During the Stay at Home order, I’ve seen lots of social media posts from family members joking about how difficult it is to be stuck with each other.
Maybe it’s because we’re all stir-crazy or we’re just desperate to find humor in something, but I think the jokes are hilarious and relatable.
The last time I spent several, consecutive days with my dad and brother, I also felt like I was losing it.
About 10 years ago, my brother and I moved from California to Georgia with my dad.
Instead of flying across the country, which might have been the preferred option, my dad rented a U-Haul.
On the surface, yes, I get that it was practical because we had to move our belongings somehow.
But, for reasons I still don’t understand, my dad was wholeheartedly convinced that spending every waking hour, crammed leg-to-leg in the front of a moving truck for four days straight would be a great bonding experience.
My brother, Torey, and I weren’t thrilled about it, but we were used to traveling and didn’t have another option anyways.
To ease the pain, my dad stopped at a gas station before we left and let us choose any junk food we wanted to bring.
My brother really set the tone for the adventure when he insisted on choosing a jumbo bag of Jack Links teriyaki “Tender Bites” – not even beef jerky, dried beef nuggets – as his snack.
So, with the cab of our moving truck smelling no different than a ripe bag of dog food, we set off on our trip.
Early on, the two boys created some sort of unspoken alliance in which they committed to entertaining themselves by teaming up to bother me.
I still remember the aggravation I felt when dozing off well after midnight on our second or third night driving when the two decided to read aloud every billboard, fast food sign or even license plate they saw.
Later on, they even joined forces to make sure I couldn’t listen to the radio as a distraction.
The one time they let me shuffle through the stations, I found the jackpot for any twelve-year-old girl: a Taylor Swift song. Naturally, my dad and brother immediately locked eyes and very loudly sang their own, incorrect words long after the real song ended.
There was no entertainment value whatsoever in anything they did, aside from seeing what reaction they could get out of me.
The more annoying one could be, the more worthy of congratulations from the other.
Their antics got to a point that I was honestly impressed with the creativity, given the limited resources.
At the start of the trip, I thought getting to my own room in Georgia would be my only escape.
But, once I learned to just laugh along with my family (even at my own expense), I was excited to be in our new home together.
When we turned in the U-Haul we kept a tiny, quarter-sized pinecone that was sitting on the dash.
My dad has kept it in each of our homes since that trip and it’s become a family mascot of sorts.
He’ll occasionally see it and ask one of us, “Remember our trip to Georgia?”
It’s usually met with us groaning and him laughing, but deep down we both know how much our dad’s forced quarantine actually did bond us.
Even so, I can’t say I’m unhappy to be living with my current roommates instead of my family during this Stay-at-Home order.
-Kayleen Petrovia is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.