Texas as seen from the floor of Granny's livingroom . . .

Fate.  Murphy’s Law.  Bad Luck.  The Big Freakin’ Wienie.  Call it what you will, but it is bound to happen on each and every vacation.

Most of the time it manifests itself in the form of arguments and bitter feuds with the spouse or significant loved one; a result of having been placed together in close proximity for far too long.  For my own family unit, arguments are to be expected and often signal the true apex of the family vacation.  It would seem that as a family, things are always much more . . . well . . . familial when both spouses are away from vacation and working, and the kid is safely locked in the bathroom doing whatever kids do in the bathroom.

Other times, the vacation is marred by material things such as lost luggage or car problems.  Me?  Been there, done both.  Call me crazy, but I’d much rather wait an extra day for errant luggage to arrive than to spend three days in Amarillo, Texas, waiting for a blown engine to be replaced.  It was in the late sixties during one of our annual treks to visit the kin in Oklahoma that our little Chevy II Nova said “That’s enough!” and began spewing oil along the smoking Texas blacktop.  What followed were three excruciatingly long days at the repair shop.   Of course, this was all before the time of portable DVD players and IPODS.  In the sixties, all there was to do during the wait was to throw rocks at armadillos.  (Just a bit of warning for those of you planning to visit Texas:  You can’t hit an armadillo with a rock.  You’re better off using a car.)

This time the Fickle Finger of Fate struck just yesterday when I felt a familiar twinge in my lower back, signaling my bi-annual need to lay flat on the ground for an extended period and fight the urge to take the pain medication that I’m wise enough to carry with me.   I’ve been the victim of a debilitating back spasm for better than ten years now, and fate would see to it that it occurred this time at the very beginning of my long anticipated vacation.

I could give you some heroic tale of it having occurred as I rescued Princess Tutu from the clutches of a rattlesnake, or maybe that it happened while I was helping the widow down the street move her long-dead husband’s military footlocker from the attic for her tearful annual remembrance of the fallen soldier.

Truth be told, I had just finished doing a modified workout in Grandma’s backyard in a vain attempt to keep my triceps chiseled and my stomach mostly parallel to my chest.

You see, it was on our last Caribbean cruise that I had inadvertently wandered onto the top deck of the Carnival Triumph and found myself surrounded by . . . yep, completely nekkid people.  I’d heard about the nude sunbathing area of the ship, but I was completely unprepared for the sheer . . . well, nudity that I found there.  Everybody seemed very relaxed and completely at ease with the situation, so it was at that point that I thought that I might too like to do the Euro thing sometime before I died.

Now for those of you who really know me, you know that I’m not particularly skittish when it comes to going au natural in the cover of a darkened hot tub or by streaking the 18^th hole of a country club.  But, the idea of recreational nudity in the bright glare of the Caribbean sun is just a wee bit more than I was ready for at the time.  So for the last three years, I’ve been kicking around the idea of getting into a significant state of physical fitness.  In the last six months in particular, I’ve been bombing myself in the weightroom in the hopes of making myself presentable, should I be able to garner the courage to saunter across the upper deck and take a relaxing pose on an available lounge chair.

Anyway, my back injury didn’t occur during my grueling workout which consisted of pressing bricks and small cinderblocks in the backyard.  (Grandma doesn’t have any real workout equipment, so I had to make due with cinderblocks and other assorted lawn ornaments.)  Sadly, my back popped and I fell to my knees in pain when I was folding myself into Grandma’s tiny Chevy Corsica as I was preparing to drive Stefan to his daily hockey clinic.

So, here I am.  Stretched out on the floor flat on my back as the boy enjoys the coolness of the ice and the wife continues her now obsessive need to spent all of her time doing  Sudoku puzzles.

I apologize for today’s picture.  It’s all I can get from where I’m currently marooned, but I promise to do better in the future.  –t