Atco

Alternate Title: The Day I Almost Passed Out From Dehydration, Stress, and Missing My Baby Too Much.

I will have to write this in bullets because way too much happened and you would be reading for hours.

• Most disappointing thing first: I didn't get to eat my White Castle.
• We got on the highway at 2 a.m, should have arrived at Atco by 8, the latest. We arrived at NOON. TEN FUCKING HOURS TO GET THERE. Because we got lost. Because one of the cars in our three-car group blew a tire. Because another car in our group decided to just stop working. We dropped the car off at my friends house in Connecticut (fate broke the car down right at her exit) and squeezed the three fat guys into the other two cars. Fun. Smelly. HOT.
• As I said, we arrived at noon. At 11:30 my mother left me a voicemail that she was being admitted into the hospital, did I have anyone else that could take the baby? Call my SIL, she says she will take the baby as soon as she got out of church. My mother leaves Little Man with her friend until SIL can get him.
• Start worrying about my mother. Consider getting dropped off at the nearest train or bus station and go the fuck home.
• There was no phone service in the track. I kept having to go outside to call my mother, SIL, and to check messages that they might have left.
• Watch a few races.
• Drink a bottle of water without stopping. 16 oz in one sip, gotta be a record.
• Two hours later notice that my SIL has not called, or left messages. Consider hiring a hitman to kill her for being an idiot. If you couldn't pick Little Man up, you should have just told me, not just stopped answering your phone. I told you where I was, I told you what was happening, have some fucking consideration. I could have used this time to find someone else to go get him. And don't ask me for any more fucking favors. As a matter of fact don't fucking call me, I won't answer. (Mind you, today is Tuesday, we still haven't heard from her. But as soon as she needs something she will call and expect us to jump for her. Fuck her. I hate his family.)
• Consider the bus/train again.
• Call his regular babysitter who is more than willing to take him, and I know he will be good to her. Sigh of relief. At least my son is in good hands.
• Watch a few more races.
• Leave the track to call my mother for the 40th time. She is still connected to tubes.
• Drink a Gatorade in one sip.
• Feel faint, go sit on the stands using the shade of the people around me to get away from the sun.
• See lots of dress dont's, want to take pictures but the stupid camera is, well, STUPID. Got no pictures. Of anything.
• I put about five pounds of sunblock on the whole time I was there, and still felt like my skin was sizzling. Maybe this trip was a bad idea? Consider the bus/train again.
• Feeling really faint, eat a burger (blech!) and drink two more bottles of water. Notice how I have not mentioned once that I went to the bathroom? My body was not trying to let go of any fluids for fear of turning to dust.
• Leave the track to talk to my mother and the doctor. They keep stressing she's fine. Then why is she IN THE HOSPITAL IF SHE"S FINE????????
• We left about 4:30-5 p.m I call the babysitter "I should be home by ten or eleven, I'll go and pick him up as soon as I get there." Have I not learned that I jinx myself when I say things like that???
• We are now down to one car- the one Daddy and I were in- which is actually a minivan, packed like sardines because the other car load of people decided to leave earlier.
• We are on the correct highway this time and hope to get home ASAP.
• We hit traffic in NY. Surprise, surprise.
• THREE HOURS WORTH OF TRAFFIC.
• We take the detour to my friend's house in CT to get the other car started and get it home. The boys tinker with it while I sit on the steps with my friend's dad and chat. (My friend was stuck in the NY traffic I just got out of coming back from Six Flags with her kids.)
• The car gets running, though it is smoking A LOT, but who cares? Let's GO!
• The driver of the minivan starts getting sleepy. I think he fell asleep a few times and I was yelling at him to either wake up or pull the fuck over before I throw my sneakers at him.
• I was serious.
• He went over the ridges they have on the side of the highway (to wake up sleeping drivers!) TWICE, and finally pulled over to let someone else drive.
• We get pulled over by the cops because of the smoking car.
• We finally got home at FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. My son stayed at the sitter's and we went home to sleep for two hours before having to get up to go to work. That made the trip home twelve hours.
• I don't think I'm ever going to Atco again.

That was the trip. I didn't have fun because I was thinking about my mom the whole time. But the races that I got to see were great. Puerto Rico beat the US 8-0, all of PR's cars were breaking seven seconds on the quarter mile. US didn't get under eight seconds. I will have an update on my mom tomorrow because when I went to see her yesterday the Dr. wasn't around. I should be able to talk to him tonight.