Day Two -- Danger: Music in the Bathroom -- Dance at Your Own Risk

“Do not continue to exercise if you feel dizzy, faint, or nauseous,” says the warning label on the elliptical machine at our hotel. “Continue?,” I think to myself. I haven’t even started and I feel all of those things.

Meanwhile Devin who has been stewing in the hot tub has come out to point out that that the sign in the hot tub area states: Long exposure to the hot tub may cause illiness, serious injury, or death.

“Dad, will I die?” she asks. Death has become a serious subject lately.

Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago while camping out in the back yard and watching a Batman movie in the backyard on the big screen; I told the kids a ghost story.

It was the typical run out of gas, walk up to the scary house type of ghost story. In which the protagonist (take not Krista’s book club members, protagonist) stays up all night awaiting certain death. It is not until morning while the host serves his stranded guest breakfast does old Hitchcookian deviant take a shovel and beats the non-guarded guest over the head.

This is apparently has stuck with my children, who now ask before I put them to sleep, “Dad, will you murder us?”

“Not until the morning,” I reply. “Don’t you remember the story?”

“Enough!,” shouts my wife. “If I hear the word ‘murder’ one more time you are all in a time out.”
I suppress my urge to provide a litany of “murders” in a sing-songy voice. “Pick your battles wisely,” I think to myself.

Today, I have switched the voice of the Tom-Tom to Yoda. Yoda tells us “Left, you must take and then your destination, you will have arrived.” This predicate-verb reversal seems quaint at first, but get lost and one becomes over panic’d like trying to interpret a foreign language. “Left take?, What does it mean? Oh, take a left – damn, I missed the turn.”

“Lunch we must eat,” I think to myself as I punch in new coordinates to the Olive Garden (by-passing the Shoney’s, Uncle Bob’s Cafeteria, and another Waffle House). As our endless supply of breadsticks, soup, and salad is about to arrive, Nolan whispers to me, “Dad I have to go poops.”

"Going poops" is the kiss of death. Unlike going to the bathroom or going tinkle, going poops is a three hour opera with no intermission. It demands a clean bathroom for complete disrobing (and I mean complete, shoes, socks, shirt, wrist watch, etc.). A handicap stall is best sought out so Nolan can have a place to fold and stack his laundry. The handicap stall also is a good place for Dad to stand during the long performance. That is, unless I get the “Dad, Dad, I need my privacy” signal.

Now the Olive Garden’s bathroom is especially nice and clean, and we have secured a handicap stall. As I listen to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole canned music from the “Mob’s Greatest Hits” album, time is passing by quickly.

“Nolan, are you done?”

“Almost, I’ll let you know.”

“Great, maybe my soup will still be on the table when we get back,” I think to myself.

“Okay, Dad, time to wipe my butt.”

I can’t wait until I hit my nineties and the roles start reversing. After the wipe, it’s time to put on our clothes back on. But wait, is this “Ain’t that a Kick in the Head” by Dean Martin? We love this song. Nolan twirls his underwear around on his index finger while shaking his hips in agreement. Suddenly, the underwear flies off his finger and lands into the toilet. I resist my urge to flush the toilet and make this someone else’s problem. I fish out the boxer brief camouflage underwear out of the bowl and fling it to the waste can on the other side of the bathroom.

I think to myself, there should be a warning sign in this bathroom; similar to the one’s we saw earlier today in the workout room of the hotel:

Warning: Music in the bathroom, dance a your own risk. This may cause loss of underwear, illness, nausea, or even death.

We are back on the road, after being chastised by my wife for losing a pair of underwear – “we only have seven days worth.” While looking for the world’s largest ball of string, or the Tennessee house of mud, we did stumble upon the Mammoth Cave (See link to picture album in title above.).