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Road Trips With Your Husband: 8 Reasons They’re Not Such A Great Idea, Only One of Which Involves Large Wet Noses

Ah, road trips with your husband.

Road trips with your favorite husband, who may, or may not be, the one you’re married to, seem like a great idea. Stopping to gaze at magnificent vistas; staying overnight in romantic B & Bs; hours of uninterrupted alone time in a car. (Assuming you have no children with whom you feel obligated to travel.)

Sounds wonderful. Or, does it?

I spent entire minutes of my spare time, which occur while I’m driving, thinking of 8 reasons road trips with your hubby are not such a great idea.

Deep thinking made me miss a few of my favorite songs on the radio. He’s already interfering with my road trip.

Road trips with your husband on chezgigi.com
I told you we should have asked directions, sweetie.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my guy; he’s handsome and funny and devoted. He’s smart, hardworking, clean, and he used to be a chef. He’s now a mechanic with his own business. All I need him to do is finish medical and law school, and I’ll be all set.

He brings me coffee and breakfast in bed every Sunday, and becomes my self-appointed minion. I couldn’t take that kind of service more than once a week; I’d never get out of bed. Because of his wonderfulness, if he wants to travel with me he can.

But, here are my reasons why you should think twice about taking a road trip with your hubby:

1) He’ll catch you checking out cute guys in neighboring cars.

I thought I was over this phase of my life.

Apparently, we are never over this phase, but the guys have gotten older. I perfected the art of checking out guys in cars in my teens, and didn’t let it get rusty over many years of driving on highways.

Don’t forget sunglasses on road trips. They are the go-to way to hide what you’re looking at. Don’t forget them at the beach, either. There are lots of cute guys there.

Benjamin Franklin invented sunglasses two hundred years ago after he sailed here from England. He never needed them before because the sun never shines on the British Isles. That’s why they eat things like figgy pudding. Lack of sunshine has addled their brains.

Ben had clear glasses for regular stuff, like composing important documents in fancy handwriting, but when he started playing golf, he discovered electricity was hitting him right in the cleats. (This can be painful.) Even when he took up kite flying, he attracted bursts of electricity, and his eyes became so sensitive, he smeared his lenses with charcoal from the fireplace.

Thanks to Ben, electricity made fireplaces obsolete.

After strolling around town a few times wearing his charcoal shades, he discovered his wife couldn’t see where he was looking. This worked out even better when they lounged by the pool, otherwise known as the town’s well water supply. There were no colonial pools.

Once he had sunglasses, Ben invented the Speedo, which he called the Founding Father Banana Hammock, but he wasn’t allowed to wear it in the town square.

So, Ben was able to check out the colonial babes when they came waltzing by with their jugs (for water-geez) by wearing his Founding Father Eye Protectors and his wife was none the wiser. Colonial guys weren’t into the advertising sound bite, and didn’t know from cool names. Ray Ban would have been better, Ben.

This made him a superhero to the other townsfolk, by which I mean men. Once they discovered that Ben could check out babes using charcoal on his spectacles, they started clamoring for glasses, too.

He never forgot his shades on road trips after that, and neither did his wife. I want to call her Martha, but I think that was someone else’s wife.

2) He’ll tell you how to drive, even if you’re Danica Patrick.

She routinely drives 110 miles an hour through school zones and neighborhoods, but cops can’t catch her. Her husband doesn’t really want to go on road trips with her.

I’ve been driving since I was eighteen. I’m not going to do the actual math, because I never do math if I can help it, except for counting from 5 to 10 for a “List of Reasons” post, but it has been over forty years since I first put pedal to metal.

I haven’t had a ticket in eight years, and before that, ten years. I violate plenty of rules of the road every time I get behind the wheel, but I haven’t been caught, and that’s what counts.

And yet, you would think I waited until my twilight years to learn to drive if you heard the litany of instructions when my hubby is riding shotgun.

“Watch out for that building!” “Look out! Here comes a train!”

What does he think I do when I’m alone? Not wait for that careening semi to pass before I pull out?

I multi-task while driving which scares him no end. That doesn’t mean I can’t get us safely from Point A to Point B. I learned this skill on Los Angeles freeways, where it takes days to reach your destination. Coasting down the Sepulveda Pass, on my way to report for a flight with Pan Am, I could find a CD, put on makeup, read a map, check out cute guys, fix my hair, and eat lunch.

I didn’t have a cell phone back then, so it was safe being on the road with me.

3) He’ll know about all the junk you eat.

You’ll know about his deplorable noshing habits too, so make a note.

On solitary road trips you can stop at every McDonald’s for fries, shakes, and those cherry pies that take the skin off the roof of your mouth. Dieting is not for road trips; cops will give you a ticket just on principle if you don’t have bright orange fingers when they pull you over.

This ticket is written under the So, you think you’re better than the rest of us? principle, derived from Olde English Law. The Queen regularly ate Cheetos on road trips, and she didn’t fancy Americans not following suit. Cheeto dust is hell on those white gloves.

cheeto fingers on ChezGigi.com

Road trips offer the rare opportunity to stop at convenience stores to buy and eat all the things you don’t eat otherwise. Licorice whips, stale donuts, Slim Jims, Pringles, and those hot, fat little sausages in jars full of red juice. Your considerate hubby will remind you of all the ways you’re cheating.

If you’re by yourself, just remember to dispose of the evidence before arriving home. If he finds stray Cheetos in the seat cracks, tell him you picked up a nutritionally challenged hitchhiker.

4) He won’t let you turn the radio up full blast.

Half my hearing is lost from listening to the radio full blast. The next driver of my car loses half their hearing too, because I forget to turn it down.

He is not going to let you listen to classic rock at 1000 decibels on a 1500 mile road trip. Alone, you can listen to all your eclectic and embarrassing choices in music without someone yelling at you to “Turn it down!” or just doing it himself.

Plus, you can sing the wrong lyrics out of tune at the top of your lungs.

5) He’ll stop at every yard sale.

You thought I was going to say he won’t stop at every yard sale, didn’t you?

I never want to stop at yard sales. More accurately, I always want to stop, but remember all the crap I already own, and pass them by.

He’ll stop and haggle over that rusty chainsaw some Texas maniac has in his yard. (Only it’s not rust, it’s dried blood, and will be evidence in a court of law someday.) He’ll chat with this guy for hours about the ’56 Chevy parked there too, and then offer to cut the waist high grass it’s buried in.

6) He won’t stop for you to pee.

This needs little clarification. We always have to pee. Girls cannot use empty mayonnaise jars for the purpose God intended, and the seat gets soaked when we try. Not only that, but truckers pass just as you get your pants down.

You’ll have to ask the chainsaw guy if you can use his bathroom, which is conveniently filled with hepatitis germs. If you use it, you’ll never be seen again until Mr. Yard Sale Maniac cuts into his chicken pot pie, and your eyeball floats to the top covered with pot pie gravy.

Don’t worry; he’s just watching what he eats.

“I’m making a “chicken” pot pie. Get in here.”

7) Someone is going to want to Do It in the Great Outdoors.

Whether it’s you or him, only you know for sure. The cozy confines of the car and hypnotic state people fall into, make them think sex on the road is a great idea, and that no one will see them.

It will move from the front seat to a reclined front seat, and then to the hood, and that’s when:

A) A cow or a horse will stick a big, cold, wet nose up your butt, either out of curiosity or because they’ve been watching too many movies and want to try a threesome. Or else the sight of the two of you thrashing around will cause a stampede.

B) You will never, ever get the twigs, dirt, and insect bites off said butt, and be permanently branded with the logo from a hot hood.

C) You will see the two of you on YouTube someday and be horrified. Start a workout routine immediately.

“What are you two DOING?”

 

8) He’ll find out how you really drive.

I yell at other drivers all the time, because they are too slow, too stupid, and don’t know how to make left turns.

If my hubby knows how I carry on, he’ll leave me at the next Pancake House. There’s one at every exit in the South.

I also don’t want him to know I ask directions of every gas station attendant, even if the GPS is perfectly adequate. Adequate it may be, but it has also taken me straight onto dirt roads full of potholes.

This is the opposite of what happened years ago with a boyfriend. I knew how to read maps like a topographer, but he always wanted to check with someone anyway. (Please refer to number 2 reason.) He insisted on asking every pedestrian for directions. Drove me mad, which was appropriate.

Well, I’m all set to start out. I have Doris Day and Matt Munro CDs, a bag of Doritos, a Diet Coke, and an audio book on improving relationships.

Think he’ll listen to it with me while we drive?

 

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2 thoughts on “Road Trips With Your Husband: 8 Reasons They’re Not Such A Great Idea, Only One of Which Involves Large Wet Noses

  • February 14, 2016 at 4:34 pm
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    Loved this. My most recent road trip was a 4 day U.S. crossing with my niece (and her 3 kids) and I can testify that women can multitask fantastically while on the road. She drove with her feet while chatting with me, taking work calls on her mobile while snacking, checking the GPS for the next Starbucks so auntie could indulge in yet another frappuccino and subduing the kids. I was in awe. The one before that was with someone who became someone else’s husband on a road trip across Europe. He had just purchased a new BMW from factory in Germany and the only memory that sticks is being yelled at everytime I entered the car to remove my shoes and clean my feet. Happy times.

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