Shiny Visits The Nail Salon: Revenge Of The Tiny Asian Women!

So, in preparation for the upcoming trip to Buffalo, but more out of concern that my feet were beginning to look like something found in nightmares only truly crazy people have, I went to a nail salon today to have (horror of horrors) a pedicure, and perhaps some light facial waxing to tame the two caterpillars that have recently taken up residence where my eyebrows ought to be.

Some of you might remember me doing this a year and a half ago, wherein I realized I was the Scourge of Tiny Asian Women (if you don't, go read the tale, I'll wait). I felt soundly punished for daring to have bad feet but, despite my shame at the encounter and hesitant promises to the girl who took care of my feet, failed to wear "real" shoes. I was soon running around in nothing but sandals, and even then that was if you caught me on a good day. Most of the time, I'm barefoot. If you've visited my house, or had me visit yours, you know this. The first thing to come off is the shoes.

I went into this experience knowing full well that I had transgressed, sinned mightily against the foot gods. I knew there would be punishment before my sins were washed away, and I was prepared to take it like a strong woman. By I was prepared, I mean I had two shots of vodka in the parking lot and had fashioned a rather cunning shiv, made from a chopstick, if the previous incident were to be repeated. I would tolerate no shaming grocery bags on my feet! No longer would I accept the horror-stricken glances 'twixt nail technicians.

Thus galvanized, I swaggered across the rainy lot and into the nail salon. A Jackie Chan movie was playing on the tv against the far wall, and the two technicians there were both busy working on the other two clients. I signed in, fingering the chopstick-shiv in my pocket to ensure I had it readily available should the need arise. After a few minutes of waiting, one of them came up, checked what I'd signed in for, and began filling a spa chair's tub with warm water. Now, whether it was on purpose or happenstance, I do not know, but this spa chair was the one all the way at the back of their store, while a good six chairs sat readily available near the front. The lady motioned me forward, indicating by patting the seat twice that I was to sit and relax while they finished up.

I chose not to quibble over chair placement - I was ashamed of my feet, make no mistake. Allowing me somewhere to hide my shame while still serving me was perfectly acceptable. So I slid off my ratty black sandals, scooched into the chair, and dipped my feet into pleasantly warm water. A touch of a button, and the massage was going on the chair while I opened my book and began to read. After a few more minutes, the original woman returned, and began working on my feet.

It was a pleasant encounter throughout. I alerted her to my need of callous remover, and she worked quickly but efficiently, with a tiny smile on her face the entire time. While it was happening, I assumed the smile was because of her generally pleasant demeanor and kind attitude towards customers in orthopedic distress. No, as it turns out, she knew what was waiting for me in the waxing room. As she finished her painting of my toenails (this time a vibrant purple that looks like something the Joker might want to make love to), she slid the tiny little foot liners onto my feet. And here is where she marked me for revenge, on behalf of all Tiny Asian Women (or TAW) who have to deal with hairy, screwed up, calloused white feet.

Onto the left foot went a pepto-bismol pink slipper, and on the right foot a mint green slipper. Everyone else received slippers the same color, a matching set. I knew this, because I had watched as the spa chairs near the front were filled with women who obviously have nothing else to do with their afternoons than get pedicures and talk on their cell phones. But no, I came away with two different colored slippers. It was the pedicurist's version of the Kiss of Death.

Up came the armrest, and out of the seat I slid, duck-stepping my way to the waxing room she pointed out, to lay down on the chair/table. I had always had a vague sense of unease when I went onto these tables, and suddenly, as I lay there, hair falling back from my undefended face, I knew why. They were the exact same chairs that are in the gynecologist's office, right down to the paper covering and awkward stirrups for the feet. I should have marked well this sudden insight, but the shots of vodka had fuzzed my brain, and I was riding high on the supposed success of the day. I hummed a jaunty little tune to myself as I waited, though it began to get a little nervous as I lay on the table, for who knows how long, with no other human presence.

At last she entered, the TAW who would be plucking and shaping my eyebrows. At her request, I closed my eyes, and she began slathering hot (and I do mean HOT) wax all over my face. Above & below my eyebrows, my chin, my upper lip, the sides of my face ... a tiny glob even entered my right nostril. But I sat quietly through it, allowed the TAW to pat on small strips of cloth. And then, only then, did I begin to realize the evil that lurked within her heart.

For she tapped me on the shoulder, and said, in perhaps the softest and sweetest voice ever, "Okay. Onna thwee, I pull. Okay? You okay wit dat? Onna thwee, I pull. Okay?" I nodded my head, and braced. She began to speak, her fingertips already grasping the edge of the cloth. "Ooooone... Twoooooo... RIIIIIIIIIIP!" I yelped, not expecting it right then, and jumped on the table. A heinously sweet giggle was heard. "That way you no tense, you no tense. You be relax when I pull, it better that way. But this time, I pwomise, on thwee." I didn't know whether to believe her, but perhaps she just had a whimsical side. I murmured, "Alright, I'm ready..." And braced myself, convinced that there was more here than a mere whimsy.

I was right. She never pulled when she said she would. Sometimes she would tug-tug-tug before ripping, sometimes it was a straight rip. Each one was accompanied by a giggle, and her poking me in the shoulder to open my eyes so she could show me how much hair she'd ripped out this time. It was starting to get old. But my face isn't that big, and despite her insistence on taming every stray hair, I eventually was able to sit up and wash the residue from my face, patting it dry with a towel she handed me.

And this is when it happened - when I realized that no matter what, the TAWs of the world will never believe I have a boyfriend. I stood before the sink, and the woman came up, and patted - I kid you not, PATTED - the side of my left breast, and said, "You need go gym. You pretty now. You lose forty pound, you be haaaaaawt." I looked askance at the woman, not for the least because her hand was STILL RESTING ON MY BREAST!

Obviously, she misunderstood the confusion in my eye. She felt the need to then reach around, and pat my stomach pooch. "This! You lose this! This forty pound, you lose this, you be haaaaawt. You get boyfriend then!"

Holy SHIT! Was this the same woman from August of last year?! Could it be? But ... but ... I was wearing all new clothing! And I'd cut my hair differently. No, no, this couldn't... I took a closer look, as the TAW thankfully removed her hand from my stomach pooch. No, the one from last year had definitely been older.

Timidly, I came back with what I realized would have to be my standard response whenever I went to a nail salon. "But ... but I have a boyfriend. He's a very nice man..."

Again, that look of disbelief. Surely I couldn't be serious. There was no way I had a boyfriend. Not with the damaged feet, untamed hair growth, and forty pounds of ugly hanging on me.

"No, you get boyfriend when you lose this." A quick pat of the stomach, then thank god, she removed her hand. "And you need take care of you! No more eyebrow like dese!" She pulled up the strips of paper she'd ripped off my face, waving them and their hair at me. "And you come in tomorrow, I wax bikini for you, make you all pretty for when you get boyfriend."

Whoa whoa whoa! I can understand drumming up repeat business, but this was a helluva method to use! I shook my head frantically as my mouth took over at a healthy fraction of the speed of light. "No! No no no no no no! I don't - no - wax doesn't go there. Oh no. Absolutely not. In fact, um, I think ... Um... I need to go!"

But the TAW was blocking the door! She knew I was spooked but polite, and she knew so long as she blocked the door, she had me at her mercy. She reached into her pocket, and for a second, I was terrified she was going to pull out a little paper gown and tell me to get into it and prepare for pain as I had never known before. Instead, she pulled out a referral card to the gym down the road.

"Okay, then you go here. Go join this gym. You lose forty pound, you look hawt, then we wax your bikini, you be pretty lady. Thank you! Have nice day!"

And with a final pat to my left breast, she turned and walked out the door. By the time I'd composed myself and exited the room, she was nowhere to be seen. I meekly paid my bill and left a tip, and slunk into the parking lot, only remembering the chopstick-shiv when I tried to unlock my car with it.

But I think I'll go back. My feet look cute and they didn't use bags to cover them.

In The Creek

Originally written February 2000

It is the first day of summer, and I am in the creek. The water is cold and I can feel the stones on the bottom all slimy and slick and I hear the water rushing past, clatter-clatter-clatter in my ears, and when I look through the water, everything is whirled together like ice cream and chocolate syrup that is stirred and smushed and stirred until it is all goopy and swirly looking. That is what it looks like through the water. Not wrong, but not right either.

Summer. My favorite. The colors like the white of my sailboats and the yellow of my balloon. I have already made ten paper sailboats. I can see them floating. The bottom of one is getting eaten away by the water but the boats are my own little Armada. They are mine to keep and sail.

The yellow balloon Mr. Yano gave me is caught in the tree by the riverbank, bobbing up and down in the branches, higher than I can climb. Believe me, I tried. It is stuck on the highest edge of the tree, much taller than I can stretch. I am still sad that I lost it. Mr. Yano is nice to me, nicer than my own grandpa and I think, maybe he should have been my grandpa.

The sun, high up and bright, shimmering down on the water. I know Mom and Jerry are at home with my lunch.

I close my eyes, and I can see a bright rainbow in my head. It is black, but there are big spots of color. Red comes from pink comes from yellow comes from orange comes from red. And little green circles going into blue sparks. And white dots everywhere. I know these colors aren't really there, that I just pretend them there. I asked Mom about it, and she says that the colors, and the shapes, are all the ideas my mind has, all jumping and trying to escape. So now I can see my ideas.

When I open my eyes again, I can't see for a second. White bursts are everywhere. I have forgotten how bright the sun is. I think of rubbing my eyes, but it is not worth moving my hand. So I just stay still.

Robert was here earlier. He called me Davey, even though he knows I hate it. I have told him, one hundred-thousand-bazillion-gillion times, not to call me Davey. I have told him, all those times, that I hate it. But he doesn't listen, not ever.

He said, just today, that I am slower than his baby sister. I am not slower than his baby sister. I won the race in gym last week, before school got all the way out. I even beat Robert. But Robert said that I cheated, and wanted to race me again.

Mom says for me to ignore Robert when he says mean things, but it is easier for her to say ignore him when he is not talking to her. He makes me so mad. He gets right up next to me, staring at me, and yelling. His breath smells like someone stepped in a dog mess before going inside.

Robert yelled at me earlier with that stinky breath, and I wanted so bad to hurt him. But Mom says that I can't. So I just walked away and ignored him, only I didn't ignore him really.

Because when you ignore someone, you don't hear them anymore. And I heard when he said that I am a sissy and a wimp. But I didn't say anything, because I was supposed to be ignoring him. So I kept walking.

As I walked, he yelled a lot of mean things. But he has yelled it at me lots of times before, so I knew it was not important. So it was easier to pretend I was ignoring him. But then he did something very wrong.

I was listening to him, even though I was ignoring him, and he said Dad left Mom and me because I am a wimp. I was so mad at him for saying that I turned around and ran at him. Robert is bigger than me; he is the biggest boy in all of third grade. But I didn't care. I just wanted to hurt him. I ran at him, and I tried to hit him, but he pushed me down and I started crying. I hated me for it but that just made the tears come faster.

And Robert laughed, and kept hitting me, and called me a wimp. But I was not crying for being a wimp. I was crying because all of my mad was pushing inside of me, trying to get out. And I could not laugh it out, because you don't laugh when you are mad. So my mad found the easy way to get out of me, in tears. So I cried.

As Robert hit me harder and harder, telling me not to be a wimp, I cried worse. I could feel my nose running, and taste the blood on my tongue, and still Robert hit me.

After a while, he got mad at me and stopped hitting and went away. But I still laid on the ground and cried. I had a lot of mad inside me, and it all had to get out. And I couldn't let it get out at home. Mom would be mad. Then there would be more mad pushing to get out, and more tears. And I don't like the tears.

So I walked over to this creek. The water was cold, but I cleaned up my face and let all the mad get out of me. It all left and I had nothing, not even one drop of mad, inside of me.

I looked into the water, and there I was staring right back. There were tiny ripples that made my face squishy, but I was in the water. As I let the mad get out, I watched me, and watched the drops of tears become the creek. I don't know why, but after all the mad got out, I felt sick. Maybe the mad was holding me together and when it was all gone, there was nothing left to hold me. I can't be sure but I got sick. I stood up, and tried to run home.

My feet slid on the wet grass, and the slimy mud squelched into and over my shoes and I started to fall back then forward and my arms were flying and then I slipped and took a huge breath, the biggest I could take, before I fell into the creek and then the sun was on top and I was down below and my head hit a hard rock and I wanted to cry again. My eyes flashed colors, not the good idea colors, but hurt colors.

So now I am laying here in the creek. I fell in forever ago, and I cannot breathe. My heart feels like it is pushing through my throat, and I want to get up, but I cannot. I try to move my hands now, but I cannot. I can see the trees through the water with my yellow balloon smearing into the sky and the sky swirling together all the colors and looking like the milk in my Fruit Loops.

My heartbeat pounds in my ears with the water, louder and louder, going clatter-clatter-clatter. All of a sudden, I am tiny and on my paper sailboat. I float away on it, looking for my Dad. Behind me, I can hear Jerry running and yelling "DAVEY!" and my mom yelling too.

I turn around, and I see Mom pulling something heavy out of the water. She is crying very loud. She must have lots of mad pushing inside her too. I want to tell her that I am okay, and am just going for a trip, but I cannot talk. So I turn back around, and swallow hard. My throat feels like I got a chip stuck in it, and it hurts. The creek carries me down, and I steer my paper boat.

Dirty Confessions Time

Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" is one of my favorite songs. I know a lot of people despise it, and honestly, I can't really blame them. I had heard the song before, and thought it was rather repetitive and annoying.

But I fell in love with the song, almost a year ago.

It happened on the cruise that John and I took to the Eastern Caribbean, as we were leaving the port of Miami. We'd taken a redeye flight out of Phoenix the night before, and basically been stuck on planes all night long, where we couldn't sleep. We were so excited to be going on vacation that we were restless with energy, while at the same time being drained. When we finally boarded the ship the next day, we fell asleep in our room until dinner time, at which point we dragged ourselves to the dining room, ate, and promptly went back to bed.

I woke up some time at night, itching for a cigarette. John woke up too, and we threw on our clothes and walked to the top deck, noticing how dark the world around us was. We'd left Miami behind us, and because most passengers had already fallen asleep, the lights on the deck were low. We walked around the swimming pools and the hot tubs, not even talking, as some music pulsed out around us, a techno/dance beat that no one was using. We were just looking at the sea and finally breathing it all in. I think we still couldn't believe where we were, what we were doing. Finally, we stopped so I could smoke, and we leaned against the rail, John upwind of myself so the smoke wouldn't blow at him.

I lit my cigarette and stood there, staring out at this black void. And it should have been lonely, except for this - my arm was on the rail, and so was John's, and the outside of our arms were touching. Just the slightest pressure, that bit of contact. And everything felt right. I was happy and content and quiet and for once, the constant stream of worry and panic that I felt had stilled within me.

Poker Face came on the speakers, a remix meant for dancing, and John and I swayed against each other. Our feet tapped, and it became a little game, the both of us gently tapping each other's foot with our own in time with the music. We stood for forever and never and a heartbreaking beautiful instant that lasted a lifetime, listening to the music and simply ... being.

Whenever I hear the song now, my mind flashes back to that night, the first night of the cruise. We'd both been through a lot in the past few years, and even months. Had our hearts broken and mended, our lives turned upside down. We had fallen into each other one lonely night and then realized that we were the compliment. Yin to yang, I was the bright energy that pulled him forward, and he was the stabilizing force that kept me from being carried off too far. Neither of us had had a real vacation in a long time, too caught up with life and worries and relationships that would pull us apart and rebuild us into something we likely didn't know we could be.

I think that that moment, when we stood swaying and tapping our feet to Poker Face, was the moment when I realized I loved this man who was beside me. Whether I would love him for a month or a year or a lifetime or all of eternity, I couldn't say. But my heart was so full, my soul so pressed and open and pained and ecstatic, that I felt as if I didn't hang to that railing, I would fly away forever. And just when that feeling was almost too much to bear, he moved his arm - and took my hand.

And he stood with me, and he rooted me, and he held me just enough to make me safe and comforted, and I pulled him just enough to make him adventurous and eager, and we were made whole there, listening to some pop song that in a few years will no doubt pass into oblivion.

We've never said I love you to one another, not in words. But everything we do, we think of each other. I learned to make the foods he likes, to tell him the jokes he never thinks of, to be the nonsensical moment he needs in his day. He gives me what I never thought I'd have for myself - something stable and concrete - a beautiful home with a kitchen where I can cook to my heart's delight, and plenty of room to have friends over. He loves me, and I love him, and we know whether we love for this moment, this week, this month, this year, we have loved.

Maybe some day I should tell him this, but I think he already knows. He sees me, he rescues me from me, and he has never denied me. And every time Poker Face plays, I remember that moment when we first stood and were as one, on a sea as black as ink, a dot of light in a dark dark world. And we are each other's salvation and rest and comfort and adventure, and we are whole.

Heartbreaks

There’s this thing, this time when your heart breaks. It’s not the first time – you remember that time with a clarity that stops your breath, leaves you lightheaded and reeling, grasping the walls for support. Whether it’s disappointment that caused it, or what you thought was love spurned, or a thousand other reasons, that first true heartbreak stays with you, sticks and never leaves your memory. If you think about it for a moment, you can taste again the salt of your own tears, feel the pressure on your chest.

And it’s not the great heartbreak either – everyone has one of those. When it’s not just your heart breaking, but your entire life, everything you’ve built for yourself, breaking and crumbling. And as horrific as your first heartbreak was, you know that this is the big one, the one that all others will forever be compared to. It’s the heartbreak of knowing that you have damned yourself and your life so fully that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do that will right it. There is no way that you can struggle back from the precipice, and pull yourself together, and even PRETEND to keep functioning as you were. That heartbreak is usually followed by hours of alternating comatose behavior (curled in a ball in bed, or sitting blankly in your favorite chair) and frantic and frenetic activity (mad cleaning spurts, hours spent exercising until you are ready to vomit or die or pass out, whichever comes first). But somehow, the break is what does it – it severs you enough from the past that while you don’t start over, you start fresh enough to pretend.

But those are not the worst heart breaks… Though we think of them as the worst, they are not.

The worst heartbreaks are the ones that come silently, sneak up on you while you are eating dinner with friends, or watching a movie with a loved one, or answering the phone at your job. Any facet of your life is not safe from these quiet endings. Because you will be there, and everything will be fine, and like a thunderstorm in a canyon, in the blink of an eye you are flooded with emotion that you are no more equipped to handle than if you had been handed paper wings and shoved off a cliff with instructions to fly.

These silent heartbreaks come, cutting you off in mid-sentence, mid-word, mid-thought, and numb you so that you cannot process anything around them. There is no help and no salvation from them, you must simply ride them, accept the endlessly deep and painful melancholy that pours into your soul with each nanosecond. And eventually, just as you learned to move on from your first heartbreak, and your great heartbreak, you learn to function with these silent ones.

Though you cannot seem to finish a thought when it hits you, your body takes over and carries on. You continue to smile and laugh while you fight the urge to scream. Forced grin takes residence upon your lips and will not leave and the pain of smiling is so much that you think maybe, just maybe, you can cry because of that and it will be fine.

But even then, the tears do not come. It’s as if you can function socially, but emotionally you are so adrift and lost that you wouldn’t be able to process anything approaching the correct reaction. So it all builds up. And you excuse yourself – perhaps to use the restroom, to refill your drink, to have a cigarette. And you stand away, shaking inside so badly that your bones are castanets for the wayward demon that has plagued you in these continual achings. Perhaps you are lucky enough that you finally cry, finally let loose those tears that you were sure were coming if only you could let them.

And then you take a deep breath, lick your lips – if you taste salt, a quick brush of hand over face takes care of that – and return to your place. And you go back to life as normal.

And the silent heartbreaks keep coming. And you wonder what will happen the day your body stops handling them. And you realize there is no pain so deep as what you are feeling now, when you are so heartbroken all of the time that you cannot think through it, you simply live in it daily.

That is heart break.

Random Writings, pt 1

Random writings, since I keep getting these urges to scribble but can't really think of a great story to put them in.

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The heat is pressing in on me, a lead blanket I can't quite escape. I can feel the air stirring around me, a degree or so cooler than my own body, but it doesn't relieve me, merely brushes the small hairs on my arm, making me itchy as well as pressured. I shift, a slight motion to the right, my head lolling on the pillow, eyes closed. The air smells stale and lived in, the results of being crammed elbow to elbow with a hundred other strangers who I nevertheless share something intrinsic with. But over that stale scent, canned air hissing slightly in the room, is something vaguely organic

Sweet and musky all at once, a perfume applied too liberally to truly cover the vulgarities a body will commit when stuck in one position for too long. It causes a cough, a muttered remark, but nothing too loud - for we are sleeping here, a deep slumber that ought not to be disturbed. A bit of turbulence, a bump that lifts us all and drops us, annoying in that it promises movement but fails to deliver enough to redirect the air flow. And now another scent leaks out, cigarette smoke, a cloying odor that tickles the nose awkwardly, trying to induce memories of what once was.

I am annoyed, because I cannot have a cigarette. I ache for one, a bone deep ache that cannot be satisfied on this flight, and wonder how in the hell others were lucky enough to sneak one in. I consider calling out, but all around me are the still bodies in the darkness - I can feel their pressure, so close to me. Let it not be said I am unkind enough to wake others from the tremulous respite of sleep they might have entered. Still, I long for it enough that my lungs seem to burst with the urge to inhale the toxins, so lovingly and temptingly presented in cylindrical tubes and so far from me.

The voices have faded, moved away from me, and soon I am lost to dark and disturbing dreams. I am a crow in them - no bright butterfly flitting on the winds and exploring a vibrant world of color. No, my slumbering landscape is filled with shadows, drawn by a heavy hand and smudged by a mind that does not wish to think - I have shades of gray and black, moving against each other, the difference so slight and yet I keep yearning towards the horizon, where there is one strip of what might be lighter color.

A sunrise? A new beginning to break this endless dusk that has settled on my soul and vision, I hope for it with a vague realization that this is, in fact, the first hope I ever have had. All others are mere extensions and revisions of this base hope, and none of them can come to pass without this first. I yearn towards it, but in sleep, I am unable to make progress.

Eternity and nanosecond are equal, and equally without meaning, in this shadowland we exist in. It occurs to me that none even the heat I feel is real - mere sense memory of a place and time I might have once lived in, brought to mind by the name the crew calls this ship. And so they ferry us on, in what they call the Phoenix ship, bodies whose souls are still trapped within, yearning for reincarnation. We have flown these underworld skies for years, and mere seconds.

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon

Summer is getting ready to come out in full force, and with summer airfare prices climbing steadily higher, families across the nation are planning vacations that are easy on the pocketbooks while being entertaining enough to keep parents from (seriously) contemplating filicide. According to Bing's summer travel forecast domestic air ticket prices have risen to just over $300 per ticket, a 29 percent increase from 2009. With airfare unfeasible for most, it's time to go back to the golden age of yesterday, loading down (station)wagons and driving gallantly into the great unknown. America, however, is a land of wonder, with great destinations in all fifty states, just waiting to be driven to and stared at.

Every adult, it seems, can dredge up memories of a childhood summer being spent on the road in interminably long car rides, only to be pulled out to gaze in awe at such roadside attractions as "World's Largest Thermometer" or "Biggest Ball of String (West of the Mississippi)". These memories bring with them the scent of hot asphalt, the heat of the car against short-clad legs, and the aching boredom children spent with their faces pressed up against the car window, longing to see anything besides the road and those horrid signs saying "Only 15,000 inches until World's B..." (That's about where the interest always runs out). The western states seem to be more prone to this activity than those on the eastern seaboard, perhaps because the east coast has plenty of "real" stuff to visit, while the west is mostly open land.

Being in California, the options will be a bit limited. You have the high dollar draws of Disneyland and Seawold, and the almost less-expensive allure of Knott's Berry Farm and Legoland. But those places are full of lines, and ten dollar churros, and absolutely lacking in ability to instill proper trauma in a child's psyche. Forego the ticketed mayhem, and hark back to your own younger days. Take the children on a road trip. And not just anywhere. Load them up in the station wagon or minivan of your choice (for best effect, this author recommends one that will not contain the parents of said children), and drive through the desert.

Perhaps because the desert is so vast and achingly lifeless, it is filled with cities and attractions unheard of in other, more life-friendly areas. Baker, California, offers the world's tallest thermometer, letting you see from miles away the exact temperature that is causing your blood to literally boil. Las Vegas, Nevada offers neon glitz and plastic allure to call to any adult, trapping the unwary for years in a lotus-eaters-esque with its flashing lights and nasal drone of "Cocktails? Cocktails?".

But you have children. Children whom you would rather not see exposed to the solely sequined backsides (and frontsides) of Vegas showgirls, and not learn the phrase, "You can't hug Mommy now, you'll break her streak". There is, however, a wonderful destination just south of Las Vegas, beckoning in the arid heat with all the promise and welcome of a cool grave on a blistering summer day. And in a way, that is what this destination is - a grave. One massive grave for the unwary.

That's right - the Grand Canyon, located in Arizona, which houses two of the seven wonders of the United States, and is now being boycotted by much of the rest of the nation because of immigration laws. The small benefit here of breaking that boycott is this - tourist traps will be so desperate to see visitors that they will sell you everything at rock bottom prices. Small roadside stands of Indian jewelry will flagrantly push their illegal fireworks as a bonus purchase. Just imagine it - an M80 with every turquoise bracelet you buy. Beef jerky and firewater, coexisting like the last survivors of a nuclear blast that has brought not winter, but a summer so hellish even Lucifer is whimpering for the air conditioning.

Through heat that will threaten to melt the rubber of your tires to the road, continue on, to the northwest...ish corner of the state. The Grand Canyon has multiple entrances - or exis, if you are particularly hopeful and wise. Make a quick stop before you enter the park, and load the kids up with greasy frybread, ice cream, and anything else they are demanding. Once within the park, travel along winding roads that whip you back and forth like a British nanny with a particularly naughty child. If this doesn't induce carsickness, the frequent bloated corpses of roadkill left to rot along the highway will surely delight and inspire your children to new levels of nausea. You cannot immediately stop to view the Grand Canyon, but once you reach a turnoff, take it. It doesn't matter what turnoff, it doesn't matter what entrance you use. All of these turnoffs will take you to see the same thing.

A giant hole in the ground.

No, that's not a joke. That's what the Grand Canyon is. A giant hole in the ground. Some behemoth puppy got too excited in the world, and dug a hole. You'd hate to see the size of the newspaper they smack him with when he's been naughty.

Granted, this hole is an impressive hole, for sheer size, and at the proper times (mostly when your brain isn't slowly simmering in its own juices) it can be almost scenic. But if this is the argument one will use to justify looking at certain things, then make your next stop Cawker, Kansas, so you can next stare at the World's Biggeset Ball of Twine. After all, it's big, and when seen through a haze of pharmaceutically induced glaucoma smoke, it can be scenic - or at least intriguing. The natural forces which carved the Grand Canyon are no more impressive or overwhelming than those that cause toast to land butter side down, cats to land feet first, and buttered toast tied to a cat to be used as evidence in an animal cruelty case.

But please - train your children in the same manner your parents trained you. Take them to the Grand Canyon. Depending on how obnoxious they were during the drive, and exactly how much nausea was induced by the fry bread and winding roads, let them rough house there. Give them peanuts to feed to the attack squirrels, who will happily bite off a man's finger if he has been unwise enough to leave the scent of a Funyun upon it. Take your children to the very edge, and teach them to appreciate Darwin by showing them a fun new game - which stupid tourist will scramble desperately to recover a $70 digital camera that is rapidly disappearing into the canyon's maw? It's a family favorite right up there with the Different States License Plate game, with marginally less cursing and far more exciting unplanned acrobatics.

Stand upon the edge with your family, staring across to the other lip - a minimum of four miles away - and think of the drive back. Then remind yourself there are too many witnesses for you to contemplate filicide today, and walk away. But hell, toss a shiny quarter over the edge - thin the dumb ones out of your herd now.