What I did on my summer vacation

We didn't take a lot of big vacations when I was a kid. Both my parents worked, we didn't have a huge travel budget, and I'm sure the idea of listening to my brother mimic everything I said (everything I said) in the backseat (in the backseat) wasn't a big road trip selling point. But there was one summer vacation I still remember vividly all these years later.

Not long after my brother was born, Mom and Dad left him with my grandparents and took me on a road trip to New England. Our primary destination - Santa's Village, in Jefferson, New Hampshire. It probably should have seemed weird it was warm enough for denim short overalls (suck it, Laurie Partridge) at Santa's place, but I assume my parents told me it was his summer residence or something. Like Castel Gandolfo is for the Pope, but with elves.

I wasn't one of these kids who was scared of Santa, but I also wasn't overly interested in perching on his lap, in the summer or at any other time of the year. Photographic evidence would suggest my thoughts were a candy cane swirl of reluctance, suspicion and a keen awareness that, even though it was only July, my cooperation could make or break my Christmas.

There was, at some point, a train. This pint-sized locomotive left its quaint station and took its merry band of passengers down the track and into a wooded area. I was now five and a big sister - bring on the solo train ride! My parents agreed, and I was all aboard for adventure. Except...part way 'round the trip, somewhere deep in a glen that looked suspiciously like where Hansel and Gretel were last seen, the train stopped. I don't know if this was due to the little engine that couldn't give a rat's ass, or if this temporary standstill was merely a way to make the passengers feel like they were getting their parents' money's worth. All I knew was that I was in the middle of a creepy forest on a hunk of unmoving, brightly-painted metal. We were sitting ducks. There was only one thing to do. I went rogue.

I hopped off that terror train, and I ran. I ran away from that train like Harrison Ford in "The Fugitive".  Sobbing and flailing, I ran until I saw signs of civilization again (likely about 100 feet up the track),bursting to safety to see my waiting parents wondering what the hell I was doing. They seemed neither overly concerned about my predicament nor impressed by my dramatic return, especially when the traitorous little tank engine steamed into the station about 12 seconds behind me. They didn't know. They hadn't been there. They hadn't seen the things I'd seen.

As a kid, I loved monkeys. And on this trip, there was a zoo with a big enclosure full of them. Disclaimer: my father loves animals, really he does. He's brought home more dogs than Paris Hilton. It's just that, well, he loves to tease them.  He truly believes they enjoy it. He would be wrong.

This one monkey in particular kept reaching through the bars of the cage. And when someone would offer their hand, he'd slap them or grab their wrist. Dad saw this as carte blanche to beat the monkey at his own game. So when the monkey next slapped Dad, Dad pinched his little toes. The monkey, as monkeys are wont to do, went bananas. He snatched the brand new (like an hour old) baseball cap right off my father's head and pulled it back through the bars. My father tried coaxing, he tried bargaining, he tried cursing, he tried faking the monkey out. He may have tried to trade me for the hat. Mr. Monkey was having none of it: he sat just out of reach, screeching, and he ripped that hat to shit with his little teeth, eyeballing my father the entire time with a "That'll teach you, jackass" glare.  My father was incensed, the other visitors were amused, the monkey was victorious. My father learned a valuable lesson that day: just because Duke, our black Lab, thought Dad was hilarious, that did not mean all creatures great and small (and angry) agreed. I, too, learned a valuable lesson: never wear a brand new hat to the zoo.

I don't remember returning home from that vacation, though I doubtlessly had a few new freckles, at least one episode of car sickness, and several mosquito bites. But I do know this: while many people look back fondly on idyllic summers spent on a lake, or at the time they rode their first roller coaster, for me, nothing will ever say "summer vacation" quite like a runaway train and a revenge-seeking primate.