It Gets Worse

"No. Absolutely not. We're not going to Disney World over the summer." Rachel shook her head, seriousness overtaking her features.

"Why not? It's the happiest place on Earth!" I teased.

"It absolutely is not. I want to go on vacation with you and spend summer together, but that's not going to happen if we got to Disney World. I refuse."

"What did Disney World do to you?"

Rachel sighed," I had a terrible experience there, and I promised myself that I would never go back."

"And how old were you when that bad experience happened?"

"Seven."

"You're twenty one."

"I do not see your point. Do you want to know what happened or not?"

I grinned and leaned back, holding my hands up in surrender," Tell me. I wanna know."

She took a few seconds to gather her thoughts before crossing her legs and leaning forward," Like I said, I was seven years old. My parents took me and my siblings to Disney World. Their first mistake was driving. It was a nineteen hour drive, and they decided it was a good idea to throw a twelve year old, a seven year old, and a five year old in a van with a bunch of luggage for hours with limited entertainment."

"Your parents are saints, and they were trying their best. Be nice to them."

"I'm sure they were just trying to save money, but I know for a fact that the entire family hated each other by hour five. My brother didn't want to watch the movie my parents had put on and ended up flicking my ear every thirty seconds until I started screaming bloody murder. And that made Madi start crying because she was five and had sensitive ears. Dad was threatening to turn the car around. Mom was ready to tie Liam's hands together. It was a mess, and we're not even in Florida yet."

"This is off to a great start." I grinned.

Rachel shot me a glare but started playing with the loose thread on the knee of my pants.

"So we get to the hotel in Florida. It's not on the resort. Again, my parents were trying to save money, so we were at a Holiday Inn or something. And we get there at like one in the morning because Dad wanted to just get all the driving done at once. Well, we had slept the last four hours we were in the car, so we were all charged up with energy. Liam decided that he wanted to go swimming as soon as we got there, but it was one in the morning, and pools always close at like ten or something. I don't know. But it was closed, and even if it wasn't, Mom and Dad wouldn't have let us go anyway because they were tired and grumpy from all the driving. So now they have to Liam melting down, and Madi and I started crying because swimming sounded like fun and we were freaking ready to go from our nap."

I couldn't help but laugh at the thought of tiny Rachel throwing a fit in a hotel lobby.

"Now Mom and Dad are embarrassed as all hell. They somehow manage to get three screaming children upstairs and into the room. Madi passes out as soon as she touches a bed because she's a gremlin who's always loved sleeping. Liam is throwing an entire tantrum in the bathroom. I don't know when he got there, but I remember him being in the tub and Dad getting annoyed and just turning on the water to make him listen. I was just kind of over it by the time we got upstairs so I was changing while that happened. It took like an hour for us all to get changed and actually go to bed."

"Poor Ron and Gina."

"Hey, they could have just gotten plane tickets and avoided all of this."

"Still."

"Anyway. They somehow got us all up at early enough for the hotel breakfast, and let me tell you. I was not happy that they wouldn't let us have any waffles. I was stuck with Cheerios on my first day of vacation, and it was probably super early because that's the only time hotels give you breakfast. Liam was just as mad as I was, but Madi was slurping up her Cheerios like she'd never had the freaking things."

Rachel huffed at the memory and plowed on.

"Eventually we make it to Disney World. I'm pretty sure we got there right when the gates opened because there was a huge crowd of people just chilling outside, and we had to wait in line forever before we could go in. And I remember the entire time, Mom was grabbing at me and Madi, trying to get sunscreen on our shoulders and all over our faces. I'm pretty sure some got up my nose because that's all I could smell for so long. That made the first section or two we were in not fun at all. I don't even remember that part of the first day. It was just a lot of walking around and Dad pointing out the characters and a bunch of random kids screaming and crying and parents yelling. I finally started to have a good time at It's A Small World. Which is weird, but whatever. I liked it, and then we got pizza after."

"You were mad about the sunscreen but singing puppets were okay?"

"They made me laugh. Fight me."

I laughed and gestured for her to keep going.

"After pizza, Liam convinced Dad to let us go on that spinning ride. It had rockets. What's it called?"

"Uh...Astro something. I know what you're talking about."

"Right. Well, we went on that pretty much right after we ate, and then we had to go home because we got off and Liam freaking puked all down my shirt. I was screaming bloody murder, and the smell was so bad that it made me miss the sunscreen."

"Oh my god."

"It gets worse."

"How does it get worse?"

"Well, the rest of that day was fine. We got to the hotel, I took a shower, and then we went swimming for awhile before Mom made us go shopping. The next day, we went back and skipped to where we left off in the park, made it through a whole ton of stuff, too. Got past lunch, and Mom and Dad remembered not to let us go on any rides right after lunch. We almost got through the whole day with minimal incident. But we were walking by Splash Mountain at the same time that a bunch of people got off the ride. Some kid was crying and snotty and gross, and right when I was walking past, he barfed all over my shorts. And there I was, once again screaming and covered in puke. Dad started laughing immediately. I swear, Mom almost punched him right in the face because he wasn't helping the situation at all."

I laughed again. How is this real?

"Then the third day! Madi was being a whiny little brat all morning before we even got to the park, and as soon as we got past the front gate, the little punk barfs on my shoes! I didn't even cry that time. I just took off my shoes and threw them at her head. Mom put me in time out while Dad went to buy me some flip flops. She took Madi back to the hotel, and Dad took Liam and I to Epcot. The rest of that day was okay other than the panic attack I had on the Tower of Terror and the wicked sunburn I got. That made the fourth day kinda crappy. Moving hurt so bad, but I wanted to get through everything so that I could go on my favorite things again. Plus, that was the day that we were going to stay and watch the fireworks at the castle. I remember the sun going down and my head hurting. We were getting settled in by a wall, so I was leaning against that while my parents tried to get some pictures. Madi was asleep on Mom's hip, and Liam was kicking pebbles at people's shoes. I was getting super dizzy but I didn't tell anyone because I wanted to see my freaking fireworks. And then naturally, it's time for fireworks but-"

"You're too busy hurling your guts out?"

"Bingo. Right down my brother's back, and he still holds that over me to this day."

"He did it first though!"

"Yeah, I know. He says it's not the same because his was on the front of my shirt, not the back."

"Yeah, okay. That's how that works."

She grinned at me," Needless to say, I was more than a little upset when Dad dragged me back to the car. We were in Florida for one more day, but Mom and Dad were tired of Disney World, so they took us to a beach and let our sunburns get worse. We drove home the next day, and there was sand everywhere in the car. I was finding sand until my parents got their new car last year."

"How was the ride back? Was it worse?"

"Probably, but I blocked out the times I was awake. I spent a lot more time asleep that time around. But I do remember hitting Madi as hard as I possibly could and getting grounded for a week because of it."

"Oof. Brutal."

"Felt like forever as a seven year old."

"I bet."

There was a pause. I tried my best to fight the grin that so desperately wanted to appear.

"So no Disney World?"

"I would rather repeat middle school."