Andover Class of 88

Gilbert Family Vacation
Chapter 4
The Black Cloud

We often joke there is a black cloud hanging over our house. Our house must have been built atop an old Indian Burial Ground because we’ve always had the worse luck. I am convinced that someday I’ll arrive home from work to a scene right out of Poltergeist where a swirling black cloud sucks our house into oblivion. If it isn’t an old Indian Burial Ground, then how else can you explain it?

The van is repaired and my mother is home from her trip to St. Mary’s Mental Hospital. We are in the final stretches of vacation preparation with less than three weeks to go. Like the project manager I am, I have developed our Work Breakdown Structure complete with tasks printed on a calendar detailing everyone’s responsibilities. The charter has been signed off, the specifications completed, and the executive sponsor (my wife) is onboard. We are knee deep in the execution phase of our family project. Each night, every family member (even the 5-year-old) updates the project with their task progress.

The first week passes and everything is on schedule – a testimony to my acute project management skills. As we enter the second week, my wife calls me. “You Mom wants to go back to the hospital.”

I talked with my mother because she didn’t feel good, she can’t explain it, and she doesn’t know what is wrong. I immediately think she is having a panic attack, so I ask her what is going on. “I don’t want you to go to Florida,” she admits. “You don’t realize how much I rely on you!”

“Mom, we have a large network of friends,” I calmly explained, ”You and John will be fine,” (John is my father). “I want you to get a follow-up doctor’s appointment to make sure everything with the UTI is fine.”

My mother visited her doctor where, as a matter of routine, they check her pulse and determine it was irregular. Now, when I go to the gym, I strive to keep my heart rate around 145. If I can get it to 150 – I am doing a really hard work-out. Her heart was 160 beats per minute. “Can you feel your heart beating that fast?” the doctor asked her.

“No,” she answered. “I feel perfectly fine!” And with that, she took her third ambulance ride to a hospital, and I spent another all-nighter in an Emergency room before they finally admitted her into a room.

Doctors practice medicine. They have to practice because they never get it right. That is why people have to be patients. You have to be patient while the doctor practices on you. And so, for a week my mother is poked and prodded and zapped and electrically burned. They gave her medicine that make her heart go nuts just so they could see if they could get it to return to normal. They crammed this down her throat and that in her nose. She has taken it all in stride and only really complains about how long it takes to get ice for her drinking water.

T Minus three days before we depart

I had a lengthy conversation with my Mother’s nurse. Should we cancel the vacation? I’d hate to get to the Pennsylvania border and have to turn around! The nurse assured me that everything was fine and we should go enjoy ourselves in Florida. Our concerns immediately shifted to ‘who is going to take care of the dog and cat? Who is going to make sure my Dad gets fed (because he is Microwave Illiterate)? Who is going to bring my mother home from the hospital?’ Luckily, our long list of friends are willing to volunteer to help. I was able to sit in my easy chair, relax, and take a deep breath. This vacation was really going to happen!

T Minus two days before we depart

“Do you want to buy a new van?” my wife asked.

“Why? Are you having trouble getting our deposit back from my attempt to get us one?” I laughed.

“Well, yes,” she answered, “but that’s not the reason. Our van died on the way to work this morning.”

Have you ever had one of those days when nothing seems to go right? Have you ever had a bad luck stream last for a week? Or a month? How about years – have you ever had a bad luck stream last for years? If your house was built on an old Indian Burial Ground, your answer would be “Why, yes!” If your name was Craig T. Nelson, you would warn me about the big black cloud, dead bodies in the pool, and voices coming out of your television. If, on the other hand, you are part of the normal population – all this must seem very odd to you. For me, this is just ‘A Day in the Life of the Gilberts’.

“Since you had YOUR chance to get us a van,” she chaffed, “it is now MY turn. I am going with my friends tonight to find us a new van.”

There is only one answer any self-respecting husband can provide to such a rude and arrogant remark: “Yes, Dear.”

And so, as a pride of cougars on a nightly hunt, the three women went after unsuspecting salesmen. They tore them apart! They made them squeal! They made them beg for mercy! And they came home with a deal that is… well… let’s just say it is huge Rochester. Huge. “We leave town in 37 hours and you are going to buy a Kia?” I asked my wife.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I really liked the van.”

Oh no. I don’t like where this is going!

Holiday Roooooo oh oh oh oh oh oh oad. Holiday Roooooo oh oh oh oh oh oh oad.’