Details

I'm not much on details. Details pain me and cause me to sweat profusely. They befuddle, perplex and bewilder me.

To mask this Detail Disability of mine, whenever I am asked a question that requires precision or exactness or numbers, my most-used expression besides, "We have yet another infestation," is "Close enough." For example:

Chesapeake Bay Family: "How many bedrooms does the vacation home have?"
Chesapeake Bay Woman: "Lots."
Chesapeake Bay Family: "Will there be enough room?"
Chesapeake Bay Woman: "Close enough."

I was in charge of securing last week's (and last year's and the year before that and every other vacation ever taken, not that I'm bitter or keeping track) vacation home, and it was too painful to sit down and figure out how many people were coming and how many bedrooms we needed. So I randomly--or perhaps intuitively? that sounds better-- picked a number: 4.

Here's how I figured it: I'd get one bedroom, Chesapeake Bay Kids would get another room, Chesapeake Bay parents would get another one, and Sisters could share a room, so four bedrooms should have been enough. Or something like that. Close enough.

Somewhere along the way, Little Sister invited someone. Then Middle Sister asked if she could bring someone. Being the easy-going, happy-go-lucky, non-attention-to-detail person I am, I said, "Sure."

Middle Sister (whose friend ended up not coming) was the last Chesapeake Bay family member to arrive at the beach house after driving 10 solid hours . She dragged her stuff up several flights of stairs and asked where she was sleeping. Only then, at that very moment, did I realize the place for her to sleep was Nowhere.

As if to seek revenge, she threatened to sleep in the room with me every single night. Every night, I'd have to keep one eye on her and one on my bedroom, because that girl can fall asleep in less than a second, plus she's seven feet tall so I would never be able to move her. Or roll her off the bed. Or drag her out of my room and down the steps into someone else's room, for example.

One night she slid in under my radar. One minute she was vertical and singing Brick House very badly, the next minute I blinked and all 7 feet of her was horizontal under my covers, in my bed, in my room. There was absolutely nothing I could do.

In revolt I slept outside on the deck in a lawn chair. I awoke at 2:00 a.m. to a thunderstorm and many bug bites. I still have some on my face.

Somehow, as usual, the insects won this particular battle.

And did Middle Sister spend the entire night in my bedroom? No. She got up in the middle of the night and wormed her way into someone else's room. Naturally she did not tell me this, and after being eaten alive by mosquitoes and practically struck by lightning sleeping outside, I moved to the living room couch unaware that my very comfortable bed was now empty.

The next morning I asked why she moved and why she didn't come get me and why, why, why. I don't remember her answers because I was too exhausted from sleeping half the night outside of a beach house that contained 4 bedrooms and 42 Chesapeake Bay Squabbling Family Members, or at least 5 or 6 squabbling family members. Or was it 8 or 9?

Whatever. Close enough.