Monday, March 2, 2009

Chapter 1, Part 1 - The Drive Down

The ritual is the same each year. Mom and Dad start laying out their clothes sometime in the middle of October for their yearly jaunt to Florida in December…two months away. Why they start so early, I’m not sure. Maybe it helps to get them in the mood. Their clothes – bathing suits, shirts with large floral prints, and two-piece outfits with sequins and flamingos (Mom’s only) – stay out on chairs and dressers for weeks, until about three days before they are ready to leave, when they finally put them in suitcases. Mom claims they start packing very early so they don’t forget anything. Who is she kidding? If she forgets anything, it will just give her an excuse to buy something new when she gets to Florida.

I ask them why they just don’t put their clothes in suitcases when they begin their packing, since their house gets awfully messy with their stuff everywhere. Mom claims that their clothes won’t get wrinkled this way. As if a shirt decorated with ruby-colored studs and tropical birds would look any worse with a wrinkle in it.

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