My Christmas Holidays…

So… My brother and i go to school a few hundred miles from my parents home – in clear weather and on good roads, this trip takes 12 hours to drive. Of course, this was the first time my brother and i had driven our new vehicle for any length of time. It is also my first winter driving up North, and was his first time driving at all in some months (and i know my tense changed, but i think it makes more sense that way. I’ve never understood why people freak out about tense changes). If you live in the states, and have been paying any attention whatsoever to the national weather… It took us 45 minutes just to get out of the neighborhood. We had to shovel approximately 10 inches of snow out of the driveway, and then i drove while my brother followed me with a shovel. If the postman hadn’t been stuck and willing to help us, i think we would have stayed there until the thaw. It took us another 45 minutes to get out of the city proper, and on the highway (or expressway? There’s a difference, i think…). About 3.5 hours later, my brother expectorates – or explodes, take your pick. While driving. On icy roads. In heavy traffic. Of course, it could have been worse – he might have eaten more than an orange for breakfast. Guess who got to drive the entire rest of the way? Oh, and guess who couldn’t eat because someone else couldn’t stand the smell of food? On the drive back, some poor transportationless sucker was talked into coming along and assisting with money for gasoline. She didn’t realize at the time that the way my brother and i stay awake is to sing. We spared her our jazzy/operatic/harmonized/rap/just-plain-weird version of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall (which kills about 1.5 hours, if you’re curious), but she was forced to listen to us “singing” along with Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Julie Andrews, Nickle Creek, and the Beatles. I think she must have decided it was best to simply humour us, as she joined in our impromptu (and improvised) hymnsing, and even attempted to harmonize with our attempts at the melody. In fact, if my dearly beloved brother had not driven 50 miles off course before noticing… I just realized i haven’t written about my actual holidays at all. So i guess my title line kind of mislead you. I’ll imagine you are all absolutely panting to read about my Christmas vacation, and you imagine i’m desperately apologetic, and we’ll get along fine. Or not.