Exl-ax's and the Road Trip Home

My family, which included my mother, father, brother and his friend, grandmother, paw-paw and myself just finished up two aw some weeks in Nags Head, North Carolina back in the summer of 1990. It was one of the best vacations we had in a long time. I think my parents tried to make it special because it was going to be the last family vacation with all of us because my brother just graduated from Highschool and was headed back to Georgia with my grandparents.

So they we were packing the car and telling my brother and grandparents good-bye. Like I said before he was heading back to Georgia with them and my mother, dad, brothers friend and myself were heading back to Ohio, a nice 12 hour trip, however this 12 hour trip turned into a little less then 24 hours.

The day before we left, I was getting in all the time I possibly could in the pool. I made some great friends so that day we spent the whole day swimming and having a great time. My brother and his friend were walking up to the pool with a pack of skittles in hand. They said they just came from the gas station and they got some candy, would me and my friends like some. Hello, we are kids, what do you think we were going to say. So of course we took some, but when David (my brother) poured out the skittles in our hands I recognized a new color, white. David told me that it was a new one they just started with and it was suppose to taste like coconut. Cool, so I tried a few of them and so did one of my other new friends. At the time I didn't think they tasted like coconut, but oh well, I got some candy and my brother was being nice to me for a change.

That day was coming to an end and my mom called me to come to the room to get cleaned up for dinner. I said my good-byes to my friends and headed up the stairs to our condo. Sitting on the staircase was a box of ex-laxs. If you do not know what this medicine is, it is a pill that treats constipation. Basically makes you go poop! For some odd reason I thought this may of been my grandparents so I picked up the box and headed into the condo. When I asked my mom if grandmaw or paw-paw dropped this, she got suspicious and said no but called my brother and his friend out to the living room to find out why they came running into the condo laughing and slamming the bedroom door behind them. They confessed once they saw the box my mom was holding and there it was stated. I, only 10 years old at the time, ate ex-laxs instead of coconut skittles.

The whole trip home, which my brother so wonderfully didn't have to experience with us, was a stop every hour so I could use the restroom. Yes, ex-lax's and a road trip home does not mix, but does give a funny story to share many years later!