On the Road With Barnie and Edward

     Edward and I spent approximately 11 hours in the car together over a 48-hour period this weekend without committing a violent act on each other.  We are very proud of our behavior.
     Don't get me wrong.  There was yelling, and some verbal abuse.  There were comments like:
     "Don't you think you should apologize?  I apologized before when I said something mean and nasty.  Now it's your turn."
     "No, I won't give you the water, because you just ate tuna fish and if you drink from the bottle, the water will taste like tuna fish."
      "That was my banana."
      This really was one of our best car rides.
      Despite the lack of violence and mayhem in the car, I emerged at our destination in Harrisburg, PA with a raging case of heartburn.  After checking in at the downtown Hilton, I walked over to the nearby CVS to buy a bottle of Mylanta.  Halfway down aisle 14, the lights were turned off, and there was an announcement over the Public Address System (rather unneccessary since I was the only one in the store) that the CVS was closed.
       Really?  At 5:30 on a Friday afternoon, when I have heartburn?
       So, I screamed. Now I'm not kidding here folks. My parents used to call me Screech Mouth, among other loving nicknames, and it was accurately descriptive.  "I need Mylanta!  Now!"  The lights flipped right back on and even though somebody who worked there apparently had to catch a bus, I now heard over the Public Address System, "Take your time, Maam."
       That wasn't even one of my ear piercing, high pitched screams.
       The next day, having been cured of my heartburn, we went to a lovely family function where I interacted with some of my favorite relatives.  One of them is my 27-year-old cousin, Pete.  Pete is handsome, smart, a world traveler and a marathon runner.  Despite having all these talents, he is humble.  On the buffet line, I mentioned my run for the penguins (See Barnie Runs for Narcissism, Merchandise and Penguins) and how my training was progressing.  I asked him the time per mile he averaged over a 26-mile run. Being so self-effacing, he was cagey, but I learned that his time per mile is somewhere in the 8-minute mark.  When I expressed shock and awe (not to be confused with shop and awe, which is much more dramatic) at his ability to run so long and so fast and my inability to approach such a feat, he pointed out that he is much, much younger than I am.
       OK, so with all of Pete's talents, that comment tells me that he is lacking in common sense, just like his cousin Edward with whom he shares a gene pool.
       Which reminds me of a time when Edward and I were driving some place and Edward had brought several turkey sandwiches to eat along the way.  As you may have guessed, despite being a thin person, Edward attempts to cope with long car rides by eating his way through them.  For some reason, that could only make sense to him, he decided to bring a large plastic container of yellow mustard with him, instead of putting the mustard on the sandwiches when he made them. 
        We had been driving for maybe 10 minutes, it was about 9 a.m., and it was time to eat the first sandwich.  I was at the wheel.  I heard a lot of unwrapping and lots of noise from the mustard bottle.  Then I heard Edward mutter, "Uh oh."
         I looked down.  On the right arm of my white jacket was a long line of yellow mustard.
         I can't go on any further for fear that what I say could incriminate myself.