Monday, August 17, 2009

Tater's Bladder

Arby will be on vacation this week. Please enjoy this post from his old blog, Arby's Archives.

Internet maps and driving directions tell me that the trip from my Kansas home to my parent’s home in Chicago should cover 531 miles and take 8 hours, traveling over arguably the world’s most boring stretch of road, Interstate 72 from Hannibal, Missouri, to Springfield, Illinois. This is, of course, if you discount I70 from Denver, CO, to Kansas City, MO, a stretch of highway so flat and so boring your brain cells will seriously consider Hari Kari. I suppose that if I drove non-stop except for one gas refill I could make the trip in 8 hours. My dad completed the drive in 8 hours and 15 minutes many years ago. The flaw in the internet map information is that it is based upon one driver driving non-stop except for one quick gasoline fill-up and a Depends change. In reality, travel time calculations should be based upon Tater’s Bladder, a new algorithm of my own creation.

Tater’s Bladder is quite simple. I take the door-to-door distance of the trip in miles and divide by three. The answer is the number of bathroom stops I’ll have to make from my front door to that of my final destination, because three is the number of mile markers that I will pass before my daughter Tater announces, “Potty, daddy. Potty!” Add ten minutes for each stop. On our last trip, the answer was 177. 177 stops times 10 minutes per stop equals 1770 minutes of watching Tater look at a public bathroom in pure horror and say, “Nooooooooooooo!” while waving her hands frantically in front of her. 1770 minutes of stops divided by 60 minutes in an hour equals 29.5 hours of bathroom stops where the girl squeezes out a tablespoon of pee before cheerily announcing, “All done!” Add eight hours of actual driving time and we’re scheduled to arrive at my parent’s house next Thursday.

Thimblena Bladderina made it her personal mission to visit every public restroom between Kansas City and Chicago. I’ve only now just recovered enough to blog about the experience. Yesterday, I sat down to calculate our travel time between Kansas City and Fort Benning, Georgia, for our December trip to meet the Boss when she returns from Iraq. I determined that in order to meet her on December 10th we need to depart for Georgia last April.

Clarence, can you help me get from Kansas City to Fort Benning in two days?

Ohh, there must be some easier way for me to get my wings.

2 comments:

Teacher Mommy said...

Too, too funny! Have a great vacation!

CrossView said...

Which is why I prefer to fly. Always! ;o)