Part I
Part II

The trip from Niagara Falls to Boston had its positives. For one, my physical discomfort dulled the effects of my siblings' tauntings. Their sing-song impersonations of Mr. Jagger singing "Emotional Rescue" and "Miss You" (changed, naturally to Miss SUE) barely penetrated my consciousness. For another, cruise control put a stop to my father's carsick-promoting style of driving, where he accelerates... then eases off... then accelerates again to mimic a boat rocking back and forth.

Until we reached the town of Boston, of course. Good old dad's foot began its familiar rocking motion, and my innards began their now-familiar gurgling and bubbling. This time, the threat came not from the stomach, but from down below. And the threat was dangerously imminent. I alerted my mother to the pending disaster.

"Pull over, [dad's name], Susie needs to use the bathroom," my mother announced.

"Where?" asked my dad.

"ANYWHERE!" commanded my mother.

So my father slowed the car to the curb in one of the swankiest areas of downtown Boston, and I began to breathe a bit easier. Until he gunned the engine and pulled away. It was like one of those horror movies, where you think the monster is finally dead, only to have him leap back to his feet and lunge at you one more time.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" shrieked my mother.

"I think those parking meters over there are 5 cents cheaper," calmly replied my dad.

"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!!" shrieked my mother and I simultaneously.

"Okay, okay," muttered my dad in a hurt tone. The thing that makes this all the more bewildering is that my dad is not a penny pincher. In fact, he is a gregarious good-time Charlie, especially on vacation. What made him turn into a fiscal conservative at that exact moment is unclear, but he turned back around and dropped us off in front of one of the most prestigious hotels in Boston.

My mother and I rushed into the lobby to a man who looked like he had stepped out of a 1930's movie about a grand hotel. He had on striped trousers, a morning coat and a cravat, and he stood in back of a podium looking officious. "Can my daughter use your bathroom?" panted my mother.

Mr. Peanut leaned down over his lectern, and peered at me over his half-moon glasses. My heart sunk at that moment. We clearly did not belong in this establishment. We were in the bastion of preppiness in the heyday of preppiness, and the "smart set" lounged about in the lobby sipping sea breezes with sweaters tied jauntily around their necks. It was as if F. Scott Fitzgerald had come back from the dead and updated his characters for the 1980's, with Izods and Sperry Topsiders and cocaine. And here stood my mother and I, dumpy and disheveled and sweaty and looking every inch the sausage-eating, beer-swilling Midwesterners we were. I was done for, I knew it.

But then that man, that kindly, sainted man, uttered the most beautiful words I had ever heard in the English language: "By all MEANS, madame!" he declared, pointing in the direction we needed to go.

We rushed as quickly as we could with me clinching myself shut. We barrelled through the door, startling the upper crust of society, and I burst into a stall (thankfully, empty.) Once inside, I experienced unparalleled relief, a feeling unsurpassed until my final push brought ÜberElder's 9 pounds of flesh into the world roughly 20 years later.

We emerged from the hotel, me shaking but otherwise euphoric, and proceeded to enjoy the sights of Boston. But of course you KNOW there's more to this story...