| Running Away By Christopher de Vinck |
| I had finally had it. The children were loud, cranky, impossible. I was tired and fed up. My wife was tired and fed up. I decided that I was going to run away from it all and have a day just for me. I wanted to spoil myself. I wanted to have a day in which I did just what I wanted to do. I was going to live it up and be as greedy as I pleased. I wasn't going to tend to anyone except myself. I zoomed out of the house with fifty dollars. There! I did it! I said to myself as I drove to the highway and headed north. Well, I drove to a mall and had a wild time in a bookstore and bought the collected poems of Walt Whitman. After that I drove and drove to a McDonald's and ordered two hamburgers, my own large fries, and my own large soda. I ate everything without being interrupted, without giving my pickle to anyone, without wiping someone's mouth, nose, lap. Then I bought the biggest chocolate ice cream I could find. I was free. I was out of town, so I drove to a movie theater and watched a movie without buying popcorn, without someone sitting on my lap, without escorting someone to the bathroom. I was a free man. I was living it up. And I was miserable. By the time I had returned, everyone was asleep. As I slipped into bed, my wife whispered, "We missed you." "Me, too," I answered. I never ran away from home again. |