🎧 AUDIO QUACK 🎧
(Skip intro/ me talking about the UFO sighting 2:40)
Mum was sick of how technology was ruining family life. The TV was always on. Her teenagers were obsessed with MSN. Her husband was always on his phone. So, in 2004, she booked a remote ranch in California for a “wholesome family holiday”.
The Cottontail Creek Ranch was 850 acres. It had avocado and orange trees, a fire pit, blankets drapped-over rocking chairs…It was like stepping into a Jack Johnson song.
From the moment we arrived, Mum started acting like we were in a 1950s washing powder commercial.
“Children, would you pick some oranges so I can make fresh juice for you all?”
She decided to bake chocolate chip cookies to kick start the family wholesome week. So, in the Californian heat, she slaved away with a wooden spoon, stirring the dough as a bead of sweat dripped down her face. She rolled, cut, baked, and let the cookies cool by the window.
She was arranging her cookies on a serving plate when the lady who owned the ranch appeared at the door.
The lady announced her arrival with a playful knock in the air, “Knock, knock,” and stepped into the kitchen with a plate in her hand. “Don’t mind me. I’m just dropping off a homemade welcome gift. Enjoy!” She left a plate of gooey, thick cookies on the table.
Mum looked at her crumbling, slightly burnt cookies….and threw the wooden spoon into the sink. “F*** SAKE!”
At home, we would never sit around a table for dinner during the week, because we were far too busy doing what we wanted to do. In fact, it really unnerved me when I went to a friend’s house for dinner, and the whole family, Dad included, would be eating with us. Does nobody have a life around here?
So, on this holiday, Mum cooked dinner every night, and we ate around the table without TV, MSN or phones. Instead, we played card games and got to know each other better.
“What did you say your middle name was, Dad?”
“Robert. What’s yours?”
After dinner, we would sit by the fire place under the stars, spotting the comets as they flew over us. All we needed was for one of us to know how to play acoustic guitar and for Dad to tell stories about, ‘what it means to be a man…’ One thing at a time.
As sweet as family time was, I was 13, so I was a hormonal monster. I would often retreat to an isolated hammock during the day. I had my Walkman, the new Avril Lavigne album, and a lot of hypothetical thinking to do.
Jack and Joe, 16 and 15, weren’t so keen to sit still and think. They would play ping pong for most of their time, but when they got bored of that, they would play a game of swinging their moody sister in a hammock until she stormed off. Such fun. Such SUCH fun.
Mum gave my brothers the idea to go find the pond with the rowing boat. It was a blissful moment, watching them disappear over the hill, knowing I wouldn’t be bothered for the afternoon.
They sheepish when they returned for dinner. And eventually, it came out that they may have maybe, somehow, accidentally…. sunk the rowing boat.
One day, it was announced that the children would put on a talent show as if we were the von Trapp family from the Sound of Music. We had a few hours to prepare and met in the games room.
I was up first. I stood before my family, squashed together on the sofa, they looked like The Simpsons. I missed TV.
I cleared my throat. “This poem is about September 11th…”
Ah, my parents thought, not quite the von Trapp puppet show we were hoping for
After reading a three-minute rhyming couplet poem about the terrorist attack, I bowed to my slow-clapping audience of four.
Jack’s turn was next. Joe got up with him, and they announced they would be ‘sharing their talent’. Their talent? A 15-minute ping-pong match…
After this display of “talent” from their children, my parents agreed that when we get home, we needed to be put into more classes.
We sat under the stars by the fire on the last night of the holiday. Despite being victimised in a hammock, it had been a pleasant week getting to know the team.
“So, what’s your favourite memory of this holiday?” Mum asked as she rubbed moisturiser on her hands – they were red raw from squeezing oranges all week.
The family were silent for a minute as we all thought about the week that had just been.
“OH, I know,” Joe said.
“Yes, Joe?” Mum said eagerly.
“Those cookies the American woman made…”
“Oh yeah, definitely”, Dad, Jack and I agreed simultaneously.
Mum glared into the fire, still rubbing her hands with moisturiser.
And so, we left California with a bill for a rowing boat, and mother who had given up on her wholesome family dream…..
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