Pass the vodka please

"I hate it here. Why don't we ever go anywhere? This place sucks!"

Seventeen in a small town. Need I say more? The exact phrasing changes from day to day but the overall sentiment is unyielding and harsh. Boring. Stupid. Hate.

She says we are old and boring and lame and stupid and a half dozen other unflattering adjectives, usually when she thinks we are out of earshot but not always. She cannot and will not comprehend budgets and bills because she's never had to fend for herself, and refuses to accept that vacations are more than just loading in the car and heading down the road. After all, her parents go on holiday at least once a month, to places like Italy or Switzerland or the Black Sea. Her parents have regular parties with wine and friends, and her parents would not be caught dead in a town like this.



She isn't ours. We agreed to host her for a school year, a child of obvious privilege from an eastern European country where public transport puts everything within reach and entire countries just an afternoon's drive away, where the legal drinking age is eighteen but younger are served without fuss. From a town of 350,000 to one of barely 1000, culture shock has nearly sent her into the fetal position, and taken us along with her.

She doesn't grasp the idea of an American mortgage, or the fact that our modest two bedroom home cost more than the flat and summer cottage her parents own combined. Cars should only cost a few hundred dollars, a few thousand at most, and should be tiny and fuel efficient. Any observation that contradicts her worldview only proves that Americans are stupid.

She can prove it, lest I care to argue. Her mother once showed her a research paper that showed American IQs to be significantly lower than the rest of the world. According to this paper, (which I have yet to see produced) it is a marvel I can tie my shoes without assistance. I counter by pointing out that despite my two digit IQ I have watched every episode of Dexter, CSI, and NCIS, and will have little trouble disposing of her once she finally wears out my patience. We'll see who is stupid then, when I'm standing topside and she's dissolving inside a barrel.

She started in on me again the other day, and finally I'd had enough.

"You want to go somewhere so badly, then you pay to get us there."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you pay the gas, plus 1/3 of the hotel costs and your meals while we're there. Or buy three roundtrip tickets. I don't care. You pay to get us there and we'll go. Otherwise shut up."

Having calculated it to be cheaper to rent a small car and fuel it over pouring diesel into our ravenously hungry 4x4 she agreed to pay for the rental instead, a move that is not sitting well at all with my husband. Rightfully pointing out it has a habit of snowing in the Rockies during late December, he insisted on the 4x4, offering to cover the difference in fuel.

She balked. The truck is not environmentally friendly, she says, and she will not be a party to the waste of fuel or yet another display of American arrogance and over consumption.

Tomorrow morning I leave in an overloaded Corolla driven by one pissed off husband determined to get us stuck in a snowbank somewhere so he can make her get out and shovel, and flanked by one self righteous and world weary teenager who will no doubt find the entire trip horrid and boring and take every opportunity to kick the hornet's nest that I am rapidly becoming.