Spring Break 2010, Day One: To Hell and Back

I am still recovering from the trauma of my long day’s journey into night that was winter break. Wasn’t that like two weeks ago? Why, oh why are public schools on vacation again?

Whatev.

I vowed early on not to repeat the mistakes of our last go-round. I have planned our cultural playcation with the precision of a general.

First, I enrolled the younger into all-day vacation camp at Spoke the Hub, “re-creation” center. She is thrilled and so am I. She spent the day making art, step dancing, and African drumming. Yes, they didn’t heat the borscht but she had a fine time. And, most importantly, she will be doing her own thing, far far away from her evil big brother, thus avoiding any bloodshed or abuse.

Second, I mapped out a cultural calendar of wall-to-wall enrichment for the older, including MOMA, the Whitney Biennial, Governor’s Island, etc.

Day One: MOMA.

Or not.

Yes, folks, this was the line, which at 11 am, stretched all the way around the block.

 On a Monday morning. IN THE RAIN.

 HOW CAN THIS BE????????

Who let these fucking tourists in my city? Can I not take my son to a museum without waiting three hours? Where is my fastpass? Come back at 11:35 pm for the opportunity to shell out $25 to enter the museum.

GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM, INFIDELS. WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE.

So, instead of enrichment, I ended up in Times Square, relatively uncrowded because everybody was at my fucking museum!!!

By the time I limped home three hours later, eighty bucks poorer, I had endured what I think are the 7^th and 8^th circles of hell: Bubba Gump Restaurant and the ESPN Zone.

Never have I missed XXX peep shows and squalor as much as I did yesterday.

I mean how can there be a restaurant chain based on an incredibly tiresome movie from the mid-90s? And how did I never hear of it before today?

So, I don’t know if our waiter was supposed to be acting like Forrest Gump or not, but he was playing such a broad hillbilly that I offered to up his tip if he would stop the spiel. At one point he asked if MOMA was a shopping mall, which in retrospect I think was actually a brilliant improvisation. Or not.

After lunch, I was persuaded (yes, due to my own enabling and gutlessness) to shell out twenty bucks at some upscale Chuck E. Cheese place for sporting types (ed note: Dave and Busters?). My friend and I watched in horror as a guy sweated so profusely during his two minute virtual boxing bout that we feared he was surely on the brink of a coronary.

It was all over but for the crying in 15 minutes, which, I guess was a blessing. But at more than a buck a minute--what IS the mathematical equation for that? I’m going to make the kid do it tonight to improve his mind some more.

Okay, that took me 10 minutes and a lecture from the husband on my complete mathematical incompetence to arrive at $1.35 or so.

Whatever--I’ll ask Sam.

Husband: “Oh God. How did you get into college? How could you have gone to Ivy League schools?”

[He’s still trying to instruct me. I’m ignoring him].

[Now, he’s laughing at how badly I did on my math SAT].

One day down. How many to go? Let me count on my fingers…