It’s one of the most melodramatic and enduring moments in film history: Scarlett O’Hara, waving a dirty turnip toward the dramatically-painted sky, shouting “As Gawd is maaah witness, I’ll nevah go hungry again!”

Yeah, well. As y’all is maaah witness, I will nevah write a roadtrip romance again. Timelines suck. Mine especially.

There are papers scattered all over my house with mileages and state speed limits and times jotted down. There’s one in here somewhere (possibly on a pink post-it flag) estimating how long it took them to eat lunch. Blue highlighter marks every reference to time and mileage I can find in my book. My poor Rand McNally atlas is in shreds. Mapquest is shooting smoke out through my computer’s speakers.

***

Me to Walmart clerk: Have you ever driven to Orlando?

Walmart clerk: Ummm….no. But I drove to Vermont last month.

***

Me to bank teller: Have you ever been on a tourbus?

Bank teller: You mean like a Rolling Stones tour?

***

Me to DH: They need to stop for the night in southern Virginia.

DH: Ain’t gonna happen.

Me: When we drove to Orlando we stopped in southern Virginia, and then we stopped in Jacksonville. (And the only reason we stopped in Jacksonville was because we’d given his brother an ETA and shaving 9 hours off of it and arriving past bedtime would be rude.) We only stopped once on the way back. We made it from Orlando to Baltimore.

DH: I wasn’t driving a senior citizen’s bus.

Me: Tour buses fly. When’s the last time you saw a big bus on the highway doing less than 80?

DH: You can’t do that with old people. If you drive 13 hours they’ll get blood clots and when you finally stop and they all stand up, you’ll have mass stroke victims on your hands.

Me: I am SO not spending the rest of my life with you.

DH: You keep saying that, and yet the snoring in my ear continues.

Me: (saying lots of bad words)

***

Me: (still saying lots of bad words)