Yes, as a matter of fact, I am twelve years old!!

I'm not sure why I'm even here.

I wasn't supposed to be here.

I had completely dodged the family vacation this year. I was going to be at the very end of my six month probationary period, so I really wouldn't have the vacation time, plus I would be saving the time for when I moved into my new house the following month.

I had dodged the family vacation.

So, like I said, I'm not even supposed to be. It is entirely not my fault that I am.

My mother has taken the one and only car and gone off to Truro to visit one of her college roommates at the friends new retirement home. I'm stuck at the house with the cranky pregnant woman and the cranky toddler. All goodwill that appeared with frozen chocolate beverages has evaporate with the euphoria that arrived with said beverages. (Apparently frozen hot chocolate has a very short half life.)

I'm online trying to find training opportunities to take advantage of since I qualify as a displaced worker and the pages just aren't loading ~ have I mentioned how much dial up sucks? My nephew is stalling his nap. He wants another peanut butter sandwich; he's still hungry from lunch. So as my sister walks by, in her little temper tear, she makes some comment about how I have been online more than long enough and unplugs the computer from the phone jack.

I'm so angry I can't even see straight. How exactly does my computer use affect her life at all whatsoever??? I can't bear to even be in the same house as her. I grab my shoes, a twenty dollar bill, a credit card, and my cell phone and walk out the front door with out saying a word to her.

I start off in the general direction of a yarn shop on Rte 6 that I wanted to visit that's 1 or 2 miles from the house, I need the walk to calm down. Then it starts to rain.

As the rain gets harder and harder my resolve kicks in. I am not going back to the house.

Almost a mile later I arrive at the local newspaper/deli/ice cream/convenience store. I am soaking wet and shivering in the 10 degree temperature drop. I am hoping to catch a cold and keep my sister up all night for the rest of the vacation in the bedroom we share. As I ring water out of my tee shirt the girl at the counter asks if I'm alright. All I can say is "It wasn't raining when I left..."

I give her a soggy twenty for a hot chocolate and a beach towel and she hands me dry change which quickly becomes wet in my soaking pants. I huddle in one of the chairs on the covered porch in front of the store and call my mother, but her cell phone is turned off. I leave her a message that I am at the store soaking wet and it's my sister's fault.

An hour or so later, my mother stops to pick me up on the way back to the house. She is angry at my sister. I'm apparently in a fragile state and only she and my father can be unkind.

This is of course par for the course for our family vacations. Everyone fights with everyone else ~ in the end some big issues get resolved, some new ones are created.

Later that night my sister apologizes. She says she needed my help with my nephew. "Assume I always need help, unless I tell you otherwise," she says. I admit to her that I'm not always able to provide help. I feel like I'm drowning, I admit. So there is the consensus.



I'm still saying that I wasn't supposed to be here in the first place.

That's my story and I'm sticking with it.