Waiting for the Big "O"

(An Excerpt from Waiting in the Wrong Line - available at Amazon.com - links follow article.)

The car is pulled to the side of a narrow dirt road almost hidden by overgrown foliage. A beautiful white sandy beach can be seen from the car through a small clearing, and waves are relentlessly eroding the shoreline. We are on the island of St. Martin in the West Indies. We are on our honeymoon.

And we’ve been fighting all week.

We have battled in restaurants.

We have bickered on the beach.

We have brawled in the waves.

Strangers hear us coming and going.

Strangers want to remain strangers.

Right now we are sitting in a rented car on the side of a dirt road almost hidden by overgrown foliage, and we have drawn a bright red boundary line down the middle of the front seat.

I am so mad. It is at least 90 degrees outside, but you can see the steam coming out of my ears, seeping out of the car, rising from the roof of our rented car. If this were a cartoon, there would be horns growing out of the roof of our car and a devil’s tail would be coming out of the exhaust pipe. The car would be rocking with body parts being thrown from the car windows.

Unfortunately, to make the week just perfect, our rental car is the lemon of all rental cars. The air conditioning doesn’t work. The radio is not attached. There is gum stuck on the driver’s side of the windshield and a spring is coming out of the passenger seat, right under my behind.

When we point this out to the rental agent, he says, with a thick accent, “Hey, Maan, it be all we got.”

And, “Hey, Maan, it be all we got,” is all we’ve heard all week.

Orange juice with breakfast? “Papaya today. Hey, Maan, it be all we got.”

Hot water in the shower? “Cold showers. Hey, Maan, it be all we got.”

This has not been a good week.

Of the three pieces of luggage we put on board the airplane, only two came off. The one we can’t find has my asthma medicine and my brand new expensive bathing suit in it. It took me a month to find that bathing suit, to find one that fit just right and was so comfortable and sexy. The lost piece of luggage also has my husband’s Tums. My asthma medicine is secondary. My new bathing suit doesn’t matter. My husband’s Tums? He’s a basket case!

“What am I going to do without Tums?” my husband frets.

I stare at him, wheezing, desperately trying to fill my lungs with air, hoping I can find an island pharmacist who will make a long distance call to my pulmonary specialist. I say, without a hint of nastiness, “Maybe you should lay off the spicy food this week.”

To which my husband agonizes, “I won’t make it without Tums!”

To which I reply in oxygen-poor gasps, tugging at my bathing suit that I had to buy from the store in the lobby, even though it is too small, “I guess you’ll have to live with heartburn, honey.”

It’s been a tough week.

Now we’re sitting in the rented car, on the side of a dirt road. I am tugging at my too-small bathing suit. I am wheezing. My husband has heartburn. We haven’t had a good cup of coffee in a week. And we are both pissed. We are pissed at the car. We are pissed at the hotel. And we are really pissed at each other.


My husband gets up this morning and says, “Let’s fix this vacation now.”

I nod my head, somewhat skeptically, but I agree. We need a quick fix for this honeymoon in hell.

My husband goes to the lobby to talk to the concierge. He comes back an hour later and he’s bubbling. He’s found a perfect place for us to go. He’s waving a hand drawn map. He says it’s going to be great.

I’m already upset.

Nothing on this island could possibly bring this level of excitement.

Then he starts, “The concierge says it’s called Orient Beach. It’s on the other side of the island. It will take about an hour to get there. It’s a nude beach.” My husband’s rambling now. “All the movie stars go there. Very private.” he continues.

“A nude beach?” I ask. “Why’d he tell you about it?”

“Well, we got to talking about surfing, and then he told me,” he answers. “And he said there were great waves.”

Surfing.

Great waves.

I should have read the scribbling in the sand dune.

“Great waves,” the concierge says to the boy who spent the summer of his freshman year in high school painting his mother’s house to earn money to buy his first long board.

“Great waves,” he says to the teen who hid surfing magazines under the mattress, to look at the waves, not the girls in the string bikinis.

“Great waves,” he says to the college student who memorizedEndless Summer.

“Great waves,” he says to the young adult who watched surfing specials on television instead of the Super Bowl.

“Great waves,” he says to the homeowner who wanted to decorate our living room around a poster called Sunset at Doheny.

“Great waves,” he says to the man I married who I have never seen on a surfboard.

My husband tells me “nude beach” and “movie stars,” expecting me to react with, “Wow, what a wonderful, fabulous, original idea you have,” and all he gets is a nasty look from me.

Being the wonderful sport that I am, and wanting to try to salvage this semi-miserable honeymoon in paradise, I decide to go along with it. We grab towels and sun block. My husband hands me the map, and we’re on our way to a beautiful nude beach where movie stars hang out, which just by coincidence has great waves.

We drive for an hour. The island is very green, very lush, and extremely humid. It is early when we leave. For miles we drive never seeing another vehicle. We pass many other beaches. The sand is white. The water rushing to the shore comes in long, lingering pushes against the sand. I imagine myself lying in the sand at the water’s edge. There are no people on these beaches.

We are, for the first time this week, chatting peacefully. We are even laughing. My husband doesn’t have heartburn and I am not wheezing. With some distance between the hotel room and us, this vacation is starting to look more memorable. I’m starting to think that maybe, for once, my husband has had a good idea that won’t turn into the Nightmare in the Caribbean.

Then I see the sign: Orient Beach.

The sign is large. It is brightly colored. Orient Beach.

Our day is about to be an adventure in paradise. “I got you here,” I announce, crumbling the hand written map and throwing it in the back seat.

My husband looks around. He looks at the sign. “This isn’t Orient Beach,” he says.

“Yes, it is,” I answer, pointing to the sign, “Orient Beach.”

“Nope,” he says. “This is Rient Beach. We want Orient Beach.”

“It is Orient Beach,” I continue, not having a clue what he is trying to say.

“Rient Beach,” he argues.

Now there’s an explanation here, an artistic interpretation. Imagine the word “Rient.” From the top of the “R” start an “O”. Bring it up and around the back of the “R” so that it looks like a giant “O” going around the word “Rient.” It is very clear to me. I can’t see the confusion.

I get out of the car.

“Get back in the car! This isn’t Orient Beach,” he says. He leans over the back of the seat and retrieves the map I just crumbled. “Why did you crumble this?” he mumbles. “I’ll get us there.”

“We are there,” I say. “Look at me.” He looks up.

As if my arm is a giant, thick, bold, black magic marker I am dramatizing the big “O” with my arm. I am drawing a giant “O” in the air. “See O … rient. ORIENT. See it? Don’t you see the “O”? Come on, think outside the box.” I am standing there drawing this giant “O” over and overagain in the air for my husband’s benefit.

“Get back in the car,” he says.

I go up to the billboard. I point to the “O” and draw a giant circle one more time.

“Get back in the car,” he says.

I go back to the car. I am standing next to his window. “Think of a giant ‘O.’ Now put the word ‘range’ in it. What have you got?”

Expecting to hear, “Orange,” all I get is, “Get in the car.”

“Orange,” I say. “Think ‘O’ plus ‘range’ is ‘orange.’”

He says nothing.

I try again. “Imagine the word ‘liver’ with a giant ‘O’ around it?”

“In the car,” he says louder.

I get louder, not liking the bossy tone he’s delivering. “Oliver. Think: ‘O’ plus ‘liver’ is Oliver!”

I push myself up on the hood, blocking the driver’s view. I am visibly enraged. With my finger, I write on the filthy windshield, “vulate.” Then I add the giant “O.” I am screaming. “Think. ‘O’ plus ‘vulate’ is ovulate.”

He has stopped talking.

“‘rgasm.’ ‘O’ plus ‘rgasm.’ Think!” I am writing “orgasm” across the windshield.
Screaming, “verload,” I yell and write. “‘O’ plus ‘verload,’ ‘OVERLOAD’.” I am now screaming over the engine. If anyone is hiding in the bushes, they’ve all jumped into the sea in fear of the mad woman on top of the hood of the car giving a spelling lesson to a baboon who can drive.

I get down from the hood. I open the car door get in, glaring at him, “You are such an AF!” I say.

“You mean ASS?” he says, trying to correct me.

“No,” I say. “You are an AF! ‘A.’ ‘F.’ ‘AF’.”

“What is an AF?” he asks.

“Sam, ‘AF’ with a big ‘O’ going around it. YOU ARE AN AF!” I say.

I turn my body away from him and stare out the window, trying to get a view of the great waves before we leave Rient Beach.

And then he shuts off the ignition.

“Oaf,” he says. “I am an oaf.” He meekly smiles, staring through the windshield with the words “orgasm” and “ovulate” and “overload” written in the filth.

I don’t say anything. We both silently get out of the car, grabbing our share of gear from the trunk and head toward the beach, and I swear, as we pass the “Orient Beach” sign, my husband says, “Ya know, that’s a really cool logo.”

---end

©2002, Felice Prager. All Rights Reserved. This blog is copyright protected. No item on this blog, including this essay or any photographs, may be used without the author's express written permission.

The Contents of this blog – including all photographs – are COPYRIGHT PROTECTED and may NOT be used, distributed, shared, emailed, or copied in any form without the written consent of the author/photographer.

Originally Published In Traveler’s Tales – Whose Panties Are These?
Also Published at CommonTies.com and Sasee Magazine.

To purchase WAITING IN THE WRONG LINE, follow the links at http://www.feliceprager.com

I'm Easy!

My husband always tells people I'm difficult to buy presents for. He says he can't do anything right even when he's trying to do something special and unique. He says I don't give good hints. He says all these things about my weird taste.

There's no truth to anything he says. I'm easy. I'm so easy that EVERY husband should have a wife as easy as I am.

You see, I have a Red Jeep Wrangler. It's not my first Wrangler and it definitely won't be my last.

The Wrangler is a great vehicle. It's not a car even though the guy at the carwash charges me as if it is. It's not a truck. It's not an SUV. It's not a Mom Mobile. It's a Wrangler, and Wranglers are in a class unto themselves. Nothing else comes close to them, even though many try. In fact, even the Jeep manufactures are trying to change the specs on this classic vehicle. Unfortunately for them, the diehard Jeep owners who are considering a newer Jeep have been known to go into a dealership and ask them to put in crank windows instead of electric and to remove the new fancy features in order to bring their new Jeep back to its classic heritage. I am one of those people.

Let me tell you about my Wrangler, and with it, I will tell you how easy I am when it comes to buying presents for me.

Flashback to Valentine's Day 1998: My current Wrangler was a month old.

"Chocolate?" my husband asked.

"Gloss black grill guard," I replied. "The guy at the off-road place in the airpark knows which one I want."

Flashback to Birthday, 1998:

"Chocolate?" my husband asked.

"Deluxe sport handles and black mesh light guards," I replied. "I folded down the pages in the catalog in the bathroom. There's a coupon with a discount, too."

Flashback to Anniversary, 1998:

"Chocolate?" my husband asked.

"Front and rear slush mats," I replied. "And a black leather t-style hood bra."

The list goes on.

I'm so easy. All my husband has to do is pull into the off-road place or dial an 800 number, and my present is a done deal.

If they make it for a Wrangler, I've got it or I want it. I have dreams about light bars, side bars, air intake scoops, and safari snorkels. My husband knows this because I wake him up in the middle of the night to tell him about these dreams.

"Are you sleeping?"

"I was."

"I had another dream!"

"Let me guess. Was it about Jeep accessories?"

To put it simply, if my husband wants to buy me a present, without asking and ruining the surprise, all he has to do is buy more bells and whistles for my Wrangler. And if he's concerned about which accessory to buy, all he has to do is pay attention when I retell my dreams to him. I'm so easy.

I take excellent care of my Wrangler. My son's best friend always tells me he knows it's me in the red Wrangler coming down the road even though there are so many red Wranglers these days because he needs sunglasses from the shine. No one's Wrangler shines like mine. My 98 Wrangler could pass for brand new. If you have a cool Wrangler, it doesn't come without responsibility.

For Mother's Day last year, when he asked me what I wanted because I never give him hints or leave him lists, I told him he could wax my Wrangler. He was happy. I was thrilled. Soooo easy.

Unfortunately, my Wrangler obsession has created a monster.

My husband thought he could take our sons camping using my Wrangler. That included taking it off-road and getting it dirty.

It turned into an ugly scene. I stamped my feet and acted indignant, but he convinced me that taking his Mustang off-road was just dumb and dangerous.

"We can't do 45 degree angles in a Mustang," he said. "We'll get stuck....or killed! You wouldn't want your children killed in an off-road accident because we took a sports car instead of the appropriate 4-wheel drive Wrangler. Would you?"

So, I gave in.

When they returned, he said I "RUINED THEIR TRIP." That's in quotes because that's exactly what he said. I was home minding my own business, looking at off-road websites on the Internet, enjoying the air conditioning of my home and sipping iced tea, and I "RUINED THEIR TRIP."

It seems he was so afraid of getting my Wrangler dirty or (gasp!) scratching it, that he took the turns "like a wimp" and avoided all the "cool, macho trails" that all the other Wranglers were taking.

Which is why, a month ago, my husband traded in his Mustang for a second Wrangler. We are now officially a two-Jeep family.

His is a new, very hot color. It's this dark reddish color, but at dusk, it looks brown, and in the sun it looks plum. I forget what they called the color. It's unimportant. I think it is sienna or sierra or something like that. What is important is that my husband is happy.

He pulled his Wrangler into the garage next to mine on the day he brought it home and sang, "My Wrangler is taller than your Wrangler."

I wanted to hurt him, but I am not a violent person, so I just gave him a dirty look and said something about the color being sort of girlie.

This did not affect his mood. He and my younger son then took out the tape measure and proved it.

Two inches taller, in fact.

Of course it was; the tread on my tires has worn down. Mine is the old Wrangler. Mine is the used Wrangler. My Wrangler has been offroad. My Wrangler is in need of new tires.

My husband still looks at my Wrangler and sulks, though. In spite of his Wrangler's extra height, he still says, "You've got the cool Wrangler because you have all that neat stuff on it which I bought for you."

I've told him he'll have to wait like I did and start dressing up his Wrangler as holiday presents.

His birthday is next month. I think the first thing I'll get him a very cool aluminum front bumper I saw at the off-road place. I won't even ask him for hints. Or maybe we'll just pull into the off-road place in our separate but unequal Wranglers, and I'll let him pick out the one he wants.

And when it's my turn for the next present, I think I'll start having dreams about six-inch lift kits or roof racks. Hmmmm….a roof rack. After all, it just isn't right having both the oldest AND the shortest Wrangler in the family.

----end