Of course a few weeks prior he stabbed a knife in his knee while sharpening some fishing tools (it was a filet knife) and was on crutches. My mom was in a wheelchair from asthma/thyroid problems and couldn’t walk far without passing out and so forth. Despite these setbacks… THEY WERE GOING TO NEW ORLEANS.

It was June or July, just a few weeks before their big Aquarium of the Americas opened (which was the whole purpose of going). The hotel room was extremely nice, but I had problems breathing because of all the “new” paint, furniture and the strong airfreshners put up to “hide” it all. These things are DEATHLY for those who have allergies. Hades-sent air freshners. GRRR.

It was soooo hot and they decided the ZOO was the thing to do. I was excited til we got there. I was like… 9 or 10 and had to push my mom in the wheelchair while my dad hopped along. It was horrid. Then I got sunburned because I wasn’t used to direct heat for so long. Don’t remember much about the rest of the trip.

I applaud my parents for trying not to disappoint me, but it was just too much for everyone involved. Luckily we all survived to tell the tale though it was bad enough that Dad was never interested in going anywhere that required more than a two hour drive ever again (it was about 5-6 to NO).

Hang on a second…I have to toss a gruff, discouraged private detective seeking personal redemption who looks a hell of a lot like Mario out of this blog entry because he had the nerve to ask me “Who are you calling a chump, chimp?” We can’t tolerate wiseasses like that around here, Nicole…even if they do look like Mario.

Picture it: August of 2005. Warped Tour in Randall’s Island, NY. 110-degree heat. My then-boyfriend gave me the tickets as a present for my birthday, which was just a few days after the show. Only band I wanted to see cancelled just before the show because the lead singer had cancer. I got heat exhaustion after only about half an hour there and we spent the entire day at the hospital. I had no health insurance because I had just started a new job. The nurse forgot to clamp my IV when it was unhooked so I could use the bathroom, and I bled all over the bathroom and freaked the hell out. Also realized on the ride home that I had poison ivy for the first time in my life, all over my legs and especially on my inner thighs. When I got home, my grandfather who was battling cancer was admitted to the hospital, having completely lost all sense of reality. He stayed there for a week, through my birthday (we didn’t even have cake, which he would have hated as we always had huge celebrations for birthdays), and that proved to be the last week of his life. That month was just the gift that kept on shitting directly on my face.