Horsing Around

"What in the name of God are you going to do in Iceland?" I asked my mother.

"See the sights," she replied.

"Give me a couple thousand bucks and you can look in our freezer," I offered.

"Iceland has a temperate climate. You're thinking of Greenland."

"You're trying to tell me Iceland isn't icy and Greenland isn't green? And I suppose A isn't A. Looter."

"Stop being so obnoxious," she said.

"Good luck with that," muttered the oldest boy.

"Besides," continued my mother, "it's on the way to Norway."

"Geographic continuity is no way to plan a vacation. The Slough of Despond is on the way to the Valley of Humiliation but I wouldn't visit either of them," I said.

"What?" she said.

"You'd understand the reference if you hadn't spent your college years running guns and cooking meth."

"I spent my college years in Evanston," she said. "It was a dry city."

"Which gave you a monopoly on the market," I pointed out.

"Be quiet," said the Lovely Bride. "I want to hear about your mother's tour."

"Thank you," said my mother. "He is unbearable. I'm not actually taking a tour of Iceland, however, I'm simply going to spend a day or two there."

"They're letting you run around Europe unattended?" I asked.

She ignored me. "I've heard Reykjavik is very nice," she continued.

"You should go horseback riding there," I suggested.

"Why would I want to do that?" she asked warily.

"The oldest gets to go horseback riding when he's in Australia," I said.

"That sounds like fun," she said to her grandson.

"We even got to name the horse," I added.

"We did not," said my oldest. "He's being stupid again."

"Sure we did," I said. "When we filled out the horseback riding waiver form, it asked for a name."

"They wanted your name," said the boy. "Nobody else would be dumb enough to think they were asking us to name the horse."

"We gave the horse a nice name," I said.

"That was the worst part," my son told his mother and grandmother. "He named it 'Jumpy.'"

"You didn't have any better suggestions," I said.

"That's because we weren't supposed to name it," he snarled.

"We had to," I said. "The Outback's a desert."

"What does that have to do with anything?" asked my mother.

"He can't ride through the desert on a horse with no name," I said.

"Please stop," said the Lovely Bride.