Maui – The Miniseries, Part II

In my sleep-deprived haze, I forgot to mention one part of the story that's rather germane to the rest of Saturday. Earlier this month, I had the second of two major surgeries, as my temporary crown was replaced with a permanent. A couple of days before the permanent crown, I started having pain in and around that whole TMJ area, which has only gotten worse in the past few weeks.

I went to the doctor on Friday, handed over my $25 co-pay and was told pretty much the same thing that I found with my own internet self-diagnosis. The doctor did tell me two things, though: (1) Flying wasn't a good idea and (2) if I do fly, don't try and chew gum if my ears won't pop.

12:01 PM - My ears are killing me. The pressure is akin to a sinus headache that's been localized within my right ear. After an hour of this, I get some gum from Mrs. Bootleg.

12:10 PM - We're driving down one of Maui's million or so unpronounceable highways and passing street names with two or three superfluous reverse apostrophes. Mrs. Bootleg is holding the map, which is always an awful idea, but like my once-a-year lunch at McDonald's, I keep doing this and always regret it.

12:20 PM - And, we're lost. Y'see…Mrs. Bootleg reads map directions by looking at the entire page of left turns and right turns and final destinations, instead of traveling one landmark at a time. As I told her, I don't care what I'm supposed to do when I get to Main Street if I haven't even gotten to Main Street yet. Now, try to imagine her unique brand of over analysis-cum-nonsense with street names like Puukoll'i Road and Kaahumanu'u Ave, which she describes for me – the driver – as "Kah…Kahma…something".

12:30 PM - We don't stay lost for long. I've since snatched the map from Mrs. Bootleg's hands – and with an exaggerated dramatic flair worthy of a daytime Emmy. Meanwhile, the right side of my head has caved in from the ear/jaw pressure that hasn't been alleviated. Seems the gum has only made things worse.

12:45 PM - We arrive at our timeshare/condo dealie and inquire about checking in early (check-in is usually at 4:00 PM). We're told our room isn't ready. Meanwhile, Little Boy Bootleg – who had been screaming bloody murder for the past 20 minutes – has finally regained custody of his Disney Cars™ Sticker Book that he dropped earlier in the car ride.

12:46 PM - Jalen has lost the book again. With Mrs. Bootleg no less than three feet from him, the boy has lost the book that I just found for him not 60 seconds ago.

12:46 PM and 30 seconds - Mrs. Bootleg has completed her exhaustive "search" for the book, unsuccessfully.

12:47 PM - A once-again screaming child, a throbbing jaw/ear and a disinterested wife lead to my inevitable once-a-vacation blow-up at everyone. Mrs. Bootleg quickly – and, cruelly – responds that she'll never go on vacation with me, again. We're currently two hours and 47 minutes into a week-long stay.

1:00 PM - Nothing soothes spousal wounds better than Jamba Juice. Three "Strawberry Wilds" between us and everyone's back to barely tolerating each other.

1:30 PM - We drive back to the condo and opt to walk over to the beach which, like every place in Hawaii, is right across the street. Fun Fact: Maui is actually a suburb of the sun. Those picturesque Hawaiian sunsets just might be the planet Mercury. I will be bitching about the heat for the next seven days.

2:30 PM - We don't even last an hour in the water, as we're already back at the condo. No one could find the sunscreen and me n' wifey had seen The Farrelly Brothers' The Heartbreaker last weekend. If you haven't seen it, this entry will be entirely lost on you. Of course, I could just say we were afraid of getting sunburned, but that's just lazy writing…

2:45 PM - Our room still isn't ready, so we drive over to the local Safeway for some groceries. Now, I always laugh when I hear people cry about the standard of living in California. I suppose it's expensive to live out here, but our salaries are also higher than the average American's, so in my "Econ 101" mind, it all evens out.

My friends…Hawaii is expensive. Seven bucks for a bottle of orange juice? Seven bucks for a gallon of milk?! Six bucks for a 12.75 oz. bag of Lay's salt n' vinegar chips? $5.69 for Cheez-Its? Jesus, Joseph & Mary…how do these surf-all-day leathery locals afford to eat? Amazingly, a pack of Hebrew National hot dogs was just $3.00. These cost about $4.50 on the mainland. Is there cheap Kosher livestock under all those sugar canes?

3:15 PM - Jalen puts the capper on the afternoon when he asks to go to the bathroom. I generally loathe doody duty in public restrooms, as my son is still at the age where he touches everything. But, I sucked it up and entered – without any hint of hyperbole – the dirtiest public restroom I've ever been in. And, I've been to bathrooms on the beach, kids.

Without getting into too much detail, let me take you back to my first year at San Diego State. At my second college party, an inebriated Aaron Cameron staggered into our host's upstairs restroom to puke booze and any non-functioning organs in the privacy of someone else's home.

I lifted the lid, only to find that the previous user had bombed it from the other end, which, naturally, led me to projectile wretch over everything else in there.

This restroom at Safeway was worse than that.

Without getting into too much detail.