 miles.

·        Brooke realized we were going to be in the car much longer than she had planned. She’s a breastfeeder. I don’t know the exact science behind it, but apparently you have to either feed or pump at certain times or you start leaking like the plumbing in a Section 8 rental property. She decides she needs to pump, because she doesn’t want to wake Sydney, and Sydney must remain in her car seat for safety’s sake. The problem is, we are sitting nearly still in traffic. It is bad enough she has to pump in a car, but nosy truck drivers can get a good show as they zoom by at 3 miles per hour.

·        Sydney woke up and screamed for food. Brooke gives her a bottle. She doesn’t want to drink a bottle. Sydney has a serious case of nipple confusion right now. She can go from meal to meal and change her preference, sometimes wanting the bottle, sometimes wanting the breast. This is particularly a problem when her dad is doing the feeding and she doesn’t want the bottle. Anyway, Brooke finally gets her to eat after much fussiness. Miss Crankypants returns.

·        Sydney spit up half her food. Now, this is not unexpected from Sydney, but it necessitated a outfit change, which was not easy to do in the back seat, but somehow Brooke managed.

·        The car filled with a horrible odor. I immediately accuse Brooke. She immediately accuses me. After quick denials, we look at the dogs. They are always likely culprits, but what if it wasn’t them? We have to check Sydney. A couple seconds later, I look in my rearview mirror to see a look of horror on my wife’s face. Then she starts gagging. It is clear. Sydney has experienced an episode of explosive ass disorder while we are stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic with nowhere to turn off.

The highlight of the trip was Brooke changing Sydney while sitting in a back seat with a car seat, breast pump and several other bags stuffed back there.  It was as tight as my belt after a Sunday meal. She discovered that Sydney’s explosion had exceeded her diaper line and was actually half way up her back. Nice. Another outfit. At about this time, I say, “Honey, I wish I wasn’t driving so I could help you back there.” She shoots me a dirty look. By the time she is done, Sydney has poop in her hair and on her clothes, and Brooke has it all over her hands. And there is no bathroom in sight!

· Right about this time, the dogs decide they are too antsy and they need to get up and prance around the back of the SUV like reindeer on Christmas Eve. This was a great capper to Brooke’s diaper episode and she let loose her anger on everyone within earshot, including her innocent, just-trying-to-get-his-family-home-safely, nice-guy husband.

Suddenly, my impatience with the traffic was the least of my concerns.

About a half hour later, we had crawled close enough to an exit that I could take the whole family to the bathroom. Brooke cleaned up herself and Sydney, the dogs found a nice patch of grass in the parking lot of an office complex and I breathed a sigh of relief. We still had another hour in traffic and another hour and half of driving after that, but I had survived the worst of it. Even Chevy Chase never had it this bad.

I passed the next couple hours thinking about my buddy Joe Jones. I think he has a wife and two daughters now. I imagine he traded his duffle bag in for a Pack and Play a long time ago.

Rappin' Lullabies at 3 a.m.

The things I do when it is 3 a.m. and my daughter won’t sleep. My sleep-deprived mind searches for ways to remain sane. The other night, I made up a rap song to help Sydney sleep. The key is getting the cadence down, I guess. Yo, ya Yo, Yo, Yo….

My name is Sydney Grace,

I got spit-up all over my face,

But there’s no way that’s gonna keep me down

Someday I’ll own this Cincinnati town.

I may cry and scream a heck of a lot,

But chalk it up to being just a normal tot.

Life right now is full of drama,

Thorns for daddy; roses for mama.

But someday soon I’ll be all grown,

Preparing for college and taking out my loans,

And daddy will look back on these tough days,

Wondering if there was any possible way,

He could jump in a ship and go back in time,

When he was sleep-deprived and making up these rhymes.

Because he will miss his little princess girl

Who has finally made it in this world,

But I will never forget him, so he shouldn’t be sad,

Because he will always be the king of dads.

Life at 45: Hangovers Without Alcohol

My, how my life has changed.

Let’s look at a typical Friday in the life of Brian Gregg at…

Age 20:  Every college student who likes to get his “party on” schedules classes to end as early as possible on Fridays. If I could have somehow taken all the classes I needed to get my journalism degree on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would have.

I’d meet up with my roommates early Friday afternoon and bust out a “suitcase” of Old Milwaukee. Every group of young guys has that “go-to” cheap beer that they rely on when money is a factor. Old Mildoggy was ours.

If it was nice out, we played wiffle ball in the yard of our apartment complex while polishing off our brews. I was the king of hitting Bonds-esque homers over the building across the complex. Let’s face it, I had a Barry Bonds-like physique – at least in the later, blown-up, steroid-scandal, Michelin Man years.

Wiffle ball was always cool, but we mostly invented our own games to keep us occupied while drinking.  We had something called “handy ball,” which consisted of batting a Nerf basketball around while drinking.  Think volleyball without a net. The person who let the ball fall needed to guzzle.

In our dorm room, we invented a baseball game that used a crushed beer can as a ball. We wore real baseball gloves and used a makeshift bat to hit the can. It is amazing what you can do with beer cans. Someone I know made a coffee table out of Old Milwaukee cans. They also make great Christmas tree ornaments.

We’d jam Springsteen while we played. These were the years of Madonna and Prince, but my roommate, Pat, turned me on to Springsteen and I wanted to be a little harder than my 20-year-old counterparts. Material Girl, my ass.

About 11, we’d head to the bars. We spent part of our freshman and sophomore years doing cheap happy hours where we would drink 5-cent cups of Black Label (a Canadian beer, I think) for hours, but quickly realized this life was not for us after several nights ended by 11 p.m. with us lying in bed holding a trash can to our face.

Down at the bars, we’d make our play for “ladies.” This generally consisted of standing around talking to the few female friends we had (we rarely were bold enough to migrate outside our own circle) hoping we could convince one to go home with us. About once every two months or so, we’d get lucky.

On the way home, we’d spend our last $2 on a gyro from a guy who probably put three children through college by running a food cart outside the Kent State bars. Then we’d do an after party and drink Old Milwaukees until we passed out.

The next day, I usually had a hangover.

Age 25: This was my golden age. No longer bound by the constraints of money and not yet held down by the affects of age, I spent my 20s living a Hugh Hefner lifestyle. Blessed with a shift where I covered the police beat from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m, I was able to do all that a young man should do: get off work in time to go to the bars, party all night, sleep late and spend my mornings playing basketball and softball to stay in shape. I worked in a one-man news bureau my first year and even had a cot in the office so I could take a nap if I had a particularly tough night.

My buddies and I would spend our Friday nights at a place called the Quark, grooving to tunes that would make Springsteen cry. Hammer Time. Ice, Ice Baby. I like big butts and I cannot lie… Sorry, Boss.

Most of us would stand at the edge of the dance floor and hope some woman we barely knew would be drunk enough to take a liking to us. I hoped for slow dances, because my actual dancing resembled an epileptic seizure.

About once a month, we’d get lucky.

On the way home, we’d hit up Uncle Nick’s gyros to eat while watching late night television until we passed out.

The next day, I usually had a hangover.

Age 30: Age starts taking its toll on me here. I can no longer treat a weeknight like a Friday night because the next day at work feels like a ride on a Kings Island roller coaster. Also, despite my once-a-week basketball games, the pounds start to accumulate toward Michelin Man status.

I’m back to doing happy hours. That’s because I hope to be in bed by midnight, although most of the time I still see closing time. I’m mostly hanging in bars that play classic rock, because the music of the mid-1990s was horrendous. Mariah Carey? Celine Dion? The freaking Macarena??? Put a bullet in my head. 

I’m also back to primarily hitting on women who are somehow in my circle. Women at this age usually want to have some knowledge of who the guy is before they head home with him. I’m getting lucky about once every two months, just like in college.

On the way home from the bars, I stop at the sandwich cart for a barbeque pork sandwich, mostly to suck up the alcohol. I hit the bed as soon as I walk in the door and hope for the best the next morning. If I mixed in enough glasses of water throughout the night, I avoid the hangover.

Age 35: Girlfriends have always come and gone, but at this age, I am doing a lot more “dating.” Let’s face it, that is the only way I am getting lucky. Friday nights consist of a nice dinner, glasses of wine, maybe a trip to a comedy club or to hear some live music. I’m getting lucky almost every other weekend! Of course, with the same woman or two.

I don’t eat on the way home because I already stuff too many calories into this body. I’m usually in bed by midnight. Hangovers are rarely a problem.

Age 40: Serious girlfriend time. Dating a girl 15 years my junior. That means returning to my glory years. Pretty much guaranteed getting lucky every weekend!

I start each Friday with a pre-game at her or her friend’s house, drinking a higher-class beer than Old Milwaukee, usually some micro-brew that makes me look cool to her friends who are still drinking cheap beer because that is all they can afford. We head out to some dance club and listen to horrible music. Justin Timberlake? John Mayer?  Who the hell is Jesse McCartney? Was that Justin Bieber’s older brother?

We make it to closing time most weekends. On the way home, we hit Taco Bell. This is fun. But I am too old for this. It only takes a few months for me to say, “Honey, how about if you go out with your friends by yourself and I will be here when you get home.” Then I watch TV and hit the sack after the 11 p.m. SportsCenter. No drinks, no hangover.

Age 45: Well, here it is.

I get home from work about 5:30 and my wife wants to know if we should order a pizza. The big debate is if we have enough money for something like that. Every penny counts now. Bars are out of the question.  

Music? The only music we listen to are the lullabies that play on Sydney’s swing. Getting lucky? Yeah, like back in college, about every two months. Who has the energy?

I spend my evening playing with my daughter, trying to keep her stimulated and away from crying. This usually requires my total attention, so there is not a lot of time for say, writing a blog post, or watching a DVR-d episode of Man vs. Food, which, at this point, I could star in and win every challenge.

My wife and I pass her back and forth like a football, sharing the "stimulating duties." For some reason, she is generally quiet and happy when my wife has her. I get the screaming and crying Sydney. Roses for Brooke, thorns for Brian.

We get to bed whenever we get to bed. My daughter sets her own schedule. She usually sleeps a couple hours and then is up a couple of hours. All day long. All...night...long.

I never leave the house, yet I am worn the hell out.

The next day, I have a “baby” hangover.