New Brunswick — With the passing of another damp March Break, traffic on our section of the Trans-Canada flowed like mucus from a congested nose. The usual lineup of invulnerable 2003 Dodge Neons and weekend-warrior yuppies driving their newly retired parents’ SUVs made their presence known on the roads.
One of these caravans traversing the drive-through province contained the McDermott family, who were enjoying their second “vacation” of the year. The Manatee caught up with Mrs. McDermott, who experienced an unusual episode.
“My first-born plugged himself in about fifteen minutes into the trip — he’s usually the first to go, weak like his father. After that, his siblings fell like dominoes.”
Despite expecting the bare minimum of spousal support while braving the twists and turns of Route 2, her husband of twenty years “gave me a weak smile and slipped on his greasy old Bose earbuds.”
Discouraged but still standing on the fringe of sanity, Mrs. McDermott fiddled with the radio until she landed on CBC Music.
“I tried tuning in to Vinyl Tap for a bit, but listening to Randy Bachman trying to stutter out an anecdote for seven minutes felt like a waterboarding. You’d almost wonder if that the old burnout is making it up as he goes along.”
After turning Bachman off in the middle of his explanation of how he co-wrote “Kiss From a Rose,” Mrs. McDermott told us that she began looking at the road ahead and counting the dashed lines as they raced toward her.
“It started with the counting, you know — one, two, three, and so on. Next thing I knew I was telling myself how I needed a vacation from my vacation,” she said, unable to control her laughter.
“We chatted for a bit about everything, from work to what was on TV. I even made a funny joke about how I paid for the phones that the kids are listening to.”
The rest of the McDermott clan are encouraging their matriarch’s newly found conversationalist.
“If she’s able to a have a full discussion on Scandal fan theories without me, she has my full support,” said Mr. McDermott.