Global Travels of a Lunatic

Everyone deserves a vacation, especially a good mother, a mother of so many who is trapped at home day in and day out, with lessons to prep and teach and bickering and so many petty squabbles.  Was it any wonder that when eldest daughter was invited east to the Orient that one wouldn't just jump at the chance to claw out of these hills and go?  Besides, who better to keep an eye on that daughter than her mommy? Certainly a seventeen year old can’t be trusted to go off on her own; what with her hormones raging and boys being what they are, always hunting, looking, hoping and preying. Well, you know.

Plus, it’s really a free trip; we’d have a place to stay; with church people no less; missionaries doing God’s good work. Certainly they’ll take care of room and board; so really only airfare is required and how much could a ticket to the Orient really cost?  It will be well worth the price.  Yes indeed, well worth the price given the endless days of fighting over history, math, spelling and reading. Well worth the price after endless baloney sandwiches at the city pool and teeth and lips made orange by dollar store Cheetos. Well worth the price after endless Sundays of choir practice and running back and forth and back and forth to church.   Well worth the price after endless one pot wonder meals and endless dinner table tantrums.

He’ll buy me a ticket; he better or I’ll make him pay. He’ll buy me a ticket; this way he can be home and he can teach and look after the rest and he can listen to the endless hours of bickering, arguing, fighting over history, math, spelling and reading.  It will be a nice break for him too. He’ll be home and off work.  He can take all of them to the pool or park or hiking on the trails. He can catch up on housework and laundry and so much that needs to be done here.  It will be a nice vacation for him too.

I can just imagine it; the east; the Orient; so exotic and strange. Why I’ll bet that one of the natives will invite us to go to a bath.  It isn't just a bath, you know; it’s social; it’s community. We’ll soak and talk and really get a feel for the culture.  Of course I won’t let a seventeen year old go alone; I have to go, to watch, to chaperon, to teach and set an example of mommy hood and sophistication. I can just imagine what a wonderful bonding experience this will be for the two of us. A time for us to really dig down and find the love and respect that’s there and yet to be uncovered.   This trip will open her eyes to just how wonderful I am and how lucky she is that we adopted her.  Perhaps she’ll realize that I am indeed her mommy and I am so hopeful that she’ll stop calling me just , mom and start calling me what I am, mommy.

I’m sure my seventeen year old won’t mind having me along. I have so much to offer and bring to the table. Having traveled as much as I have to Europe and the former Soviet Union; well after all I am a virtually a globe trotter. Not worldly though, good gracious no, not worldly, just well, um, well-traveled and enlightened. It will be a comfortable experience too. We’ll stay with friends of friends, church folks. I’m sure they’ll be happy to have us.  It is their charitable thing to do. I can be charitable in return too.  Perhaps they’ll have some sort of package or treats that I can bring home for their friends. Some token of love and appreciation; it’s really no bother for me to take on that burden; plus it’s so nice to be trusted. I will tote that package of treats triumphantly out of the east and deliver it to its rightful owner here in the hills.

Some other people in this position might rip into the package. They might even do so while on the plane on the way home; and some people just might eat the treats and keep the gift that is intended for someone else.  Why I can hardly imagine that! I can hardly imagine how someone could feel so justified in taking a gift intended for someone else. I suppose lesser people like gypsies or homosexuals might think that they’d never get caught. Why the mission folks in the Orient would have to talk to their friends back home in the hills and would actually have to ask after the gift.  Again, who would do such a thing?  Could church folk, doing God’s good work in bringing the yellow man to the fold be so mistrusting as to question one who is so lovingly bringing a gift home? Oh I don’t think so.

Oh I can just imagine all of this, my trip to the east, to the Orient, to Asia and so many teachable moments for me to bring home to the brood. Why, I’ll bet that I’ll get at least six months of lessons out of this experience. Maybe, some of the other mommy teachers will ask me to step in and enrich their children too. So, I guess I must go; I owe it to my children and to the other children of the hills to go and absorb the riches of the Orient so that I can safely deliver those riches back home.