The HOLIDAY support thread - V2

Hey folks,

Just wanted to throw this one out for all of you like I did last year:

http://www.golfwrx.c...acepalm-thread/

Post all of your Holiday frustrations in this thread and let our mildly eccentric WRX community show you support (while quietly snickering at your misfortune).

I will start...(again)...

Okay, so traveling to my folks house for Thanksgiving. It is a three hour drive through the northern Maine woods. I am talking about the last two hours of Interstate 95 being the FIRST two hours of this drive. Yep, I still have an hour's drive through the woods AFTER the interstate runs out. Much further north and everyone starts writing left-handed.

Anyway, this trip is basically ALL driving through no man's land. Most exits off the interstate don't have town or city names; they are TERRITORY names like T2-R9, T3-F4, SF-Tp, R11-DOT...that kind of thing. Basic rule of thumb, if the name includes numbers, it means no gas, no stores, no hotels, no nothing. Just a bunch of folks who want to live out in the middle of nowhere and take turns running their little post office (which grants them "community" entitlements). What they are really there for is to become State representatives with a tiny voting population, but I digress..

Sooo...there is one little area of the Interstate where there is NO CELL PHONE RECEPTION. Yes, even in this day and age, these areas exist...at least in Maine. Vindog will back me up on this one. It is a spot approximately 40 minutes south of Island Falls off of I95. And THAT is where our C-rappy car decided to show us just how C-rappy it is. Yep, conked out (or so we though at the time), right in the middle of the DEAD ZONE!

Problem is, my one year old (from last year's post) is now two, and barely tolerates the ride as it is. No way is she going to handle an additional wait while mommy and daddy get the car running. Actually, there is no chance I will be getting the car running. Like Donald Sutherland once said, "I just drive 'em, baby." It is Thanksgiving day, and NO ONE is on the road this far north. In Maine you can just flag down the average Joe and ask them to make a call for you and folks will look out for you without either group thinking the other is a psycho, unlike...everywhere else in the world. So, we wait for about a half hour, and no one drives by. ON THE INTERSTATE no one drives by.

Ugh, so after that half hour, we start to get a little tired of the crying. So...I get my marching orders from "She who must be obeyed," to take walk to get reception. Yeah, it is like 40 degrees (I have a fleece on), it is getting dark, and hibernation bears are eating everything they see to get ready for winter. Here I am, walking south in the northbound side of I95 trying to get cell phone reception.

So I walk for about 20 minutes, southbound, thinking I am either going to get some reception, or flag down the next car coming along. Didn't like leaving the wife and little one alone, but the car was warm enough and "She who must be obeyed" can turn into a demon from Hell at any given time. So, no big deal.

This is where things kind of turn into one of those mid-80's Chevy Chase moments. I am walking along the side of the highway, and a bull moose runs right up over the bank about a half wedge in front of me. Okayyyy...common sense would say, "Don't walk towards the 8-foot tall animal with antlers that are wider than I am tall..." but that isn't how things turned out. I am tired, my family is alone, and I am not taking any mess from some swamp donkey!

To be fair, I waited about 5 minutes before trying anything stupid. I figured I would give it about the same amount of time that I would for anyone looking for a lost ball. That is fair, right? So after that, I start yelling and waving at the giant beast with similar amounts of venom (usually reserved for slow groups), but with no effect. The moose turned and looked at me for a minute and then went back to...doing nothing.

Okay, here is something I don't recommend you ever try with any animal with built-in weaponry. I picked up a golf ball sized rock from the side of the road and hucked it up there, trying to snap the dumb beast out of it's mindless trance. Seriously, these have to be the dumbest animals in the world. Two rocks, no response. Okay...enough! I picked up another rock and nailed the sucker right on the back haunch. Well, THAT got a response.

Old "Dopey" turned right at me and started coming my way. Not running, just kind of like he was saying, "S'up bro?" In this time I found I had gotten a little closer than a half wedge (my rock throwing is not what it was) in trying to encourage Dopey to be on his way. Eh, okay. Common sense with bear says that you tuck into a ball and wait for it to lose interest. Not so with moose (see MADGOLFER'S SURVIVAL GUIDE TO PLAYING GOLF UP 'NOTH)

http://www.golfwrx.c...n-golf-up-noth/

When you piss off a moose, you run like a scared wombat! The problem was that I didn't think my fat a** would make it to the trees before it caught up to me, if it came down to a footrace. It was getting dark also, so I didn't think it would be good to go crashing around in the brush with an angry antler demon after me. So, the next best thing was the guard rail that was in front of me. I figured I could keep it in between me and Dopey for a good long while. No easy task for him to keep jumping over it to try to get to me.

So, Dopey gets to the guard rail and just kind of stands there. He does, however, make a few snorts to let me know that getting hit with a rock was not appreciated. Right now, I am peeing my pants trying to think of a way out of this. Dopey isn't going away, and it is getting dark and I have no way to contact anybody for help. FINALLY, however, a couple headlights come over the hill and slow down because of Dopey's outline next to the reflective marks on the guard rail.

The light is in my eye's for a bit so I can't tell what kind of car it is, but it starts honking at Dopey, who runs off. Guess he had a bad experience with cars in the past. The car pulls up and I start to think, "Hey, that kind of looks like MY car." Of course, it WAS my car...fully running, with "She who must be obeyed" at the wheel. After getting in, locking all doors, and checking my pants for wet spots, I promptly asked my wife-saviour...wtf?

She said that a couple of 4-wheelers had come out of the woods a few minutes after I left and gave her some gas from their backup supply. After the car was running, she just found a median crossing and doubled back for me. I was a little puzzled, because the gas gauge still showed that it was a quarter full (come to find out later that the guy we had repair our motor pulled the gauge - why?? - and reinstalled it off-center, so it now showed there is more gas than there really is), but didn't question the circumstances as I was happy to be away from Dopey the angry swamp donkey. Thing is, she never SAW Dopey. She only saw ME and was honking AT ME to try to get my attention when she drove up. So, that means no sympathy, no lavishing attention, no provocative/reassuring hugging. We just picked up where we left off with a screaming two year old and two more hours of driving to do. Lucky me.

So, that is my start to the Holiday season. What YOU got?

Wow, nice story....really like the use of reference material there!

My holiday goes something like this....

Wife tears calf muscle last weekend and can't put any weight on one of her feet, meaning she can't carry our 2 yr old.
2 yr old gets stomach flu day before thanksgiving. Because of aforementioned injury, I get to manage all the puke related activity.
Turkey day comes, Lions lose
Turkey is dry as usual (desserts were great though, so I'll call this a push)
8 yr old gets stomach flu, wife helps while older daughter pukes.
Wife wakes up puking that night
Friday comes, my wife is holed up in bed all day, completely useless. Have two kids recovering, and nothing to do (out of town, and weather sucks) Also wondering when my other kid will start puking.
Well that happened at 11 PM Friday night, leaving only me in our family who hasn't had that fun yet.

With that said, I am thankful that everyone is recovering from this ailment.

Awesome story, OP. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Hope everyone gets to feeling better, cpp.

MG. Dude. Ready? Write this down: MOVE SOUTH.

Good read. Completely psyched it wasn't me. Glad you're still with us!

I've got nothing so far..... had to make two extra trips to Kroger because by mother in law has trouble shopping off of a list, and ran into closed gas stations and a clerk at a hotel that wouldn't let a 2 year old use the employee toilet, but nothing too bad.

I can't believe you decided to take on a moose

haha....great story. I got nothing on that!

My holidays are pretty standard, everyone lives fairly close. One of them does live somewhat in the country but not really in bear or moose territory.

Some of the roads in Maine can be pretty scary. My sister went to the university of Maine actually. I used to drive down to visit and i remember, i think it was the 2 highway, always looked straight out of a Stephen King novel. 2 lanes, no lights, overhanging trees. etc

First off, I love the Mainer term "Swamp donkey." Great story. I am trying to envision the thought bubble as you put the guardrail between you and the moose, and then realized that it probably wasn't going to cut it in the event the moose decided to make a move.
Glad you're OK, no meaner, or more dangerous animal to encounter.

Haha! Funny story MG. Glad everything turned out ok.

[quote name='chickenpotpie' timestamp='1353804664' post='5974301']
Wow, nice story....really like the use of reference material there!

My holiday goes something like this....

Wife tears calf muscle last weekend and can't put any weight on one of her feet, meaning she can't carry our 2 yr old.
2 yr old gets stomach flu day before thanksgiving. Because of aforementioned injury, I get to manage all the puke related activity.
Turkey day comes, Lions lose
Turkey is dry as usual (desserts were great though, so I'll call this a push)
8 yr old gets stomach flu, wife helps while older daughter pukes.
Wife wakes up puking that night
Friday comes, my wife is holed up in bed all day, completely useless. Have two kids recovering, and nothing to do (out of town, and weather sucks) Also wondering when my other kid will start puking.
Well that happened at 11 PM Friday night, leaving only me in our family who hasn't had that fun yet.

With that said, I am thankful that everyone is recovering from this ailment.
[/quote]

Between the two of us, I think I would still take my chances with Dopey. Hope that nasty stuff misses you.

[quote name='driverwedge' timestamp='1353809233' post='5974617']
MG. Dude. Ready? Write this down: MOVE SOUTH.

Good read. Completely psyched it wasn't me. Glad you're still with us!
[/quote]

DW buddy, I KEEP TRYING!

Every time I leave Maine the world goes to pot. Here is what happened on both occasions when I moved out of State:

1) 1999 - I moved to Tallahassee, Florida for grad school. While I was there, we had the Bush/Gore (Florida voter recount) debacle, and shortly after that...9/11.

2) 2008 - Moved to Madison, WI. Economy officially goes into a Depression and, shortly after, Scott Walker (did something we don't talk about on WRX).


I mean, the State of Maine is literally trying to spit me out in any way possible, but what is going to go wrong next when I do?

[quote name='MtlJeff' timestamp='1353870577' post='5976727']
haha....great story. I got nothing on that!

My holidays are pretty standard, everyone lives fairly close. One of them does live somewhat in the country but not really in bear or moose territory.

Some of the roads in Maine can be pretty scary. My sister went to the university of Maine actually. I used to drive down to visit and i remember, i think it was the 2 highway, always looked straight out of a Stephen King novel. 2 lanes, no lights, overhanging trees. etc
[/quote]

Speaking of Stephen King, my breakdown happened about twenty minutes south of the "Pet Cemetary" town.

Wanna know something else creepy? My grandmother used to know Stephen King. She lived right around the corner from him while she was still alive. We ran into him a long time ago at Bangor International Airport, and she pointed out that my mom and I have the same names as the mother and son in "the Shining."

He said, "Yeah, I know."