John Lee Taggart

Spain ~ Unknown – 2001

During my childhood my family would spend their summer holidays trawling through Europe. Wow, sounds wonderful! Well…sure, it does now, but back then I thought of it as a living hell. I mean, imagine this – five children and two adults squeezed into a battered people carrier, in searing heat…driving, and driving, and driving – STOP – get out and look at a cathedral (groaaaan), driving, and driving, and driving – STOP – get out and look at a museum (groaaaan) …and on it goes, for six whole fucking weeks.

All the while, this is the entertainment my parents provided:

“I SPPYYY WITH MY LITTLE EYE, SOMETHING BEGINNING WITHHHH…T!”

“Trees?”

“I SPPYYY WITH MY LITTLE EYE, SOMETHING BEGINNING WITHHHH…R!”

“Road?”

“I SPPYYY WITH MY LITTLE EYE, SOMETHING BEGINNING WITHHHH…S!”

“Shoot? As in, I am going to shoot myself in the face if we don’t stop playing this horrific game.”

Naturally for a bunch of children that is, simply put; torture of the highest kind! But weirdly now the prospect of a summer road trip sounds like an absolute dream to me, minus the I-spy game of course. That remains in the number one spot as the shittest game ever, that’s undisputed.

As you can imagine there were many hairy moments and weird occurrences during these times, far too many to mention! But there are a couple that always stand out for me – one of which I will tell now…it was a pretty typical summer holiday, we had already been in the car for an unthinkable amount of hours, consequently there was a foul smell of car sick lurking in the air, which made my (then) two year old sister’s rendition of Uptown Girl all the more annoying:

“UPTOWN GIRL! SHE BE LIVIN’ IN AN UPTOWN GIRL – SHE BE LIVIN’ IN AN UPTOWN GIIII-RRRL, SHE BE LIVIN’ IN AN UPTOWN GI-RRRL.”

(Short three second intermission)

“UPTOWN GIRL! SHE BE LIVIN’ IN AN UPTOWN GIRL – SHE BE LIVIN’ IN AN UPTOWN GIIII-RRRL, SHE BE LIVIN’ IN AN UPTOWN GI-RRRL.”

(It was like this until the end of time, or at least so it seemed!)

Eventually the day got away from us, and the darkness started to set in (as in night time – not death, unfortunately). As usual we began our usual search for a camp site sign, so we would have somewhere to stay for the night…only this time, there wasn’t one…we kept driving, and driving…but nothing…of course this was in the days before smart phones and GPS, so we tried to check the tattered map…no luck there either!

It was now pitch black.  

There was only one thing for it my Father said, we’d have to camp here, and just continue on in the morning. We didn’t really have the energy to protest, and to be honest we did seem totally out of options, so desperate for sleep – we all scrambled to clip together the tent poles, and stamp the pegs into the soft ground beneath us…my Mother decided it was safer (for her and the baby) to sleep in the car…we weren’t given this luxury of course!

The night was cold, but as we all nestled in next to each other it soon got warm, if not a little gross and clammy. That’s when we heard him…

“RARRRAAAA-HAHA!”

“Ohhhh my Goeeeddddd…what was that?” Did you hear that?!”

“RARHEEEE-HAHAHA!”

We all clung to each other as some mad bastard started hitting the side of the tent, and then attempted to pull on the entrance’s zipper…

“Ahhhh, ohhh, Jesus-fuck…what, did you? What is it? WHO ARE YOU – GO AWAY! Just, PLEASE.”

We tried to stay perfectly still, but we couldn’t help but shiver in fear, we all tried to shove each other out as offerings for him…

“Go see him, he wants you, you’re oldest…do you think I want to die?! I’m not going out there! I don’t want a stranger using my skin as clothes!” Or my skull as a tea cup!!!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Arghhhhhh!!!!!! Hail Mary, full of grace…”

“MEEEE-HAHAHA!”

That’s when we all began to urinate in our sleeping bags…well, I assume I wasn’t the only one…and with that we spent the rest of the night hugging each other crying in fear, thinking we were going to be butchered one by one.

 

In the morning we found that we had drove into a field the night before…and the mad axe murderer that had threatened to kill us, was nothing more than…a small scruffy looking donkey.

Still more fun than fucking I-spy.

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