Vacations for Newly Married People

Josh The Pilot and I are off to celebrate his birthday and our first wedding anniversary by spending three hours in the company of timeshare salespeople. Because we love each other, that’s why.

The freebies include a two-night stay at a hotel which includes the following on its “amenities” list: “Adjacent to Golden Corral and Cracker Barrel Country Store.” A Crack House AND a Golden Corral? Well, now. They might just have color TV and air conditioning, too! Free HBO! Or… ice!

I’ll stop here, lest I build myself up for disappointment.

In Which A College Teacher Tells People Not To Go To College

You poof-haired little snob.

Granted, later in the strip, April Patterson generously gives poor, non-leading Gerald Official Permission to not attend college without, perhaps, suffering eternal damnation. Generous is April, wise as well as kind, in so issuing her approval.

There are a couple of things going on here, and the first one I want to get out of the way is the fact that I’ve had it with this strip ever since Liz, who was previously juggling a hot cop and a helicopter pilot in the middle of Northern Nowhere, chucked them both in favor of Horribly Creepy Pornstache Anthony, all because he doubly-saved her from a rape she was in the middle of stopping herself simply by twisting the assailant’s ear. And no, none of that is exaggeration for humorous effect. That be life in the new-millennium world of For Better or for Worse.

Point Two, and the slightly larger one, was raised yesterday by Terrorist The Teacher of yesterday’s post, who switched from reading the American History exam to the European History exam. What I didn’t mention, and what hints at a big ol’ pumpkin pie’s worth of truth, was why she chose to leap across the pond:

This year, Kluge switched from grading U.S. history exams to European history exams because “reading the U.S. history was becoming more and more depressing,” she said. “AP U.S. history nationwide has become much more of a push-them-into-it program.” She said she hoped the European exams, which like all AP exams have free-response sections graded by expert instructors, might reveal “students who are a little more committed.”

Oh, snap, she came very, very close to mentioning The Unmentionable in America: The concept that maybe kids are taking on college-level classes–and college itself–who are really better off not going to college. Yes I said that.

By which I mean: Lookit, if you have real, true intellectual curiosity, if you want a white-collar job, if you’re interested in a career which requires a degree, then for frak’s sake do a one-second Google search for “financial aid” or “college scholarships” and have at it. But I have seen many freshman come tumbling down the college chute who didn’t belong there, because they didn’t have the academic do-how and had been shoved in anyway by well-meaning higher ups, or because they didn’t care, or because they’d been scare-washed into thinking that this is the only way to not starve in America, or because they were plodding down Diploma Mill Road under parent and social duress, daaaaaaring me to teach them. If that’s you, kindly stay out of my classroom. You’re harshing my lit-vibe.

This does not necessarily predestine one life of fries. I don’t know where this business of no degree = DOOMED, DOOMED FOREVER began, but it’s entirely possible to eat well and remain un-Bachelorized (I’m thinking the ill-fated self-esteem movement played a nice, huggy role). My father, a small business owner, has a few college credits he collected at the University of Tampa while in the Air Force, but never graduated; and Daniel The Brother-In-Law, who is an air traffic controller in the Army, doesn’t have a degree, either. And yet I’d rather have him telling pilots where to direct their multi-billion dollar taxpayer funded machines than some seniors to whom I’ve awarded a nice, fat F+ for their craptastic efforts.

I have two majors with my B.A. and its shiny minor in American history, plus a Master’s degree, all of which mean precisely jack when my car breaks down or the dishwasher won’t start or I’m, like, attacked by bees. I have no idea how to deal with these things, and most of the people who do, people who take home approximately five times my pay, are not going to hear any lip out of me. Matter of fact, some of my best students are my non-trads: The middle aged moms who married right out of high school, the GI Billers, the men who woke up in the middle of a career in sales one morning, all “You know what? I want to program computers and run the world.” These are the people who never, ever send me emails along the lines of “What time is are finl? ‘K tnks by.” They have seen the world beyond the extended adolescence of the college classroom, and they know that curling into a intelligia-ball is warm work.

And walking through this life without scooping up a collection of letters to put on a nameplate is not a signal of low intelligence. Some of the street-dumbest people I’ve ever met sat beneath a wall of diplomas. As a fan of the seven forms of intelligence theory, there’s no way I’m going to announce that I’m smarter than a jockey who hits the track with a sub-GED education, for when it comes to not falling off a 1500-pound animal going 30 miles an hour, he’s a freaking genius.

This is also not to say that four years of Latin are wasted on a plumber or that baseball players shouldn’t study Renaissance theology. If you like to learn and want to learn, go ahead on. But if you’re taking up space and bent on SparkNoting your way to a degree, hie thee to a job fair. You’re a consumer, not a student.

I stuck around college because, unlike many, many things, I was pretty good at it; I managed, there in the little cocoon-world of saying things like “But the structure of the piece is at odds with the voice, which contributes to the thematic realities,” and having people nod and spout similar bull*#&@ right on back. You don’t get away with that anywhere else on the face of the Earth. And for good reason.

And so, graduates, as you step into this new world, I beg of you: Seriously consider not going to college. You’ll thank me about $100,000 down the road.

advising her way right out of a job at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Homeland Security

Greg The Reader passes along this article about a teacher who was booted right out of the European History AP reading for not producing the proper ID credentials for her I-9 form, the lucky bastard.

Her mistake was that she attempted to switch from one subject to another, which made her a new hire, which meant she was regarded as a non-citizen until she produced the proper documentation proving otherwise. Good. However, policies such as this resulted in frantic security guards at our site: “Ma’am? Ma’am, you need to be wearing your nametag at all times while in the facility.” Bad.

This extensive security measure consisted of a piece of plastic around the neck and a tiny, entirely copyable square of white paper bearing our names, our school of origin, and–this was the true anti-terrorist stopgap–the word READER in bold type across the top.

Now, I get the need for us to show our credentials. However, what happened was that I started seeing readers wearing their nametags all the time, even while not reading, even while not in in the building. I cannot tell you how much, and why, this pissed me off. Possibly because when I was in grade school, I was that kid.

EXTRA PLACES READERS WORE AROUND-THE-NECK PLASTIC NAMETAGS

Fitness room

Hotel pool

Shopping after dinner

AT THE FREAKING AIRPORT ON THE WAY OUT OF KENTUCKY

Jogging along the Ohio River

Churchill Downs

Downtown bars (It’s the pickup line which builds itself!)

You Had to Be There

The Great Stack may be behind me, physically, but mentally and emotionally, it takes a while to recover. A very long while. It’s kind of like childbirth, I guess; absolutely horrific while it’s happening, and you never want any human being to touch you ever again, but then the baby (stipend check) arrives and you’re all, “Yeah, well, it wasn’t THAT bad” and go ahead and have sex (teach) again anyway, like the idiot you in fact are. And nine months later you’re back on the table (seated in a very large, very cold room), screaming for morphine all over again.

I took no pictures this year, which as you know is a very major thing for the archival dork. I left the camera– probably because, also like childbirth, some things aren’t meant to be viewed by the general public without a great deal of warning. But one of my tablemates, the lovely and talented and patient Barbara H., braver than I, shot her way around Louisville:

This is where the maaaagic happened. The Kentucky International Convention Center was about four blocks from my hotel, which, when elevator delays were taken into account, made for a good twenty-minute walking commute in the mornings. Elevator delays happened a lot; the entire hotel was crammed onto exactly the same schedule, which meant that otherwise stable professionals were wheeling oxygen-tank patients into the river to get at the first car to the eighteenth floor.

Here’s a panoramic view of the converted trade show space where we ate. The food was very nearly as appetizing as the ambiance. Normally I’m a carbnivore– I order my potatoes presented inside a roll, dipped in macaroni, and rolled in rice.

But under these trying circumstances… not so much with the carbs. Carbs lead to food coma, and attempting to coherently score essays scribbled in serial killer handwriting at two in the afternoon often leads to that head-snap thing– you know, that thing where you’re totally concentrating, and completely paying attention to what you’re doing, and all of a sudden snap WHOAH why was my head so close to the table? So I tried to back down on the carbs, particularly at lunch, which was a mite difficult when the main entree was Batter-Dipped Noodles.

The caterers then attempted to balance this out by sugaring us up during the breaks–doughnuts, cookies, brownies. By the weekend they were totally done with us, and began heaping marshmallows on every tray, mixing them in with the ice cream and cake samplers: “Screw it, just dump a big vat of sugar on the table and let ‘em lick it.”

Those of us scoring Question Three spent the week with students attempting to discuss literary foils, sometimes without in fact understanding what a foil actually is. A lot of the students hung the essay on Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, which was admirable at first and downright screamable by the middle of the week, particularly when they’d, for instance, mention the part where the monster danced to “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

On Day Three, somebody showed up with a roll of Reynold’s Wrap.

You just reach that point, you know? After a while, *&#^ like this even started to make sense:

This is me on in the last hour of the last day, waiting for the much-anticipated signal to return to the highly restful hotel elevator line. My eyes say “Huh?” but my body says “Former Human Being Once Resided Here.”

Just beyond my elbow is the cord of the headsets we wore. All the EngLit readers were in the same ballroom, but each question had a different leader, different break times, different model essays to use as rubric calibrators. So the questions were split into three locations, by means of a bunch of poles and blue curtains, which for some reason didn’t provide the world’s best soundproofing. Sometimes a question leader tried to talk to his group and start a calibration session while another was settling into reading live books, and if you think an adult voice booming over a tinny sound system set against concrete walls is soothing, try concentrating with the backecho of it from half a football field away.

The solution to communicate amongst the readers without disturbing the rest of the room was UN-style headsets, each tuned the frequency of the assigned question. The upshot was the incredible creepiness of four hundred people sitting in utter silence, facing a person speaking into a microphone but producing zero sound. Occasionally we’d smile or break into applause or wail “NOOOOOO, this is NOT a nine!” with apparently no provocation. At first the question leaders attempted to get people to put on their headphones by shouting “HEADSETS!” into the headset mic, before they figured out that we kind of had to be wearing them first for this to be effective. Then we tried waving what looked suspiciously like the Girl Scout Quiet Sign, but that didn’t work, either. Finally they’d turn on the general sound system mic and boom “HEADSETS!”, which got our attention, as well as the attention of every single other person in the other two questions. And then we’d fumble into 1984 Mode. Other than that, hey, thumbs up on the headsets.

“Next year, I’m bringing the air horn.”

very nice erasers, though at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

The Last Week In June

It’s been posted more than twice, so that must make it a Blonde Champagne tradition. Here it is: The Last Week In June.

This week was, in my childhood, what kept me alive throughout the other fifty-one. It is what pulled me to Colorado, horses and dust and pine trees and creeks of freezing mountain runoff. Even if I’ve been conducting my June unconsciously aware of the anniversary, I suddenly will feel a strong rugged pull as the Fourth of July approaches and look at the calendar and realize, “Oh. The Week.”

Although it’s now priced right out of this world, it wasn’t back in those days, and from the year I was six until the year I was thirteen, this was It. I have never known a place I was happier. College comes a close second, but four years are impossible to conduct without at least some semblance of tears and heartbreak. There were no tears in Lost Valley except for the following Sunday, when there was always near-hysteria. One year I sobbed as the plane departed from Colorado Springs at the thought of another twelve months of waiting in Cincinnati: Were we going to Ohio for a funeral? the woman sitting behind me wondered to my mother’s horrified humiliation.

A part of me is literally seared there, burned into the walls of the main dining room. Each family creates its own brand as it passes through, adding checkmarks each returning year. Our brand sits high on a far wall overlooking the mountains and the hummingbird feeders. The brand is a boot representing the brief fact that we all rode that first year, even my mother, who bravely lasted until Wednesday, when she gripped the saddle horn of Colt 45 so tightly that tendinitis followed. Our initial stands in the middle of the boot over wavy lines representing the Ohio River. As I was fully lame even at an early age, this was my civically proud suggestion.

When I grew up and went to stay with my then-boyfriend in Colorado Springs for a month, he drove me there along a narrow shelf road I thought wondrous at the time and now, returning as a driver myself, recognized as terrifying. On one side is a drop of many thousands of feet through trees and jagged scenery; on the other, pure mountain. When two cars meet going opposite directions, one driver has to back up, slowly and with much tense cursing.

“This place is kind of cheesy,” the ex announced as he got out of the car and looked upon cabins named “Jessie James” and “Diamond Lil.” And I knew then, somehow, although the end was yet months away and much sobbed over, that I could never, ever marry this person.

It is kind of cheesy, in a City Slickers sort of fashion, the way the wranglers greet the suburbanites at the cattle guard entrance on horseback and canter away in front of the car to guide these unleathery dudes to the check-in lodge, but when you are six and you are miserable, this is wondrous to behold. It announced horses to me, the very ones I write about today, and it brought seven days of the social acceptance I never found in the classroom. I heard God in the pines and I inhaled; this was where my soul has lived for so long. This was where the kid picked last for the kickball team won rodeo awards for booting her quarter horse around the barrels the fastest.

Terrible fires raged five years ago all around this little green valley I have always thought of as cupped in God’s palm. The ranch was evacuated, the horses herded to safety. I was reunited via phone with one of the kiddie supervisors who cared for me twenty years ago and have exchanged Christmas cards with ever since (it is that kind of place) and she described to me what happened.

“The fire got to the cattle guard,” she told me, “and it split. Burned everything around it, but the ranch was untouched. The areas in the mountains where you rode as a child are scorched, I’m afraid.”

I would be scorched, too, if I returned right now. I know towering pines and thick tangles of wildflowers, and I prefer to keep them alive inside of me rather than replacing them with black and charred reality.

The regeneration has already begun, I am sure. It will be well underway a few years from now, when Jim the Small Child Nephew will be old enough to ride with a plastic cowboy hat on his head and a face full of sunblock. We will go, I think, the last week in June.

this time from DC at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

This Could Happen To You

I’m directing everyone over to Along The Rails today, because there’s Big News out of Washington: Congress has healed horse racing! Hooray!

Hug tight the sport you love. Your government might decide to help it next.

neigh, neigh, from the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection stay away at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Learnin’

And here’s what everybody’s been waiting for since I departed to take on the Great Stack: The Parade of Wonderful Student Statements.

I had to smuggle them out this year. We were told on Day Two to stop writing down these priceless drops of student wisdom which made us want to slay ourselves and others: “You may smile to yourself,” the question leader said generously, “but we want to make sure we respect the students.”

Sure I respect the students. What I want is for the students to respect the test. And most of them do; I’d say I scored over a thousand essays last week, and some were simply top-shelf tequila. I awarded my first-ever nine, the highest score we can possibly give—two nines, actually. The best of the essays discussed the author’s conscious choices throughout, acknowledging that books do not magically spring from the Earth, fully bound and ready to be SparkNoted. One used the word “belie.” Correctly, even.

But even though my own writing is far from perfect, I’m sorry, no eighteen-year-old native English speaker privileged with three years of Advanced Placement English Literature instruction should use the word “kinda” in a formal essay. Especially not one in the very act of attempting to demonstrate writing proficiency at the college level.

There are two kinds of suck in this world: Earnest suckage, which includes the people who truly are trying, but just can’t bust the proper move at the proper time, much like me in nearly every single aspect of life; and douchy suckage, which means you haven’t done something properly because you couldn’t be roused from behind your pink-cased iPod long enough to give two craps, much like me when confronted with a word problem, or folding something neatly. I’m going to close my eyes in slow empathy at the former and kickbox the latter, because you have utterly wasted the resources of your school, your teachers, and your scorer, who is now that much closer to utter nihilism, thanks to you. And I’ve laid a cynical eye on enough of these essays to know the difference. Some students turned in completely blank books. Some wrote little notes of hello, or penned earnest letters about a desire for Burger King. Others, bowing to the Face of peer pressure, wrote “THIS IS SPARTA” in cheeky crossed-out letters.

This year I drew the free response question, highly prized amongst the readers due to the variety inherent in the prompt. The students were asked to discuss how any literary foil revealed the main character’s traits and illuminated the meaning of the work. This meant that we were given a pass from last year’s endless JohnnyFest, but it in its place were approximately forty five million essays discussing The FREAKING Kite Runner, which is a lovely book, I’m sure, but is clearly AP Flavor O’ the World Lit Month, and by Day Five I was quite ready to tell Hassan where he could shove his stupid kite. Hassan was a chump, y’all.

Second nomination for GO AWAY BOOK, GO FAR FAR AWAY was Their Eyes Were Watching God. Tea Cake (or, as one student called him, Tea Cup) is hereby formally invited to bite me.

Such rage pervaded everyone in the free response question; the professor next to me, at the end of the week, very gently laid his head down on the table and said, “The Lord of the F*&^@%# Rings,” and two days before that I was walking around with a Post-It note stuck to my forehead featuring the word “Hamlet” surrounded by a strike-through symbol.

What have I learned? Well, for one thing, there are an awful lot of books out there I never ever want to read:

”The great American book Huckleberry Finn, written by Roger Clemens…”

“The author of the wonderful Roaring 20’s novel Great Gatsby is Nathanial Hawthorne.”

“In the book The Color Purple, Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey…”

“John Steinbeck wrote a masterpiece when he did To Kill a Mockingbird.”

You may have noticed up there that many of the students tended to ladle their approval over their choices, as though in the act of showing up to the test wearing a Tshirt which read “I THINK EDGAR ALLAN POE WAS A DARN GOOD POET” we’d immediately equate recognition of the Western canon with good essay writing. You hear that, Sylvia Plath? Some future frat tool in Hoboken thinks you produced “a really deep work, destined to be a classic forever”! Wasn’t it all worth it?

Further edu-macate along with me:

“I forgot the name of Hamlet’s buddy, so this essay is going to be a little confusing.”

“Making decisions may be detrimental to one’s health.”

“Hamlet was a think-first kind of guy, and really angsty if you ask me.”

“Rochester was a man of statues and wealth.”

“Hamlet’s girlfriend, Othello….”

“The main character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a boy named Tom Sawyer.”

“Laertes challenges Hamlet to a fence.”

“This book contained pathos.”

“All these things serve to really piledrive the point to its visceral home, explicitly and without mercy.”

“It seemed everything was going his way until he got thrown in jail and died.”

“The relationship between Iago and Othello illuminates the meaning of the work because it reveals that if you are trusting someone who has not gotten the position they desired, they can definitely screw you in the end.”

And finally, please do take this with you when you go:

“Authors rarely, if ever, make mistakes.”

I’ll drink to that at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

What, No Cup Holders?

I’ve never had a pet more complex than a beta fish, which committed suicide on my Spanish homework. So maybe I really don’t have a concept of WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY THERE’S A NEED TO PUSH SMALL DOGS AROUND IN A PADDED ROLLING LITTER AS THOUGH THEY ARE SUN-SENSITIVE AND PRECIOUS CHILDREN WITH NO LEGS INSTEAD OF FOUR.

Clearly, as a society, we have achieved the pinnacle of innovation. I mean, it folds compactly.

Liability

“We’re okay and the car is drivable, but we were in an accident.”

For once, I wasn’t driving. For the third time since I’ve owned this car, it came away damaged. For the third time, it wasn’t my fault. When I hit something, I make positive-sure it’s inanimate.

Burger King! Nothing bad can possibly happen at a Burger King! Except for when you look both ways, make the right hand turn, and slam! I felt it but I didn’t see it, the back of the car, the left-back side of the car.

“What was that, what was that?” I say to Josh, who was already pulling over and making darkly angry but fully polite gesturing motions to someone behind us to pull into the turn lane.

The dent on the front bumper from six months ago where the deer (a deer!) had rammed into the driver’s side hadn’t been touched. We couldn’t afford the deductible or the out-of-pocket. We still can’t. I fumbled around for our the thin little slip of paper, the insurance information. Florida policy, expired… Virginia… there.

“We’re okay and the car is drivable, but we were in an accident.”

“It’s okay,” says Josh. “The other driver made an unsafe lane change. She’s at fault. She sideswiped us. Her company will cover.”

I do not look over my shoulder as he pulled off his seat belt to converse with the driver in the car behind us. I don’t even look in the rearview mirror. Somehow, if that car remained driverless, a friendly Herbie type of robocar, there remains some chance that any and all unpleasantness will be avoided, forever.

“Where did you come from?” Josh says. “I looked. You weren’t there.”

Seventeen year old on a cell phone, driving Mommy’s Saturn on the first weekday of summer vacation. “I was in the lane,” she says stoutly.

Josh calls the sheriff’s office to file an accident report. The insurance adjuster will want it with the claim, the claim from the at-fault driver’s company that will pay to fix my car. We sit and wait.

“The pattern of the damage is all on the back left hand side,” he says. “And he’ll take one look at my license, see I’m a CDL. He’ll know I wouldn’t do anything stupid like pull out in front of anybody.”

“White Toyota Corolla,” I say on the phone to our insurance agency. “No, we’re fine.”

“We’re okay and the car is drivable, but we were in an accident.”

The sheriff pulls up, occasional honkings of the lunch rush flying past. License and registration. Josh pulls out his wallet. Regist– glove compartment, in here somewhere… what did it look like?

“What happened?” says the sheriff.

“She claims she was in the lane,” Josh tells him, “but I would dispute that.” And then shuts up. I burn holes in my dashboard with my lowered eyes, the glare of amazement. “I would dispute that?” He’s going passive-voice on this? Tell him more, yell it, tell him about the crash to the back, tell him that you’re a twenty-seven-year old who has a second job delivering pizza and the fact that we can meet the mortgage depends on the fact that you don’t make a practice of screeching into the right-hand lane of a six-lane road without, you know, looking first. But he still remembers the second the brakes failed on a delivery truck he once drove, how the lawyers called, how he gave his only work break over to depositions.

There’s a hubcap gone– two now; the first one left this world with the deer. Angry gray scrapes on the side, tire marks on the bumper, crumpled metal runners. My car, my bridal getaway car, the first car I was able to put in my own name, is a redneckmobile.

The Saturn is missing a mirror.

The sheriff returns to lean into the driver-side window as I hang up from the first phone call of many informing various people that we’re okay and the car is drivable, but we were in an accident.

“Well,” he says, “without witnesses, I won’t ticket anyone, but if I were going to issue a citation, it would be to you.” He does not say, “You may now express your gratitude.” But might as well.

I stare very hard, very hard out my own window, twisting my neck away, to avoid looking at him as he issues this almighty verdict, seeing my husband rigid with the utter wrongness of this thing. Car wash, tossing trees. Nursing home down the road.

Josh, in lieu of demanding an explanation, says something in even tones about damage patterns. The sheriff responds that he has reached his decision based on the fact that, quote, “the way they built this road is stupid.” He’s going on leave for ten days, so if we have any questions, leave a message, ‘kay? Take care.

We sit for about five silent seconds, then Josh starts the car and we ease back into traffic.

“We’re okay and the car is drivable, but we were in an accident.”

“It could have been a lot worse.”

“At least you won’t have any points on your license.”

“At least the car still works.”

“At least we’re okay.”

“I hope her daddy’s not a lawyer.”

“The important thing is nobody was hurt.”

“Are you aching anywhere?”

“No.”

“We’ll take the car to a body shop when we can afford it.”

“So basically… never.”

Back home, Josh backs into a parking space and inspects the damage again, some more, until I am ready to throw…something…somewhere. I can’t look at it, the crumpled silver lining, the bare wheels. The insurance company, our insurance company, calls with the announcement that since ours was the car pulling into traffic, our policy will pay the damage on the Saturn. Rate hikes to be determined later.

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, and I lay down on the bed still with my purse over my arm, because even though we’re okay, and the car is drivable, we’ve been in an accident.

bright side at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Free Concert

Louisville is a surprisingly happening town, and I was forever too exhausted by the Great Stack to happen with it. Oh, but I was fully able to enjoy the Belle of Louisville and all its calliopeness.

As children of the Ohio River, Julie The Nephews Mama and I were onboard the Belle as a little accountant and little obsessive-compulsive writer, and I brought home a little captain’s hat, and so the Belle and I have always gotten along reasonably well. I ain’t got no riverboat hate. Then she had to go and piss me right off.

My roommate and I were initially charmed when the Belle, parked on the Ohio directly beneath our window, struck up her calliope. We stood at the window and watched the steam rise from the pipes, wondering how one got to be a calliope player on a steamboat: Do you major in it? Is there a body of serious calliope literature? How, exactly, do you practice without the entire river knowing about it?

The calliope wound down, and we all basked in the glory of it, and lay down on our beds for some hugely needed Great Stack-related recovery, recovery that can only come from utter unconsciousness. “Wasn’t that nice to experience?” we said to one another. “Aren’t we lucky to have a hotel room facing the river!”

The calliope agreed, and struck up a a Disney medley. We returned to the window. To draw the heavy curtains in a vain attempt to drown out the charmingness. It was done when we returned to bed, but no! Time for “The Entertainer!”

Meghan announced that the baby was kicking terribly, probably because, in his super-intelligent fetus state, he was well aware that “Take Me Out To the Ballgame” was on the horizon.

Every time the music faded, we’d have two minutes of utter silence, during which we said to one another, “Well, it wasn’t that bad,” and think it was done, and then rrrrtahhhhh!, the thing would start up again. Such was the evil of the calliope: Just when you thought you were safe, it jabbed you in the back of the neck with its old timey-ness and freakin’ JOY.

The only resource was to call every single person I knew to complain, since I couldn’t very well trot down to the landing and ask the the captain, all, “Yeah, can you turn your calliope down a little bit?”

It didn’t help.

steam powered at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com