Car Ride

If you’ve ever sat in the back seat of a car and watched your father-in-law pick out his ear hair with tweezers, then you know exactly how I’m feeling right now – intrigued, but also a little weirded out.

It’s not like I have to watch him. To my right I can look out the window and see a beautiful river snaking its way through the Appalachian foothills.  I can see the nearby city and a billboard for the West Virginia lottery.  There are plenty of things to see.  It’s just that I’ve seen all those things before, and I’ve never seen someone pick their ear-hair while driving…so that’s why I’m telling you about it.  Also, I’m telling you because we’ve been in the car for ten hours now, and I’m going a bit batty so I need to confide in someone.  You, dear reader, are my confidant.

You may wonder how I ended up in West Virginia with my parents-in-law.  You would probably be even more curious when I tell you that my husband isn’t with me, and neither are any of his siblings.  It’s just me and the in-laws, out on the open road.  The reason I’m here has mostly to do with the fact that I have a slightly irrational love of weddings.  It also has to do with the fact that I set a really dumb goal for myself a while ago, and…oh, also because my in-laws are pretty cool.

Rex’s cousin Peter (who I’ve only met once…to be honest, I had to think for a minute before I typed his name because I forgot it) is getting married.  He’s getting married in North Carolina, and we are en route to his wedding.  I love weddings (LOVE), and he is having an earthy hippie wedding at an outdoor nature preserve.  I've never been to one of those, so clearly I had to go to this one. Also, the wedding is in NC, and that is one of the eight states in the USA that I haven't visited.  I see this as a great opportunity to get one of those eight crossed off my list.  After tonight, I'll only have seven to go!  I don't know why I feel the need to go to all fifty states when really the states are just arbitrary political lines that have no bearing on the land itself, but for some reason I want to do it.  So yes, I did take a day off of work to cross the country in order to go to a wedding where I hardly know either the bride or the groom...but I still think it's going to be fun.  I've been to weddings of complete strangers before and had a blast (but that's really another story).

So I've been chilling with my in-laws all day, but they're cool people so it's all good.  I mean, I can type this to you right now because my father-in-law has a wifi hotspot on his phone.  In-car wifi?  SWEET!  Also, since I'm the only kid on this trip, I get the entire back seat to myself.  That makes naps super comfy.  I did question my decision a bit when the two of them started a spontaneous sing-along to "I like big butts and I cannot lie," but parents will be parents.  My own parents have done way more embarrassing things.  We pulled over at a Gander Mountain earlier, and my father-in-law was so excited to be there that he said, "Christine!  Can you do one of those selfie things?"  Yes, I can do a selfie, but I also think it's a general rule that people who are eligible to belong to AARP do not make a habit of taking selfies.  It's not like I was going to turn him down, though (the guy is being nice enough to tote me across the nation!), so I stood outside of Gander Mountain and taught them how to take selfies.  After we went inside, he was in the fishing department and my mother-in-law said to him, "Hey!  Smile!  I'm going to take another selfie of you!"  I had to explain that the nature of the "selfie" is that you're taking a picture of your "self," not someone else.  Hence the name.  Otherwise it's just taking a picture.  I'm still not quite sure they get it.

So here we are, curving around through the mountains, and I'm reflecting back on our lunch today and how I realized that there are are good reasons for the stereotypes about people in West Virginia.  All I'll say about that is that my sister-in-law is a dentist, and I'm going to ask her to go on a mission trip to this state.  All in all it's been a good day, but we have four hours left to go.  Then we get to do this whole shenanigans again the day after tomorrow.  Almost thirty hours of driving for around twelve hours of family time with some family members I don't even know.  I hope it's worth it!