A long day. A hundred and five degrees. A trio of angry people, not knowing what to expect, nevertheless not ignoring the fact they were in the middle of a strange land surrounded by motels and restaurants. Uncomfortably sitting in the car, the group viciously discussed the two options of where to stay for their stay.
"How about the one across the street? It's close to food and its less expensive," papa asked.
Silence. "I think we should stay here because there's a jacuzzi and I'd like to go in it," mama finally said.
"It's only 35 dollars more. Who cares at this point? I don't," he scoffed back. Why does this happen every time we go on vacation...
Stumbling out of the suffocating car to look at our new headquarters, we entered the room. Equipped with two king beds, the luxury of air conditioning, and a big tv, the room was somewhat worth 135 a night. Along the wall of the beds was a mural of the desert painted with beautiful red, purple, and yellow brush strokes. I suddenly felt at ease, almost completely forgetting the past seven hour car ride from hell.
"You know, I didn't drive all the way out here to watch a tv in a motel!" Papa yelled. My serenity was soon interrupted by rude remarks about the closing ceremony of The 2012 London Olympics.
"What else is there to do Buzz? There's nothing out here! We're in the middle of nowhere!" my mother retorted. The last straw. Exhaustion was at its peak and I could not deal. Grabbing a room key and my headphones, I stormed out of the room, slammed the door and was greeted by a smothering hug of warm air from Mother Nature.
Leaning on the door for support, I let my body acclimate to the dramatic change in temperature. Pulling my long cut bangs back and starting for the main strip of town, two young men darted right by me, heading straight for the pool. The older looked back as if something caught his attention, but I could not see what. They were wearing strange bathing suit bottoms, but my attention quickly shifted to wanting to get the hell out of dodge.
Walking hastily down to the edge of the hotel's border along the main street, I turned left, walked to the nearest bench and sat down. The staggering heat made it impossible to go any further, and increased the anger inside of me. Blasting my iPod, The Shins rang in my ears, enticing me forget what occurred earlier that day.
As street lights came on and it cooled off, I decided to walk back to the dreaded hotel room. The boys were not in the pool. Dang. Once I pushed the heavy door open, I saw the same scene I had left before; mom sitting infront of the television, and dad angrily sitting at the desk.
"Can we eat now? It's almost eight," I pleaded.
Of course, I did not receive a response from either of them. They got up gathered their belongings and sauntered towards the door. We headed down to Wendy's, away from the main restaurants, and nothing came good out of that excursion either. Mom and I only agreed on one thing; go into the jacuzzi once back at the hotel room.
While walking by the pool that had a blue tube slide and cheesy palm trees, I was praying no one would be swimming with my mom and I that night. And there was not.
Excitedly, I ran back into the room, threw on my black halter top and flower bottoms, put my hair into a loose bun, and encouraged mom to do the same. As soon as she was ready, we walked the short twenty feet to the small body of water, while papa sulked in the room.
We had the whole pool and jacuzzi to ourselves. I was ecstatic. Naturally, I skipped right on over to the jacuzzi, and jumped in. Mom just slowly eased her way in. I decided to give her some advice.
"Mom, we spent the whole summer in Europe doing whatever we wanted. Now, its papa's turn to have his vacation. I know you do not want to be here, but you're just going to have to suck it up for three days, okay?"
"Okay, but he doesn't listen to anything I say...," she whined.
"Whatever mom, just suck it up," I pushed. I'm good with tough love.
All of a sudden, the sound of the gate slamming shut pierced the calm air. I turned to see who it was. The two boys. Crap, there goes my luck. They hopped right into the pool and swam for a few minutes. The next thing I knew, they were both climbing the stairs into the jacuzzi. Mom took advantage of the situation.
"Is the pool water cold?" she questioned. In return, she was given two smiles. They immediately started talking in a foreign language that I could not detect right away.
"Are you from France?" she asked again.
"Yes, yes," the older replied.
