More Profundities

One of Jerry Seinfeld's best known (and unfortunately most repeated) lines if "There's no such thing as fun for the whole family." Everyone laughs because if they've ever traveled as a family they know it's true. In general, traveling with one or more companions is very much more difficult and stressful than alone, and it really doesn't matter how close you are to the people you're traveling with. I've traveled extensively with all of my best friends at one time or another, and if the trip goes long enough you are absolutely guaranteed conflict. The key is what you do with the conflict.

Between my Junior and senior years of college, I went on a 7 week cross-country road trip with two good friends from college. I'll spare the details, but one of the guys is still my best friend, and I pretty much haven't spoken to the other one since.

Here, because it's intrafamily stuff, it's even more magnified. Every little thing takes on huge meaning somehow, even if it isn't really meaningful. So do you work through it or does it escalate or do you keep banging your head against the wall and nothing changes? Or perhaps all of the above. Sorry, no dirty laundry tonight, but let's hypothetically say that one family member, acting on a previous agreement, wakes everyone at 10:30. When is everyone ready to leave? Let's just hypothetically say it's at 1:45 PM. And then, hypothetically, after the family goes downstairs, the member who initially woke everyone remembers that they need to run back to the apartment to get something, which takes about 90 seconds. So who's the object of scorn here for delaying the outing? I'll never tell.