A Cursed Labor Day Vacation


My partner’s dad recently purchased a house on Panama City Beach. For the long weekend, he decided to go down for a little rest and relaxation and to check out the new digs. Mostly because my writer’s group meets today, I opted to stay home.

We knew the tropical depression that would become Tropical Storm Lee was bearing down on the area. But the forecasters didn’t expect it to reach hurricane status, and they predicted it would make landfall quite a ways west of Panama City Beach. We agreed the storm was no reason for him to change plans.

Normally, he’d take Tico with him. His chihuahua travels well, adores my partner, and pouts anytime he gets left behind. But Panama City Beach isn’t dog friendly so he decided Tico would be better off staying home with me and his half-sister, Toodles.

My partner’s older sister was supposed to go with him. At the last minute she decided not to go. I felt a little bad about not going since he would be all alone. He insisted he was fine and looking forward to having some time to himself.

This morning he messaged me to let me know it was raining cats and dogs and that his dad hadn’t yet arranged for cable television. I checked the Weather Channel and saw that the rain was likely to continue through Monday. Ever the optimist, he replied that he’d brought along tons of reading he needed to catch up on and would be fine.

Fortunately, he has family in the area he can visit. Hopefully they are Georgia fans so he can watch our game on television tonight. If not, he has his iPhone and an iPad with Netflix on it so he can check the score and watch a movie.

He’s supposed to head back sometime Monday. We shall see. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if sometime tomorrow he turns up here in…

My Glass House