This Is A True Story And The Cop Is Real

Right before The Girl Child’s extended hospital vacation, I traveled to Florida with The Guy and the kids for something.

In typical Strong family style, we decided to make everything a little more dramatic than it actually needed to be, and took a plane ride with the most turbulence that I have ever experienced in my life.

Seriously, this was no joke. It was so bad that after we took off, they canceled all flights out of the airports in our path, with routes that were heading in the same direction as us. Even the flight attendants spent virtually the entire flight seated, and The Boy Child, well, he vomited everywhere.

Repeatedly.

The poor kid was so motion sick that after he threw up on several changes of clothes, we put him in The Guy’s jacket, which he of course got sick all over, and then he turned to The Guy and got sick all over him.

This just went on and on and no amount of plastic bags seemed to contain it all, and by the time we got off the plane, The Boy Child was left wearing nothing more than a winter coat, a pull-up (he is potty trained but it was the only thing available to us on the plane), and shoes.

The Guy was shirtless (and although trying not to gag, was also laughing at the entire situation).

What can I say except that we arrived in style? I’m not exactly sure what style it was, but it certainly wasn’t the one that everyone anyone else was sporting. Especially when the pull-up ripped off The Boy Child and we had to make a mad dash to baggage claim, to get clothes for our naked son. Thankfully, being five years old, The Boy Child thought the whole thing was hysterical and would have happily strutted his birthday suit for the whole world to see, had we let him.

He felt much better after spending some time back on earth, and except for ANOTHER incident several days later when The Boy Child threw up in an elevator (kid seriously, you are killing me here), we managed to find a little time for fun.

I have a very good friend that lives in Florida, and even though I didn’t travel down there specifically to see her, since I was there anyway, I was determined to spend as much time with her as possible; even if that meant bumming around a Disney hotel just so we could pretend to have gone to Disney World (Traveled all the way to Orlando and never entered a Disney Park, just stayed at the hotel because it was the only place we felt could safely accommodate our kids medical needs and diet,and thankfully they offered us a discount that beat out all the surrounding hotels).

The hotel was nice.

I made something ENTIRELY out of pillows one morning to leave for housekeeping, and then decided that I couldn’t possibly be that mean, so I took it apart. I did however, take a picture before I deconstructed it though…

And when I wasn’t in the hotel pretending to be in a theme park that I wasn’t actually in, or doing what I had gone down there for, my friend and I drank wine at her house at eleven am.

Then one morning while I was drying my hair and playing around on my phone, I saw a video of some people goofing around in inflatable suits. Being me, I sent the video to her said “hey I think we should find these and wear them… somewhere.”

Because I choose friends who can consistently tolerate my level of “weird,” she responded with “I don’t see why not.”

So it was agreed.

And so we did.

… Even if we weren’t prepared at all and had to — in our deflated suits that you can apparently buy at Walmart for relatively cheap — track down a screw driver to open the battery compartment.

…. And then we realized that we really weren’t doing anything in the right order, because after we were inflated, it was pretty difficult to fit in the elevator together.

In retrospect, the masks were probably a terrible idea and I honestly can’t believe that I didn’t have the foresight to see that, but I will let you see for yourself how all of this panned out.

After we were not arrested, we decided that the whole thing probably wasn’t the best idea, and off we went off to find a better one. We ended up at a dueling piano bar, downing drinks that thankfully neither of us had to pay for, and danced ourselves silly.

I snapped this little beauty of my friend dancing alone:

At least she pulled it off well, and I have to say, if you haven’t tangoed to Gangstas Paradise, you really haven’t lived.

It was my first night out in a while, and did I mention free drinks? Which I’m blaming for what happened next, because before the night was over, apparently I turned to The Guy and said “they really make these drinks strong, so if I leave with you, please make sure that I take all my clothes with me,” then I turned to my friend and said “and if I leave with you, please take pictures because it will be my first time.”

I’ll just add that to my lengthy list of  “things I’ll never live down.”

So yep, that is what it’s like to travel with me; kid barf, nudity in an airport, pillow bodies in a bed, cops, drunken dancing, and if you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend an outing in an inflatable suit.

But take my advice and skip the mask.