My Most Memorable Memorial Day

Fourteen years ago, on Memorial Day, my brother-in-law graduated from the Naval Academy. Oscar and Emily were understandably quite proud of his accomplishment and decided that an appropriate celebration was in order so; they rented a house in Annapolis and booked airfare for themselves, Oscar’s mother, Hugh, me, my Sister-in-Law and her brand new husband.

The house, while lovely, had only three bedrooms, one of which Emily and Oscar were to occupy which was only right considering that they were financing the trip. Grandma got the second bedroom because, at the age of 81, she had clearly earned the right to a bedroom of her own. That left the third bedroom which, Emily smugly informed me, would be occupied by the newlyweds since they had only been married for a month and a half and, hello! HONEYMOONERS and all.

(And, everyone knows that couples who have been married for over two years aren’t doing THAT anymore, right?)

This left Hugh and me on a pull-out sleeper located in the living room area smack dab in between all of the bedrooms. No big deal, right? Right, except for the fact that I was also smack dab in the middle of the most reproductive week of my cycle and Hugh and I were trying for Thing 1, AKA: The Teenager.

That made things a bit, um, awkward if you know what I mean.

Since we hadn’t told anyone that we were in the family planning mode, I couldn’t exactly pull the We Are Trying to Conceive Your First Grandchild And Need Privacy In Which To Do So card. Therefore, we were forced to engage in some acrobatic and athletic sex in the only room in the house that offered an iota of privacy; the bathroom.

This is how my daughter was conceived on a toilet in Annapolis, Maryland over Memorial Day weekend 1995.

The inconvenience was totally worth it just to see the look on Emily’s face six weeks later when she winkingly informed me that she and Oscar had calculated that I must have gotten pregnant right before we went to Annapolis to which I replied “Actually, Hugh and I figure I got pregnant IN Annapolis.”

Priceless.

This Memorial Day was almost as fun as getting knocked up while visiting our nation’s capitol-we took the boat out for the first time. I have a few things to say about that but; Hugh just asked us if we wanted to hit the all-you-can-eat-Chinese buffet and I never turn down all-you-can-eat lo mein; that just wouldn’t be right.

So, I’m off but, before I go; I just want to thank the veterans who gave their lives defending our freedom as well as the soldiers who fight for it still, today. Without our heroes (including my brother-in-law) there would be no Memorial Day boating trips, no family BBQ’s, no picnics by the beach and, worse yet, no freedom to spew personal stories across the internet.

Thank you. Thank you.