The Unfortunate Events of Brenna: My Spring Break Experience

I already know what you’re all thinking.

“Oh no! What awful thing happened to her on vacation? Another bag mishap or fall?”

Well to answer all questions, I did not have an awful trip in Michigan. That’s right, Michigan is where I went for Spring Break. My sister, Danielle, and her husband, Jake Jamison, live there in Harrison Township, which is close to Detroit.

This year, Spring Break started off slow because I worked the weekend before and during, then had a day to relax and lounge, which is a fancy way of saying I stayed in my pajamas all day and ate a bunch of junk food. On my way to babysit my nephew Wednesday, I had to wait for construction on Highway 4.

There, I had stopped right when people had gone to follow a pilot car to the next stop. Lucky me, I was first in the waiting line. The guy that was working the traffic decided to talk to me because he was bored. I had been jamming hard core to some music right before getting stopped and immediately turned down the music.

He casually pointed out that my tires were bald and I told him I was aware and everyone keeps telling me, “It’s all right though, it’s just the outer layer.” Thanks, that makes me feel 100% better. He also told me that my car was squeaky and his truck did the same thing. I was just wanting to get the heck out of dodge, because these are the types of situations I love to avoid, but he kept joking around with me and I just laughed awkwardly like I do when I don’t know what to say.

Then, I watched my baby nephew, which was fantastic, because I spent the day with him watching “Monsters Inc.” and we went on a walk. When my sister, Leisha and her husband, Olán got home, we went to hit some baseballs at his gym. I haven’t done this since softball last year in high school, so I really should’ve done some practice swings or something, but I went full throttle and hit as hard as I could.

I did pretty well, but noticed I wasn’t wearing gloves and my hands were starting to burn. Yep, I got a nice blister on my left hand. It had already peeled off so driving home that night was a bit painful, but it wasn’t too bad.

Thursday was the day that we headed for Michigan. We drove, so this meant five family members all in the same vehicle. We left later than planned and ended up leaving at about 6:30 p.m.

Michigan takes about 16 hours to drive to so we were already behind. When we got into Missouri, it was about 1 a.m. Since I am the night owl of the family, I got to drive the last couple hours to Hannibal where we stayed for the night. The next day, we took a detour and went to Chicago, where I navigated with grace of course, and got to see Wrigley Field and ate at a pizza place that was pretty interesting. When we got to Michigan, it was 2 a.m. and we were exhausted, so we said hello to Danielle and Jake and went straight to bed.

The next freezing day, they took us around Michigan, and we got to see some of Detroit and the GM Renaissance Center, which was the largest building in there. Jake works for GM, so he took pleasure in being our guide. Danielle showed us where she worked and we all had fun eating at their favorite restaurant. Saturday night, Danielle, Kylie and I played games until 4 a.m.

On Sunday, we went to church and enjoyed the rest of the day napping (for me) and touring again. Later that night, I found out that I had classes Monday that I was unaware of. I guess I’m used to Easter Monday being off. I was upset at myself and had to email all of my teachers and let them know I was missing class, and I had an exam on Tuesday that I had been studying a bit for, and emailed her about missing the exam. Let’s just say I was not happy about missing this much, but at the same time, liked the distraction from life.

That brings me to Tuesday night before writing this. I was just getting settled into bed in Little River with a plate of pizza in one hand, a pop in the other while moving a blanket out of the way. That went badly and my pop went all the way to my wall, it sprayed so much. I had a lap full of fizzy liquid and my can was still foaming all over my hand. So my bed needed to be changed and I got upset thinking about the decent week I had had with no unfortunate events. I spoke to soon.

On the bright side, and despite my sore muscles from the batting before the trip and blister that is still on my hand, I got to see my sister and her husband for the first time since Christmas and had a good time. Also, on our way to Michigan, we had just missed four total accidents by only a little bit. So, someone was definitely watching over my poorly-scheduled family.

Brenna Eller is a Little River freshman in journalism

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