Mat's Family Vacation

Day 0: The Preliminaries - Okay, so my dad is all gung-ho about taking a big family adventure this year. And of course, my reaction was fairly normal with a "What the fuck are you thinking?" I decide not to go. So for weeks they're badgering me to come along. And what is this big adventure they have planned? West Edmonton mall and the Drumheller dinosaur museum. Sorry to anyone who lives in Drumheller, but I fucking hate you. Anyway, I don't want to do either of those, but my dad swears we'll find something fun for me to do. In a moment of weakness, or possibley a lapse of sanity, I agree.

Day 1: Through the Rockies - We left around 7 or 8 pm, and made a b-line for Alberta. Already this vacation sucks. FYI, I have 4 younger brothers, and a younger sister. I won't use their real names here, but rather clever psuedonyms. Tubby - The 13-year old idiot man-child. Estroflamer - The 10-year old Romanian foster brother. Little Genius - The 7-year old braniac with the temper of a bull in heat. And finally, BitchBitch - The 5-year old girl, who is spoiled beyond belief. In an argueing crowd of 50, you could pick her voice out among all of them.

Anyway, as I'm sure you can imaging, the trip with these wonderful characters turned sour, fast. They fought all night, so no one got any sleep. And by the time they were quiet, I was already over-tired. Damn the irony.

Day 2: Rocky Mountain House - Around 9am we arrived in this little town called Rocky Mountain House. Despite the name, there are no mountains in site. I already miss BC. We checked into a hotel and...well, did nothing all day. They don't have much in Rocky Mountain House, just a 7-11 and a few A&Ws (They're everywhere in Alberta. The A&W:McDonald's ratio there is about 4:1). Anyway, the day there was excrutiatingly boring, however I did get this dinner at a joint called The Burger Baron. The pizza was great, so I don't know where the fuck they got their name from. That night I actually slept for a few hours.

Day 3: West Edmonton Mall or Mat's Worst Birthday EVER - Okay, my aunt and uncle live not too far from Rocky Mountain House the boonies of a town called Rimbey. My aunt really wants us to come visit today, so we all hop in my parents' huge van, and drive down to Rimbey. We can't find her. We look around for about 2 hours, and my dad (whose sense of direction is worse than Ryouga's) starts to get really pissed off. "Fuck it," he says, "We're going to the mall."

See, now we're in a bad situation, because I didn't want to go to West Ed Mall, and we're going on my birthday. No good can come of this. When we got to the mall we checked into a really fancy hotel. You could order movies, surf the net, or play Playstation. Of course, I got to do none of these things because we "have to explore the mall, Mat! It'll be fun!". Ugh. Anyway, I did explore the mall a bit. They have a Playdium there, but it's not as good as the one here. The games are more expensive, and they don't have as much of a selection. I also found out that, no matter how much I love it, I suck at Dance Dance Revolution. Oh well. West Ed's actual arcade, however, did have a King Of Fighters 2000 machine. It was cool to finally play it, even though I had trouble doing quater-circles with the joystick (KOF on Dreamcast has ruined me!). I spent the rest of the day looking for a game shop called Play Me. I don't know if you've ever been to West Ed, but if you haven't, here's some advice: Always carry a fucking map. I spent about 2 hours looking for it. Then I found it, and it sucked. So I spent 2 more hours finding my way back to the hotel. Worst birthday ever. That night I watched Snatch (the movie, not the part of the female anatomy, although the hotel did have a generous selection of adult titles, including Shaved, Dirty First-timers Do Miami, and My Wife's Secret Sex Life), had some more pizza, and went to sleep.

Day 4: Rimbey, Bentley, and Red Deer or A Night On The Town - When we got to Rimbey we actually found my aunt and uncle's house (which is actually 10 or so kilometres from town) and met up with them. My cousin (yes, the cousin from strip 5. Shut the fuck up.) was there too. I'm fairly close with my cousin (again, shut the fuck up), and she wanted to take me out with her friends to a movie for a birthday, and since I figured it couldn't be worse than hanging out on a farm with my family, I agreed (plus, I had heard she had some hot friends (more pointless use of brackets! YAY!)).

Anyway, I ended meeting four of her friends. Scott, her boyfriend, Greg, the weird one, Krista (I hope that's her name. Not that it really matters, since I never use anyone's real name anyway. Damn, here I go with brackets again, and on a completely unrelated stream of thought), and Mel, the hottie blonde one who looks like Tara Reid *drool*. Where was I? Oh yeah, the movie we saw was Scary Movie 2, which I'm convinced is the worst movie ever made. Also, we were in the front row of the smallest theatre I had ever seen, and the guy behind us kept yelling the most ignorant things I have ever heard. God, this vacation really sucks. However, after the movie we stopped at McDonald's for a bite to eat. The girls and I went in, while Scott and Greg stayed in my cousin's car trying to make it start without putting the keys in the ignition. I actually had a good time that night. When my cousin dropped me off at her place (or her Dad's place, or something. She lives with her boyfriend too). The room I was assigned to was my cousin's old room, and let me tell you this--I love my cousin, but she is one of the tackiest people I know. ALL over her walls and hanging from the ceiling is the weirdest glow-in-the-dark crap you have EVER seen. Honestly, it was brighter in there with the light OFF. Ugh, anyway, that night I slept for at least 6 hours.

Day 5: Rimbey - Part 2 - I don't know whose idea it was to spend another day here, but it won't matter when I kill everyone in my family. The only thing eventful about today was that my cousin took Tubby and I bowling. He bet me $20 he'd beat me, and he lost big time. Of course, it's a week later and he still hasn't paid up. Then I played Samurai Shodown 2 in the arcade, and went back to my uncle's place. I spent another night in the glow in the dark hellhole, and the next day we went to Calgary.

Day 6: Calgary - The only reason we came to Calgary in the first place was because Tubby wanted to meet his girlfriend. So our first night there we stayed in the hotel, went to Moxie's for dinner (and let me tell you, the hostess there was hot. Best I've seen lately, 9/10). I caught a 2-hour learning channel documentary on Martial Arts, which was pretty cool. Then Tubby came back and I made fun of him. Oh, it turns out that Tubby's girlfriend's cousin chaperoned their date, and that she's hot and my age. I must find pictures of said hot cousin...(not MY cousin, you dumbasses! Fuck you again).

Day 7: Drumheller or The Conclusion to the Worst Vacation Ever - Before he headed to Drumheller, my dad took me to this little comic store in Calgary. This was by far the high point of the trip, as said store had at least 200 anime DVDs. I ended up getting a couple of Trigun volumes and 16 or so issues of The Maxx that I needed. I also noticed something driving in the Calgary streets: There are adult stores EVERYWHERE. Everytime you glance out the window it's XXX VIDEOS MAGAZINES LIVE GIRLS et cetera...man, I want to move to Calgary. Anyway, the dinosaur museum was 4 excrutiating hours, that I'd rather not relive. Then we headed home.

What did I learn on this vacation? Well, nothing. What does this vacation say about family values? Again, nothing. What did I take away from this vacation besides material posessions (even though they're really cool ones)? Jack shit. But, I will always be able to look back on this trip, with a tear in my eye, and think "Man, that chick at Moxies had a NICE ass." Thank you. I'm Mat Bondek, goodnight.

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