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Christmas on I-90
Tammy + Denny Does anyone really care if these two were in “love” at one point? Does the documentation of their presence on this particular bathroom stall in a god-knows-where location cement their bond as well as the soupy mix of slush and dirt does my feet to the worn tile floor? Does it say something about my life that the most beautiful thing I have seen so far on this Christmas vacation is the gentle falling of clumps of snow onto an evergreen tree of some sort through the high, skinny window of a ladies bathroom at the same rest stop? We paused our journey at this point to relieve ourselves of the weak gas-station coffee with some International Delights Creamer thrown in - mine was French Vanilla. Returning home from a visit-the-family-up-north Christmas we still have 9 freakin’ hours to go, the wind is picking up, and I’m not sure how much more sitting my butt can take without falling asleep. As I burn my hands but fail to dry them underneath the automatic hand drier that claims to “prevent paper waste” I watch a young Britney Spears wannabe teenager check to make sure her hair placement is attractive but have yet to see her wash her hands. When I meet my dad who is staring at an Ohio map marked with a you-are-here red pushpin I see that miss anti-hygiene is standing with her family outside as her father videotapes the snow falling. Just think, when she is suffering from her staph infection next month she can watch the tape and remember that it was all worth it because she got to watch the snow and will be immortalized as a winter beauty on film complete with earmuffs and a matching scarf. Gag me with a pitchfork. I wander out into the bath of tumbling whiteness and head towards our full-to-bursting minivan “sport” equipped with a VCR. Soon I will be trying to find the meaning of Christmas in Ralphie Parker’s Red Rider carbine action 200-shot range-model air rifle or Clark W. Grizwold’s supernova of a house. I will sing along with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye while wondering if a white Christmas at a rest stop means as much as it does in Pine Tree, Vermont. I forget about the visions of snack cakes and gas-station cappuccino dancing in my head and, as I doze, watch the clusters of snow and road signs speeding past the window, wondering if Tammy and Denny had a Merry Christmas. That is assuming that Tammy is not now going with Denny’s best friend Randall while Denny sits alone on his couch watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the 17th time hoping Clarence would pay him a visit and prevent him from sticking his head in the oven. Me, I’m okay since I have Zuzu’s petals in my pocket, except that they’ve morphed into the discarded red and green wrappers of Hershey’s Kisses and I left Clarence at an Arby’s on Route 42 to help another lowly traveler. If you’ll excuse me, I’m running out of space writing on the back of the “Antiques on Carey” flyer I picked up in Indianapolis and the swaying of the car is making me ill. Besides, I don’t want to miss hearing Charlie Brown and Friends sing “Hark, the Herald Angels” off key and Linus’s statement about the true meaning of Christmas. Only 8 hours and 45 minutes to go... Lisa Game, 2000 |