Shot Glass Souvenirs
Friday, August 27, 2010 at 08:27PM
“You are a unique traveling family,” my girlfriend said. I could tell she was trying to be polite.
“Most people buy shot glasses and t-shirts when they go on a trip. Your family buys equipment,” my girlfriend in the backseat added. We were on our way to Los Angeles for a New Orleans style bra party celebrating the end of the summer. Every one had to wear a bra outside their clothing in some decorative New York. Does that count as a t-shirt?” A Russian saleswoman named Angela had been very concerned about my bra wardrobe, working herself into a sweat as she ran between the dressing room and racks.
“Well that certainly wasn’t cause for the extra suitcase,” they razzed me. “What else did you buy?”
Dare I tell them about the heating pad I bought in Boston because my hip went out? While sitting on an old bench seat on the Ducks Tour Boat, my hip popped out. Limping through the Freedom Trail with my kids was an interesting way to experience the blood, sweat and tears of the American Revolutionaries. I nally broke down and headed to the pharmacy to buy a heating pad and Advil.
My husband called, “Can you get me two screwdrivers? I need to put some equipment together.”
Probably freaked out by his truly lame wife, my husband went to a sporting goods store and bought a pull up bar, an exercise band and in. atable exercise ball. With the screwdrivers, he assembled a torturelike contraption and did pull ups o. the doorframe. Me on my heating pad, him on his bar was possibly our best Mars and Venus moment.
Loading up our car for Maine was an adventure. By then the family had also acquired a can of tennis balls (to roll on my hip), several copies of the Declaration of Independence, and a stack of books from the Harvard Bookstore. We tipped the valet so generously he brought us a six-pack of water.
Hanging out in Maine, my husband immediately forgot his exercise plan as we ate lobsters, clams and garlic bread. My youngest daughter did acquire a fan for her room, which got fairly warm. My heating pad was still used nightly and once during the day a. er I accidentally drank hydrogen peroxide that was in a glass to clean my retainer. (I obviously couldn’t retain the memory that it was not water.) ere’s nothing like throwing up foam to make you question your ability as a mother.
In New York City, our nal stop, I stopped using the heating pad and bought a fan. I don’t know if it was the New York heat or some kind of lobster withdrawal, but I needed a breeze and my youngest was not sharing. By then our pile of stu. had grown substantially but that didn’t stop me. I bought a gorgeous blue glass cake plate and an adorable shell art turtle in an antique store in Soho.
Fortunately, a cousin had borrowed a large suitcase from us in July and taken it to New York. Breaking into a sweat, I packed up our acquisitions. And it all t, except for the pull up bar which was fortunately le. at my mother-in-law’s house.
“Oh and there were two boxes of glutenfree cake mixes I bought in Maine,” I added, nishing o. my list to the girlfriends.
“What?” they screamed. Luckily, we had just arrived at the party and my souvenir interrogation session was over.
As we entered the party, an attendant with a rack of bras greeted us, “Ladies, may I get you a bra to wear?”
“No, thank you,” I replied. “This time, I actually brought my own.” I put an old bra on as a belt and headed inside. It was time to nd a shot glass lled with something refreshing and unforgettable.






