Thanks For The Memories

It’s only natural that the holidays cause old memories to come flooding back, and Memorial Day is no exception. I remember last year’s Memorial Day like it was yesterday. We had a family vacation up to my parent’s house in the mountains planned, and I couldn’t have been more excited. Although I had been there countless times, this would be J-Fed’s first experience up there… or so I thought. Unfortunately, duty called and he bailed out the night before the trip.

While I was sympathetic to the fact that he had to work, I was also a bit miffed. Strike that. I was completely pissed, especially when I realized I had barely crossed the state line before he was working, working on getting his drink on that is. Yep, that was one of the nights of the $500 bar tab. I guess to honor Memorial Day and make up for the fact that he’d missed out on the vacation he really didn’t want to go on, he celebrated by buying rounds and rounds of drinks for everyone. Go J-Fed! Everyday is a party when the family goes on vacation and you stay behind. Oh wait, it’s a party even when we’re still here.

Of course, when I reamed his ass for being drunk instead of coming on vacation, he denied, denied, denied. Smart Kiki, though, had called the local watering hole and confirmed that the jack ass had indeed been up there twisting the night away. I remember him telling me that we were over from my cell phone and that he had enough of my crap. In retrospect, maybe I should have been the one espousing such directives. Regardless, I made the best of my time in the mountains and caught five of the fastest lightning bugs that roamed the face of the Earth. It was no small feat, but it was fun as hell. Looking back, I’m sure I knew deep down that it was the beginning of the end. And had he come, I probably would have pushed his sorry ass off the mountain or at the very least paid a few locals to reenact the piggy scene in Deliverance.