Long Drive

That long drives, especially with family, are daredevil undertakings is an indubitable fact.  Furthermore, I have observed that with time, these sojourns tend to consistently rise up on the scale of effortfulness.  Gone are the days when I could just hop into the car and drive 10 hrs from Youngstown OH to Louisville KY to meet my friend Amit a.k.a. Cookie, deliberately choosing country roads instead of interstate highways and stopping at random convenience stores along the way to purchase local brands of weirdly flavored Pringle-like chips, tiny mint chocolates, and orange colored sodas.  Gone, also, are those days when Pavana and I would go on long drives through winding Pennsylvania roads, chewing the rag about this and that, me sitting at the wheel and Pavana carrying out her favorite project of tidying and organizing the glove compartment, and occasionally reprimanding me whenever she found a half eaten chips packet or a receipt that showed proof that I had once eaten chips out of a packet.  

These days the drill begins many hours before the actual drive.  The notes app on the phone starts getting populated with a long list containing some straightforward entries like phone charger, diaper bag, E-ZPass, etc. and some mysterious ones like banana, pot etc.  Next, two large suitcases are pardoned from their exile in the dark regions of the basement and loaded with clothes that seem to be enough for a couple weeks but are in reality intended for only a couple days.  A dozen stained Walmart cloth bags find their way to the kitchen island and start getting filled with snacks that are blasphemy on regular days but inexplicably not so for the drive.  Meanwhile, the Instapot merrily beeps away announcing the culmination of the cooking process of tomato rice that would then be transferred to individual Tupperware boxes for everyone to eat on the go.  A meticulous strategy is chalked out detailing which bags go where in the mini-van, when baby is fed and changed, who uses the restroom last, what is the sequence of getting into the mini-van, who sits on which seat, etc.  When it is time to leave, everyone gets into the mini-van as planned, but not without considerable yelling and shrieking and a couple extra trips back into the house because the person responsible for filling water bottles forgot their job.  Finally, a single chant of "Bolo Bajrang Bali ki Jai!" puts an end to the commotion and everyone settles down.  The rubber hits the road and everyone heaves a sigh of relief (and silently prays that the baby won't fight the shackles of her car seat).  

Within 5 min, a lone voice is heard from the back seat -- "Are we there yet?"