Two days in and I already want to take your head off

The day after our wedding I was so tired. I would try to formulate thoughts and instead my brain would squint and just spit out TIIIIIRED. I don’t think I have ever been so worn out. So naturally, after a last brunch with our friends and family, we had to pack and get on a plane to Costa Rica.

The red-eye plane ride was like some kind of nightmare come to life. So tired I think I might fall over! and yet! stuck in an aisle seat where I cannot! actually! sleep! I was uncomfortable and increasingly cranky. Steve, in between his long bouts of restful sleep (have I ever been so jealous of his ability to sleep anywhere? no, no I have not), kept assuring me that we would be there soon and I could just sleep on the way to the hotel and then take as long a nap as I wanted. See, we decided very early on that we would be renting a car for this trip, seeing as we’d be traveling during rainy season and had read that Costa Rica’s roads become something of a water park ride during rainy season. Renting a manual was so very much cheaper than an automatic, and as a manual aficionado, I knew it would be much more fun to drive.

Our conversation about it went something like this:

Steve: So it looks like we should get a manual, it’s so much cheaper.

Sierra: Sounds good to me! Wait, can you drive a stick?

Steve: Pretty much, I should probably practice before we go though, but I’ll be just fine.

Sierra: Okay!

Cue: Very tired newlyweds climbing into the car at the San Jose Thrifty rental.  I melt into the passenger seat and buckle my seat belt, delirious at the thought of reclining. And WHAM! A jerk and a stall. I give Steve a look. He grins sheepishly and restarts. WHAM! STALL! Still grinning. My eyebrow arches higher. WHAM!

Very slowly I say, You. Told. Me. You. Could. Drive. Stick.

Steve: Well I thought that I could, I mean, I’d practiced a few times before and then Morgan and I went out in her car last week and I figured that it’s not THAT HARD so I would pick it up really easily.

Me: Pick it up! Driving a stick is not something that you pick up in a foreign country! The highway is right there! You cannot get out of the parking lot!

Steve: Maybe I could practice here and get it.

Me: You want me to teach you how to drive stick in the Thrifty parking lot in Costa Rica? So you can get on the biggest highway in the country and then drive for 5 hours?

Steve: Worth a shot.

And so we practice. And he stalls. And I explain and show him and he stalls. Because it’s really difficult to learn in the best of circumstances and this is pretty much the worst. I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that even though my head is stuffed with cotton, I am about to drive for 5 hours in a country that doesn’t believe in turn signals. I want to cry. Instead I turn to him and say, We’re only two days in and I already want to take your head off! Apparently this is the funniest thing I could have ever said and Steve, in his slap-happy state bursts out laughing. We’re sitting in a Denny’s parking lot and he’s hugging the steering wheel, laughing so hard he can barely breathe and I say It’s not funny! I am really tired! and this makes him laugh even harder and before I know it I’m laughing too and then neither of us can stop and when one of us tries the other starts up again and everyone is staring at us like we have absolutely lost our minds.

I get in the driver’s seat and thread my way on to the highway and it juts off in three directions and we don’t know where we’re going and can’t find anything on the map.  And we go the wrong way and I make a killer three point turn on a gravel hill without hitting anyone and we stop to get gas and the Cheetos taste funny and I am so tired I can’t see straight so I pull off the road and we recline the seats to nap in the hot sun. I curl around my travel pillow and say You make me crazy, you know and he says, I know, but you love me.

And I do.