When I was about 7, my grandma decided that she really wanted to go see this Virgin Mary apparition in Conyers, Georgia that everyone at her weekly mass was talking about. She’s not even that Catholic but I guess her nosyness got the better of her. As a result, my entire family decided to make this trip together in one car. I wasn’t even sure where we were going but I got to leave school early on a Friday so I was pleased. I smugly waved goodbye to my classmates and took my mom’s hand as we made our way home. My parents had rented a van, one of those humongous vans that child molesters fill with candy and then steal children in. We went to pick up my grandparents and also my aunt. The six of us set off for Georgia and the longest car ride imaginable.
My family’s vacations are epic. Family friends talk about them years later because something ridiculous always happens. We are eccentric and crazy, like the Cuban Royal Tenenbaums. Every time we finish an extended trip in the car together, we swear that we will never do it again, yet some time later we are all back in the car. I don’t remember the first half of the car ride to Conyers. My mother made me take a dose of Dimetapp as she did on every family vacation and as a result, I slept for about five hours. When I awoke, my family was exactly as I had left them before leaving for dream land. My dad was driving, my grandpa was his useless co-pilot, my grandma and mom were talking in fluttery voices, and my aunt was groaning next to me and wishing herself dead. Perfect.
I grabbed On The Banks of Plum Creek from my backpack to distract myself from the flat Florida landscape we were passing. My aunt Mary Ann, 20 at the time, and still as difficult as a teenager also tried to ignore the rest of our family, flipping through a magazine. However, my mother, the saint that she is, cannot stand for any of us to be doing things on our own on any family trip. Even though we were all sitting two feet from each other and sharing the same air. So she of the brilliant ideas whipped out a tape from her bag and handed it to my dad.
“Put this in, honey,” she said as she turned to grin at the rest of us.
“What is it?” asked my aunt, her face turning dark as I turned my head from my book to see what was going on.
“You’ll see,” my mother said with the most noxious smile on her face.
My dad put the tape in and it clicked for a second before it began to play. We all took a deep breath. I jumped as I heard the first sounds coming from the tape.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKLAHOMA WHERE THE WIND COMES SWEEPIN’ DOWN THE PLAIN!” The tape roared at us, an entire cast of eager singers raping our ears.
My dad and grandpa groaned and my aunt’s jaw tightened. My grandma and mother were so pleased and sang along and I stuck my nose back in my book.
“No. I can’t do this entire tape with the plains and the surrey thing and the cowman and the farmer, no. No.” My aunt was dead serious and not backing down.
“It’s so much fun for the car!” My mother’s eyes were glazed over. “We can all sing!”
“Turn it off,” my aunt said. I had never been so close to potential homicide in my life.
My mother laughed and continued singing with my grandma. I hoped they would give me another dose of Dimetapp soon so I could sleep away Curly and Laurie. My aunt slunk down in her seat and scowled. We drove for another five hours of tension until we finally reached our hotel in Georgia.
It was a modest Sheraton. We parked while my mom went to go check in and grab the keys to our two rooms. She came back to the car with a nervous smile on her face.
“They seem to have made a mistake and only booked us for one room. There are none free since the whole town seems to be packed to see the Virgin Mary,” she said.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” My aunt was regretting coming along for the 87th time that day.
“Mary Ann! Don’t use that word in front of,” my mother said, cocking her head towards me. “It’s okay, they’re going to give us cots.”
And so there were cots. It was decided that my grandparents would sleep in one bed, my aunt and I would share another, and my parents would sleep in separate cots; I should have known they would one day get divorced. We all began to get ready for bed, putting on pajamas and taking turns brushing our teeth at the bathroom sink. My grandpa stood in front of his bag with his arms crossed.
“Where are my pajamas?” My grandpa said this with a frown, turning to look at my grandma accusingly.
“Ay, you never find anything,” she said, walking over and rifling through his bag. “I put them right on top so you could find them.”
“Well, they’re not there!” He lifted his hands in the air as he said this.
“They have to be right here, I packed them after I took them out of the dryer,” she said as she lifted shirts and pants and socks out of the bag. A look passed over her face. “Oh. Unless they were in the pile of things I didn’t pack.”
My grandpa’s eyes widened and he stomped to his side of the bed and laid down, crossing his arms in front of him. He refused to change his clothes and he fumed for twenty minutes before falling asleep. He did sleep with his arms crossed however.
We learned a lot about each other that night. My mother makes Mr. Ed noises in her sleep, clacking her mouth. My grandma and dad both snore in a way that resembles fog horns. I myself roll around in my sleep to an extent that I woke up the following morning with my small foot in my aunt’s mouth; I still sleep in this manner, leading my boyfriend to wonder why the sheets are off my half of the bed in the morning and why I’m twisted into the strangest of positions. We crankily dressed for the day, making sure to stay warm in sweaters and pants. My dad put on what resembled tennis shorts with a green Lacoste polo. My mother was horrified.
“You can’t wear that outside,” she said, hands fluttering at her throat.
“Why not?” My dad asked this as he groomed his mustache in the mirror.
“Because you look stupid. Also, because it’s freezing outside.” She meant business.
“It’s not freezing outside,” he replied, walking to the door of the hotel room. He opened it and stepped outside. He changed into pants and a jacket approximately one minute and forty-seven seconds later.
We ate breakfast downstairs at the Continental Breakfast Buffet (not my capitalization) and I wondered even at age 7 which continent this breakfast hailed from. It was a twenty minute car ride and no Oklahoma! played. We waited in a long line of cars outside the location where there the Virgin Mary herself was about to appear. I was unsure as to how this was supposed to happen but I wasn’t very excited. I had lost all positive feelings towards the Virgin Mary when some other little girl was cast to play her in our kindergarten Nativity pageant instead of me; the wounds were still fresh.
We parked in a big field and walked to another big field where people were setting up lawn chairs and coolers and umbrellas. It seemed like everyone had rosaries in their hands and I asked my mom for mine which she took out of my backpack and handed to me. The pink beads were cool in my hand and I felt better holding them, part of the club if you will. We didn’t bring chairs but we sat on a blanket my grandma carried in her arms. My grandpa and dad were instantly bored and began discussing sports while my mother and grandma permanently discussed whether I was warm enough. My aunt put on her Walkman headphones and pulled up her EG scrunchy socks. The time dragged slowly until people began lifting themselves out of their lawn chairs.
“She’s close, I can see her!” Some woman yelled this repeatedly. I could see her bobbing head as I stood up with the rest of my family.
We all stared at the sky for the next thirty minutes. Yes, directly into the almost noon sun. I shaded my eyes with my hand and looked at the clouds with everyone else. I didn’t see anything. I worried that perhaps it was just me as more and more people around us shouted that they could see her but no one in my family seemed to see anything either. My grandma had her camera out but wasn’t snapping photos. I turned to my grandpa and he leaned down towards me.
“Can you see anything?” I whispered to him, pulling on his earlobe like I always did when I asked him a question.
“Just a lot of stupid people, french fry,” he replied gruffly as he kissed the top of my head.
We all grew bored except for my grandma who really hoped to pap Jesus’s untouched mom. She took a few photos of the sky and mumbled something about there being something in the developed photos. Climbing over and around people crying and falling to their knees, we marched back to the van, unbelieving as ever with rosaries going back into bags until the next time we tried to be “spiritual”. We drove out of that town quickly and found a small Southern restaurant in one of the countless towns before we hit the Georgia/Florida state line. It was warmer and we took off our sweaters as we dug into our buttermilk biscuits and grits and future heart attacks, saying grace only with our serene faces and lard filled mouths.
“That was the stupidest thing ever,” my aunt said as she salted her eggs.
My grandma looked as if she were about to defend the experience but even she couldn’t take it seriously. We nodded as we chewed. This is who we were. We had more reverence for breakfast than for religious experiences, and we could just as easily strangle each other as we could hug each other. My dad’s chest hair swelled from the open top button of his polo shirt. I wondered who would be the first person to fart in the car on the way home.
