Post-trip recovery = PTO

The title for this post is actually a misnomer. It really should say SHOULD REQUIRE PTO (Paid Time Off) but some of us will never learn (waving hand) and suffer the angst of returning from a trip on Sunday and having to go to work the following morning.

We survived the drive from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania with a stop in Langhorne to visit Sesame Place the following morning. On the way down the Merritt Parkway, I phoned our first hotel to see if they had a room available for Saturday night, too. No sirree -- sold out for Saturday night. So I phoned another hotel thanks to our trusty AAA guidebook -- yes indeed, a room available for Friday and Saturday nights. Woohoo! So I booked the new hotel room -- right across the street from Sesame Place.

Traffic wasn't bad until we hit 287 to go to the Tappan Zee Bridge. I never can tell if I'm better off going through the city via the GW Bridge or taking the Tappan Zee. It seems like whichever I take, the other way is better. Oh well. We made it to the hotel at a decent hour.

Saturday morning included an IHOP stop before going to the Park. Both children had fun at the Park -- they seemed to really like the parade, and the water rides were fun and it wasn't too hot. Did run into a sole "sorry excuse for a parent" on one of the rides. Evidently she could not read the signs that said ages 4 and under go in one line and ages 5 to 7 go in another line. When she got to the front of the wrong line, the ride attendant asked how old the child was.

SEFAP: "She's 3"
Attendant: "You are in the wrong line. She has to go in the other line."
SEFAP: "She will go on when the next group of 3 year-olds goes on."
Attendant: "No, you need to wait in the other line."
SEFAP (screaming): "I just waited 5 minutes. I am not going to wait any more."
Attendant: "They have all waited too. You have to get in line like everyone else."
SEFAP (swearing): "Let's go. No (expletive expletive) way we are waiting."

And of course -- what happens? SEFAP finds SEFAP2 who takes the little girl and "plops" her at the front of the ages 4 and under line.

My daughter asks, "What happened to that little girl? Why is she in the front of my line?" So I told her that her parents put her in the front of the line. My daughter says, "But that's not fair -- she is cutting in line."

So, SEFAP's child and my daughter were on the ride at the same time. I couldn't help it -- I said something about not cutting in line, SEFAP used gutter language to call me all sorts of things, I didn't "go there" and instead asked to speak to a supervisor -- and golly gee, SEFAP's child didn't even want to be on the ride in the first place. The supervisor came by, called security, and escorted SEFAP out of the park due to the obscenities that she screamed at me. Security talked to me, too -- just to get my statement and to alert me that she had been escorted from the park but SEFAP2 was not. They asked that if I had any further trouble during the day to let a park staff person know. Never ran into SEFAP2 for the remainder of the day, but it's good to know that security will do something at Sesame Place.

We did the obligatory take out food for dinner -- Macaroni Grill. Then we went to sleep early after such a long day. We checked out on Sunday morning to head home. We did make one stop in Philadelphia first -- at the Please Touch Museum. What a great place! The children really seemed to really have fun in the Supermarket. The Supermarket is laid out just like a "real" grocery store with shopping carts, aisles of food, a stock room (with a time clock and time cards!), and cashier stations with scanners and cash registers. Children were counting their food, weighing items in bin scales, and just having a great time. If you are ever in the Philadelphia area, I highly recommend a stop to this Museum.

We got back home at 5 pm and had all the bags to haul in. Thankfully there was not a lot of laundry as I had done much of it at my parents' house. But there's just a lot of "stuff" to deal with, and it doesn't help when the birthday girl opens all of her toys right in the doorway of her bedroom, then her little brother takes all the bath toys and dumps them into the toilet, just when you are running to the door to get the pizza from the delivery guy.

Oy.

I should have taken PTO today.