I'm in Wisconsin Dells with my family. We left yesterday and are driving back to Minneapolis tomorrow. Don't tell our kids that "family vacation" is an elevated expression for two 4-hour car rides separated by two nights in a mediocre motel, a trip to the water park, and a pig roast at a relative's new house. At work, on Thursday, I mentioned to someone that this was my last day at work for a few days.
"Mine too," she said, "where you going?"
"Wisconsin Dells. How about you?"
"Stockholm."
It was about 90 degrees here today, perfect for the water park, and I saw a lot of exposed surface area of middle-class, vacationing Americans. Since we like to watch sea lions floating around at the zoo, perhaps some higher form of life would enjoy the sights at the water parks in the Dells. I can't say I did, but there was one special little moment. I was standing alone outside a women's dressing room waiting for my wife to come out with our daughters. A few feet away a woman was standing with her daughter, who looked to be about four. When after a few minutes her husband appeared, she began speaking to him very loudly in a foreign language. He listened to the end, then said something in an undertone. He must have been defending himself, because her reply, in heavily accented English, though just as loud as before, was: "Well, you could have done that here, you fucking asshole."
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