How I Learned to Love Florida

"We're going to Florida." If you are from the North, these words feel like a warm, fuzzy blanket on your freezing cold body. I am from the North. But when I hear these words, I twitch, my fragile brain seized by images of medieval torture. Each year: horrible...

Part One: The Drive Down
Be told you are leaving the house at 6am. Be told that brother and sister will get the back seat of the station wagon and you well get the "way back; a private area just for you!" Annoyed by everyone's inability to leave on time and follow the rules set out to ensure happiness, get into the trunk "private area just for you!" at 6:30 to wait.  Open green metal cooler filled with sandwiches. Eat one while waiting. Deny any knowledge of this event come lunch time. Leave house at 7:45 after Mom has spent an hour finding the cat who escaped, will certainly never be found by the catsitter, and will therefore die despite his proven ability to murder and eat at least one chipmunk per day with a few snakes and bunnies thrown in each month for fun.

First stop: Dad gets gas, each kid gets a soda in a glass bottle and a snack. Sodas and snacks were, in my father's eyes, intended to last us from Rochester to Florida. In your eyes they are intended to last from the house to the Thruway.

Next stop: gas, potty break.

Repeat for 23 hours. Look forward to hitting South of the Border, a place you have never, will never, stop at but seems the most exciting place on the planet.  See two million signs reassuring you that this is most wonderful stop you will ever make in your whole damn life. Beg to stop. Be denied. Beg to stop there on the way back. Be assured you will. (Be lied to.)

In the trunk private area,  explore how many ways you can contort your body to fit into that spot. Periodically stretch your legs over the back seat and touch older sister's head. Participate in fight. Deny instigation. Steal any food left in cooler. Annoy brother. Irritate sister. Every thirty minutes, ask what state you are in. No matter what the answer, say, "STILL?" Every three hours, watch annoyed oldest brother whack someone and/or hang Barbie out the window by her hair for 10 miles to get youngest sister (you) to shut up. Scream about that. Get him in trouble. Close eyes. Fantasize about being an adult and free to sit anywhere you want in the car.

Arrive at Grandparents' house at some point in the middle of the night; roll out of car like you've just finished walking from Rochester to Jupiter.

Torture Time
Wake up to the first of what will be six identical days. Try to accept you are powerless to change this. Hear your mother coming in from a run. Know that the the really diabolical part of the torture is immanent; the ride was just a warm up. Feign illness. Throw a tantrum. Pout. Hope any one of these things gets you out of it.

Having failed, trudge into car with your towel, book, walkman, sunglasses, etc. Consider sneaking some food in there because you don't trust your mother to bring anything fun.
At 10am, you are dropped off off at the place of torture:
The beach.

Walk down the beach until Mom and older sister find "the right" spot. Decide knowing which this spot this is has something to do with getting through puberty because you, not yet at puberty, don't get it. Roll out towels. Before you get slimed with the disgusting, sandy, sticky orange gel that is Ban de Soile SPF 4 (FOUR!), bury the metal tube in the sand. Attempt to remember where you hid it so you can dig it up before you leave. Accept failure. 

Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip.
Repeat for ten whole minutes. Ask mom to go in the water with you. Be told that you can go alone, she'll go back in after 30 minutes, but she'll watch you. She will not watch you. You are afraid of the water. But you are also really hot. Reluctantly walk to water. Be attacked by waves. Get legs tangled in seaweed. Dodge the "not really painful" jellyfish. Try to dive through waves like she taught you. Nearly drown. Inhale and ingest large amounts of salt water. Crawl out. March toward designated torture area: the towel. Lie down. Accept the torture.

Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip.
Finally, she's going to go in. She goes in, plays with you, then swims laps and gets out. You follow.

Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip.
Your hair starts to matte. Your skin is tight from the salt and crusted in sand.Ten seconds after you get out, you are hot again. You are sweaty and sandy and salty. You are on fire. You are hungry. You are thirsty. And good God, worst of all: you are bored. 

Lay on towel, feeling your skin fry. Fantasize that your father is back at the house, cool and eating cheese balls.
Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip. Fry. Flip.

Take on the ocean a few more times. Experience similar results. As Mom why Dad doesn't have to come. Be told that he can't sit on the beach and his antsiness irritates her so he can't come. Try to be as antsy and as irritating as possible to get the same fate. Accept failure. Find out later that as The Dad gets to do whatever he wants because he is actually the one in charge.

At 3:45, pack up. Wait for Dad. At 4:30 get into steamy, non A/C car: sandy, salty, sticky, and seriously cranky. Arrive home at 5:00. Upon exiting the car, notice bits of your skin stuck to burgundy vinyl seats.

Get into shower. Put on the lowest, coldest setting, which still scalds. Compare the color of your skin to the scarlet shower curtain. Dry off. Wonder when the towel was replaced with sandpaper. Pull clothing on gently. Wince each time anything touches your skin. Be very thankful you are young and flat chested so that you don't need to put on a bra. Feel dizzy, headachy, sick. Slather on Aloe. Complain. After a few more hours, wait for your skin to bubble. Peel. See if you can get a whole sheet off of your arm in one pass. Accept failure.

Go to bed. Try to sleep. Accept failure.

Wake up. The burn is worse. You are sure you have a fever. You are sure you are going to throw up. Hear Mom come home from her run. Inform her of your ailment, your proximity to death. Convince her you should stay home with Dad. Eating cheese balls (he has no idea why you think he's eating cheese balls but cheese balls factor into all images of the perfect afternoon).

Having failed, trudge into car with your towel, book, walkman, sunglasses, etc. Consider sneaking some food in there because you don't trust your mother to bring anything fun. When you arrive, play dumb when you mom asks where the Ban de Soile is.
Repeat for four more days. Burn upon burn upon burn.
Then burn some more. Accept that you have no power to change your fate. Accept that you are a powerless child, subject to the whims of your parents. Begin to plot all the things you will do when you are no longer powerless. When you are no longer the kid.(Realize thirty years later that you will always be "their" kid and somewhat powerless when you are with them.)

At the end of this extravaganza of torture/child abuse, get back into car for 23 hours. Repeat all fights, whining, complaining, food stealing, and add to it the nasty crankiness that comes with being severely sunburned and uncomfortable and hot.
The Aftermath

Curse Florida.

Curse the beach.

Vow to never return.
Return 20 years later. By plane. Stay in a house. With a pool. Get up each day at 9am. Have breakfast. Go for a run or a bike ride. Set yourself up by the pool and proceed to get in and out from around 11:00 until 4:00. Eat lots of fun food. Including cheese balls. Admire your dry, sand-free feet. Enjoy a warm shower at the end of the day to get the chlorine out. Chase lizards. Wear SPF 70 and a hat. Sit under the awing. Return home as pale as when you left. Vow to return every year.

My mother will tell you that she always brought food for us, we were only there for four hours, and she always tried to put the lotion on me so I wouldn't burn (albeit the lotion was SPF 4), but I would throw a hissy fit about it so she decided I could learn the hard way. (I did.) She also doesn't understand how I can come down here for  a week and be perfectly content not seeing the ocean once.