Yesterday, my family and I completed a ten hour journey to visit my parents. We bravely ventured forth from our homeland, suitably armed with all the latest entertainment gadgets to keep the kids entertained. iPods, DS's and what have you.
It was not long into the journey that regardless of what you give children to entertain themselves, they'll fall back onto the time honored tradition of annoying the hell out of each other and by extension, their parents.
As a devotee of sci-fi and a writer (somewhat) there of, I had a full ten hours to think over the various travel solutions used in various and sundry s/f novels. There are the classics such as hyperspace/warp speed, folding space for point-to-point translation, matter transmission..... and the list goes on.
Obviously on a terrestrial journey, such methods are not practical, not to mention the technology really just isn't there yet. (are we there yet?) All of which brought me to the lesser used space travel technology a'la slowboat to Alpha Centauri in cryostasis.
And with that a solution suggested itself. If I could just put the kids to sleep, we'd have peace and quiet.We'd wake them up as we pulled into grandma's driveway.... perfect. The technology wasn't an issue as it was 19 degrees outside. All I needed to s\do was roll down the windows in the back and in about twenty minutes they'd be fast frozen. Viola! Low-tech cryo-sleep.
Well as one might imagine, my wife would have issues with my perfectly reasonable and simple solution. Spoil sport!
Nine hours later, we pull into the driveway, destination achieved and we were neither childless, nor no longer was I tightly gripping my sanity.
Well it is Thanksgiving now and I am all better. ....Dreading the trip back though. It seems all the tech gadgets are useless so I might resort to another low tech solution. Perhaps road-kill bingo with the winner getting to stop for a restroom break. Maybe..... I am not too fond of stopping.
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