Jerry's Vacation

Last week Jerry took his vacation time to go up to Washington state to drive his Mom down here. He went by bus to get there. The bus ride was interesting. On the first bus there was an 11 year old boy who thought he could rap. He evidently talked quite a bit on this leg of the trip. Jerry had to change busses at one point, and though the next bus was quieter he doesn't think that anyone had cleaned the restroom on the bus for weeks. Everytime that someone opened the door to the restroom the whole bus would stink. The farther north he got the colder that it got. One of the passengers informed him that while he slept on the way to Portland that the bus slid off the road about three times, Jerry didn't even wake up for the slides. When he finally got to Washington his nephew was supposed to meet him at the bus station. He waited for about 20 minutes then called his sister and found that they were waiting for him in the next town for him. How they ended up thinking that was where he was going to be is still up for speculation, somehow I think there was some miscommunication between the sisters, which is normal. So his sister drove down to where he was and picked him up. Because they live on an island there is a 45 minute ferry ride to get to their house. When he finally go to the house, he felt like he needed floaties just to go outside, the air is that thick there. He was only there for 2 nights, yet his sister managed to make him mad enough to argue with her, she turned off the TV while he was watching the news. Stated that she didn't need to watch the news because everyone else kept her informed on what is going on in the world. Well you can see where this line of thinking led to. Anyway, the drive home from Washington was equally interesting. Jerry managed to get into an argument with his Mom. I had wondered why he didn't want to stop over night anywhere, now I know. Because of Jerry's emphysema there are some strong odors and scents that he can't handle, he has a hard time breathing, he can't get near the detergent isle at the grocery store, that kind of thing. He had to keep the window in the car rolled down because his Mom kept applying perfume, he finally did say something to her about it. She kept reading all the road signs to him, complained about any and all road construction, and tried to read the map and give directions. The reason she is coming down here is because her daughter and son-in-law are having problems and hopefully having the house to themselves would help them work there problems. Well, according to Mom all the problems are her son-in-laws, her daughter has done nothing wrong. No one else but her son-in-law walks out of the room when he is mad. This is what started the argument with Jerry. For some reason his Mom thinks that Jerry doesn't do that, well he does, as does anyone who wants to try and work out a problem, cooler heads will prevail. Anyway, just as they get within a few miles of reaching Phoenix there is a backup on the freeway, don't know why yet there was, and they got off the freeway and took side roads to our house. Jerry called me to let me know that there was a problem on the freeway and that they would be taking sideroads to get home, he asked if there was a bunch of kids at our house and that they should be gone before he got home. There was only one of the boys friends at the house and I didn't make him leave, I knew that Jerry wouldn't be mad about that. When they finally got home, Jerry acted like a gruff bear, looking like he was upset. His mom stayed for a few minutes before leaving to go to Jerry's sisters house where she will be staying. When she left he told me of his trip and what he wanted to do if his sister called back when their mom got to her house. The plan was to say that Jerry had stormed out of the house and that I didn't know where he went, that he left because there were kids in the house when he got home. (I knew that he wasn't serious about making them leave in the first place.) He wanted m to so this to prove a point, that yes he does leave when he gets upset. She never did call back.

He gave up two weeks of vacation to bring her down here so that she would get here safe and sound. He did this because he loves his mama. It was a perfect way for him to serve her.

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