Like Daughter, Like Mother?

So I'm finally back from vacation, and I'm somewhat caught up from being out for a week so I figure it's time to dust off the ole keyboard and start blogging again.

Vacay was awesome. Minus the whole, hanging-out-with-your-parents-for-6-days-straight deal. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents but 6 days non-stop is a little extreme for anyone. And I know that one day when I'm 45 and have kids of my own, that they'll feel the same way about me as I do about my parents. And I'm ok with that. My point remains, 6 days is a LONG time.

To be honest though, I always thought that once I became an adult, that I would grow out of that mentality that my parents are simply uncool.
I thought that somehow, when I grew up, they wouldn't be so parental and embarrassing. They wouldn't seem so lame and out-dated as they did before. You know? I'd be older, more mature, more able to relate, - because, you know, Parents Just Don't Understand! when you're under the age of 18. I thought I'd have adult conversations, and they would dress better and we'd have this mutual understanding that we are related, but also adults, and no longer in need of embarrassing one another. And to some extent, this has happened. I do have adult conversations (minus anything remotely related to my sex-life), they do dress better, I am more mature and more able to relate. But three things remain the same.

1. They will always be your parents.
2. And there are some habits you can't break no matter how old you get.
3. Embarrassment is inevitable.

I honestly can't tell you how many times the following dialogue took place in the past week:

Dad: Next Stop! Vegas (or insert city name here)!!

My brother & I roll our eyes simultaneously

Me: Dad, how many more times are you going to say that on this trip?

Dad: Well dear, what's wrong with that? I always say that when we're on vacation!

Me: Yes, and yet it never seems to be the case. We always inevitably have to stop for Mom or J to use the restroom, or to get gas, or to get food, or to get lost.

Dad: Well, just you watch - it's only a 2 hour drive! We'll be there in no time!

Me: Ok, Dad. Ok.

(45 min later)
Mom: Ok, who needs to use the potty!?

Me: Surprise Surprise, Mom has to pee. Potty? Really? Are we 5, Mom?

Mom: Well, I do. I need to use the bat-room! Honey can you pull over at the next gas station/restaurant/rest-stop?

Me: (internal monologue) oh. my. gosh. Is this 1993? Did we find the Flux Capacitor and travel back in time? Am I in an oversized t-shirt and bicycle shorts? Why is she speaking to us like we're children? Aren't we passed this?

I wish I were joking about this exchange. And the first time Dad starts in on his "Next Stop!", it's kind of endearing. Like, oh I remember when he used to always say that on car trips. Way to throw back! But after the 4th time, it's just not annoying. And after the 8th, you want to throw yourself under the bus.

But one thing I DO enjoy about family vacations, as an adult, is the all-expense-paid-booze-fest. Everything I buy gets charged to "the room" and Mom gets to turn it in on an expense report. Yes and Please! And while we were on this trip, I got to see my mother in a light that I've never seen her in before - shwasty-face-magee. It was absolutely one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. Now I've seen my mom booze it up plenty in my 25 years but I gotta tell you, Thursday night was like Christmas come early!

Mom likes her wine, her margaritas, her cosmopolitans and her old fashioned's...but Mom is definitely never one to indulge to the point of inebriation. She paces herself. She has her shit together. She's responsible. Thursday night, however, was another story. I don't know if it was the altitude, the sleep deprivation over the last week or the 110 lbs she carries around, but a combination of that and 3 glasses of wine put my mom on her ass last Thursday. I've never seen anything like it! She didn't do anything seriously inappropriate but she simply didn't make any sense! She was such a lightweight. She fell into one of those uncontrollable fits of laughter in which she laughed so hard she cried. You would have thought she was high as a kite the way she was behaving. I have to say I was somewhat flattered at her uncontrollable laughter because it was over a story that I told about my boss. So that definitely gave me some confidence in my ability to tell stories and make people laugh. Now I was definitely a little bit tipsy myself but I can hold my own when it comes to drinking with my parents. So I thought it would be a great idea to write down some of the things that were said over dinner and wine from Thursday night. Allow me to share:

• (When referring to a wine called Irony, our waiter said) "That's surprisingly good!" Way to sell it, waiter. Why wouldn't it be good to begin with? What's so surprising that a wine called Irony actually tastes good?
• "Oh you've got a great table! You don't want to miss a minute of it!" says the hostess with an eye-patch. After reaching our table that's in the back of the restaurant with no view and poor lighting, we all sit and scratch our heads. Perhaps the one-eye-view provides a different view-point that those of us with TWO eyes have trouble seeing?
• "Hoppy House, Hop Hop Hop" - Mom, in her drunken state
• (After Dad sneezes DIRECTLY into the dessert menu, I say) "Oh good, glad you saved that for the next guest who uses this menu." Mom starts giggling.
• Backstory: My parents are procrastinators about stupid things. I procrastinated in school when I had a paper due, my parents procrastinate about things that really don't matter but that may or may not cost them money. So, I'm not really sure how we got onto this subject but the T-mobile bill came up at the end of dinner. I've been on my own phone plan for over 2 years now, and before that I was on my parent's "family plan". When I decided to get a blackberry with a full data plan, my parents said I can get that myself. 2+ years have gone by and my old number, and old voicemail, still exist on their current family plan. So they've essentially been paying $10 a month for over 2 years to keep me on a plan that they asked me to get off of because I wanted a Blackberry. This makes absolutely NO sense to me so I call my dad out on it. Mom of course looks at me with a super-serious face and says "I have been telling Daddy that for over a year!" Dad responds with "Well dear, you're welcome to cancel her number just as easily as I can!" and I chime in with "you know, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but our president STILL has that old number in his cell phone and never remembers to change it to the new one no matter HOW many times I tell him that I have a different number. For some reason, this 51 year old man can't get it through his head that I changed my number. And it probably has something to do with the fact that when he dials my old number, it still goes to my old voicemail because the phone on your plan hasn't been shut off...so please ---" HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER comes from my mom. She seriously loses her shit over this little story about work. A story that I'm not even trying to make funny, my mom is bowled over with laughter. She knocks her water glass over as she tries to grip the table for stabilization. I've seriously NEVER seen my mother like that. Ever. It was quite an experience.
• After dinner we're leaving the restaurant in the Grand Canyon and we're aware that deer and elk might be joyously galivanting through the streets at night so we're trying to take precautions as we drive back to the hotel. The following quotes came from my mother:
• "Is that a real deer? No that's a statue, right!?"
• "Oh look out, those are people!"
• "Oh my goodness, we really should walk slow...I mean drive."
• "Is this where we saw tha animals before?" (10 minutes after we've driven away from seeing the 1st deer)
• It's really interesting how defined the trees are, they look so small."

And there you have it, ladies & gents. My mother, the lightweight.