Fuming

When I arrived home from law school, I felt completely worn out from the semester. I felt like I could nap for days.

But today’s exhaustion surpasses that. Today I am not only mentally and physically exhausted. Today my legs actually ache. Today I have a battle scar in the form of a healing blister on my left heel.

This is a result of my family’s Disney World “vacation” this week. This “vacation” required constant powerwalking and occasional jogging in sweltering hot weather.

We walk at these ridiculous paces to keep up with my dad. My dad always walks with urgency. Even when he walks around our house, he will tailgate you if you are moving slowly in front of him.

To make matters worse this week, he loves Disney World. So the whole family had to move in fast-forward to keep up with him. At times we tried to tell him to slow down, but this often was to no avail, as we spent most of the week scrambling far behind him. We really barely even saw him. We only saw glimpses of his head bobbing above the crowd in the distance.

We walked behind him in a line all week. Mom and Tyler consistently held up the caboose, with Tyler sneaking off to buy ice cream every 20 minutes. I fell somewhere in the middle, occasionally having to walk with a fierce limp because of my blister. Kenzie and Andrew also fell in the middle. Andrew constantly checked his Disney app for wait times, and Kenzie occasionally demanded that we all slow down and smell the roses, if you will.

Trevor could be found in the middle as well, or in the hotel room taking a nap.

In many ways, Trevor is a mini version of Dad, but this week he set himself apart. He did not want to come to Disney World with us at first. He said the crowds would be miserable, and he would rather not disrupt his daily routine of sitting at our kitchen table at home and eating Taco Bell.

We managed to drag him along, but beyond that he refused to concede to us on a number of hot topics. For example, on Thursday, a 90-degree day of suffocating sunshine, Trevor insisted, against our protests, on wearing his jacket.

We spent Thursday at Universal Studios. The morning was a cool and cloudy 80 degrees. For a while, Trevor’s jacket did not strike us as unusual. By late morning, however, the sun was in full force, and we were all in maximum sweat mode. This is when Mom noticed, with horror, that Trevor still had his jacket on.

Mom: Trevor, why are you wearing your jacket?! Take that off.

Trevor, with sweat glistening on his forehead: I’m fine. I’ll take it off if I’m hot.

Soon after Mom’s attempt, we harassed Trevor again.

Kenzie: Trevor, you look ridiculous. Take off your jacket.

Trevor: I’m fine!!!

We decided that Trevor wanted to leave the jacket on because it had pockets, and he wanted to keep his phone on him in his pocket at all times.

Sam: Trevor, Dad can hold your phone. You’re not going to get lost.

Trevor, nearly melting with sweat: I’ll take it off if I’m hot!!!

We reminded Trevor that he is 18 years old, and if he were to be separated from us without a phone, he could fend for himself and find us, by borrowing a phone, asking an employee for help, etc. Trevor’s response to this was, ‘I’m fine!!!!’

We reminded Trevor that we once lost Tyler in Animal Kingdom when he was younger and phoneless, and he managed to find us again pretty quickly. Soon after we realized he was gone, Dad got a call on his phone from a NY number. He answered and heard a mopey Tyler ask where we were. Tyler said he was at the dinosaur, which wasn’t very helpful because there are a number of dinosaurs in Animal Kingdom. Nevertheless, Tyler persevered and we found him. Obviously, an 18-year-old Trevor could manage to do the same.

But Trevor continued to wear his jacket and resist a lot more badgering from his family. Eventually though, Trevor ditched the jacket – probably because he needed to let his sweaty shirt air out – and he then carried it around with him for the rest of the day.