Cannibals and Corn Dogs

We went on a quick family vacation and it turns out going on vacation with Ryder is…fun.

We decided one evening to drive through a state park on their relaxing nature drive.

Ryder (out of nowhere while looking out the window): I love cannibals.

Chase (appalled): What?

Ryder (un-apologetically): I like everything about them.  Even their furry humps.

Me (hoping I’m not raising a complete monster): Where did you learn about cannibals?

Ryder: From the Cat in the Hat.

Cory (chiming in as he always does right before shit hits the fan):  You love camels.

Chase and I simultaneously: Oh!

After driving through the windy turns on the relaxing nature drive, Ryder gets car sick and vomits all over himself, his car seat, the floor, a blanket, my hopes and dreams  (okay, not really my hopes and dreams but his puke was everywhere.) 

Fast forward to a few days later on our way home from vacation when we enter a gas station.  I carry him into the gas station because he got an owie on his foot a few days earlier and couldn’t walk for an entire weekend.  You know, the kind of owie that is already mostly healed, but you accidentally look at it again and remembering the tiny, minuscule pain you once had makes you cry and somehow makes you develop an obnoxious limp.

Any who, Ryder looks longingly through the sneeze guard at the last, lonely corn dog shimmering from grease in the overhead fluorescent lights.  He whispers in my ear, while not breaking his eye contact with the corn dog but now placing his hand delicately over his throat as he speaks, “Ever since I got car sick, my throat has been telling me to eat a corn dog.”

So the kid got a corn dog, with ketchup. On the side of course, because your corn dog touching ketchup prematurely is “disgusting and gross” and leads to not eating said corn dog.  Do I really think his throat had been whispering to him for days tell him to eat a gas station corn dog?  No. But I admire his effort.