The Shortest Trip

We’ve all said it. And if we’ve been parents for more than a year or so, we’ve all heard it:

“Are we there yet?”

My third brother, Scott, held the world’s record for consecutively asking this question during our annual family vacations to Lake George. The trip between our suburban Philadelphia home and the lake lasted about eight hours. Scott’s interrogation ra 7:59:30.

Kids are always in some kind of a damn hurry. They’ve got stuff to do, and it’s all out there somewhere beyond the present. Why walk when you can run? Why think when you can just go for it? From launch pad of infinite youthful immortality everything is possible, and nothing has ever happened. Yet.

I know. I’ve watched it, and I’m convinced that the shortest distance in the universe is that between toilet training and graduation.

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