May 8, 2025 • 12 mins
This week we meet Mac. Mac’s on vacation. With his wife and teenage kids. They drove down to Duck on the Outer Banks. For a week of sun and fun.
Mac’s not happy. Mac dislikes vacations. Hates sitting around on his duff. But he has to tow the line. Can’t irritate the wife. Ruin it for the others.
The days grind on. Mac starts to ruminate. Recalls his spring break to Key West back when he was a senior in high school.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator, and author. We hear at the ten
minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to
(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Mac, Ma's on vacation with his
(00:46):
wife and teenage kids. They drove down to Duck on
the Outer Banks for a week of sun and fun.
Mac is not happy. Mac dislikes vacations, hates sitting around
on his duff, but he has to toe the line.
Can't irritate the wife, ruin it for the others. The
(01:07):
days grind on, Mac starts to ruminate, recalls his spring
break to Key West, back when he was a senior
in high school. Spring Break. Mac and the family drive
to Duck for spring break takes close to ten hours
(01:29):
with all the Easter weekend traffic. Takes an hour just
to get out of Jersey and over the damn Delaware
Memorial Bridge. Mack just about jumps out of his skin,
drops more f bombs than a Scorsese gangster flick. His
wife is not happy, evil eyes abound, and the kids
(01:49):
in the back of the packed minivan snickering every time
another bomb drops. And then a week of long, languid
days on duck in an almost beach front house, Mac
can ill afford gigantic six bedroom monstrosity. His wife booked
(02:10):
playroom on the ground floor with ping pong and pool tables,
five bedrooms, each with its own full bath on the
first floor, kitchen, dining room, living room, one vast wide
open space with huge picture windows on the second floor,
and a third floor master bedroom suite larger than most
Manhattan apartments. All this for Mack, his wife, their fourteen
(02:35):
year old daughter, and their two sons, ages sixteen and seventeen,
Five of them in a house that sleeps thirteen. Just peachy,
thinks Mac as he opens the massive Tully carry box
on top of the mini van and starts hauling in
the prodigious amounts of gear. When he was a kid,
(02:57):
his family never went on vacation, and when they did go,
thirteen of them, well, actually only eleven, including mom, Dad, Mac,
his seven siblings and their mother's mother stayed in a
house that may be slept five or less packed him
in no big deal. Nobody complained. At least, the weather's pleasant,
(03:18):
mostly sunny and warm enough for the wife and kids
to lie on the beach and work on their tans
and stare at their phones. The whole lot of them
can lie around on the beach for hours, even the boys.
It drives Mac crazy. He's too antsy to work on
his tan or lie still for even five minutes, and
the ocean's way too damn cold for body surfing. So
(03:42):
what does Mac do? Well? He tries reading a book
something he finds in the house, summer Land or Summertime
or something. Mac makes it to page fifty three or
so when suddenly the main character, an eleven year old kid,
starts talking to fairies and wears and long dead baseball players.
(04:03):
Enough of that shit. By the afternoon of the second day,
Mac is bored to tears. He's walked to the beach,
gone on a couple bike rides, done some surf casting
with a rented rod, throwing the lacrosse ball around with
his boys, played some pool and ping pong, and eaten
more goddamn pastries. And he usually eats in the year.
(04:26):
He's ready to get the hell out of Dodge or
duck head home, get back to work, finish that chapter
about his protagonists old man that he's been struggling with
for months. But hey, the family's on vacation. They tell
Dad to chill while they sit around eating chips and
scrolling through their goddamn phones, taking iPhone picks of themselves
(04:50):
and each other out on the big wrap around decks
with views of the world beyond. One of the kids
sticks an oh b X sticker on the of the van.
Mack would like to stick a sticker on the back
of the van that says vacations suck well. Mac is
a veteran of the family vacation. His wife insists on
(05:13):
at least two of them a year, usually three. Mac
knows he has to just sit tight and try not
to get too gnarly, hold on a happy face, or
at least a face not too obviously fed up and
pissed off. Late in the afternoon of the third day,
Mac twists the top off an ice cold yingling, takes
(05:36):
a couple deep swigs, and begins to ruminate. He always
winds up ruminating on vacation. It's all there is to do.
Sitting up on the widow's walk atop is master bedroom,
sweet the three hundred and sixty Degreviews of the Atlantic
and Kuratuk Sound to kill for. Mac recollects his spring
(06:00):
break when he was his oldest son's age, a seventeen
year old high school senior with just a few months
until graduation commencement. What did he do well? He climbed
into a Ford station wagon with four or five other
knuckleheads and drove non stop from Jersey to Fort Lauderdale,
(06:23):
drinking bud and smoking weed and changing drivers on the fly,
Climbing into the back of that wagon with the Duffel
bags to take leaks out the back window, right out
onto the interstate, with fellow highway travelers looking on aghast.
Twenty or so guys from his senior class staying in
three or four rooms in some cheap motel a few
(06:46):
blocks back from the beach. Nobody's sleeping, much partying night
and day, playing volleyball on the beach with good looking
girls from Virginia wearing teeny bikinis, shades and wide brimmed
straw haeses. All you had to do was ask Still
his literary aspirations already simmering, Mac was done with the
(07:10):
Fort Lauderdale scene after just a couple days. He asked
Buckley if he wanted a hitchhike down to Key West.
Buckley had been going along with Mac's schemes and dreams
for years without a word, and so off they went.
Made it to Marathon by around nine that night. Mac
felt lousy, weak, and sunburned. They paid twenty bucks for
(07:35):
a flea bag room and a no name motel. Cockroaches
the size of cats raced around the bathroom. When Mac
flicked on the light, scurried down the shower and sink drains.
His piss was bright yellow, the color of the sun.
The moron was totally dehydrated. He barely had a sip
(07:56):
of water all day. His face was redder than a
ripe beef steak tomato. He puked twice and went to bed.
One double bed in the room eighty five degrees at least,
no ac, no fan, windows opened wide, but it made
no difference. Like a goddamn sonnet in that room, they
(08:20):
both tossed and turned and sweated all night long. The
broken screens led in the skeeters. They feasted on Mac's
sunburned skin. No matter. They had places to go and
shit to do, and old dead guys to see. They
had youth on their side. Not long after dawn, they
were back out on Root one, thumbs out, bellies filled
(08:43):
with eggs and bacon from a local greasy spoon. Mac
had a gallon jug of water at his side and
a brand new floppy hat on his sunburned head. Some
queer bell and a Pontiac convertible picked them up and
hauled them across the street of Florida to Big Pine Key.
Along the way, the dude asked them if they wanted
(09:05):
to make a hundred bucks, what do we gotta do
for it? Asked Mac, just play on the beach naked.
Let me shoot a roll of Codo chrome. Fuck dude seriously.
Late morning, they reached Key West, found another cheap flea
bag out by the high school, stowed their gear and
headed into town. Cozied up to the bar at Sloppy
(09:28):
Joe's on Duval. No one carted them. They drank some beers,
then over to Captain Tony's on Green Street, more beers
and a shot of whiskey, each thoroughly soust The two
young men, both college bound in the fall, stumbled over
to Whitehead Street and paid a couple bucks to enter
the old Hemingway house At nine o seven. Mac tripped
(09:53):
on the front steps, where he sat for quite a while,
laughing his ass off and telling Buckley how old had
penned such classics as for whom the bells tolls, the
snows of Kilimanjaro and green hills of Africa. Right here,
little man, right here, in this fucking house, right here,
where we're sitting right now. They toured the house and
(10:18):
petted the cats, and Mac stared in awe at Hemingway's
black Royal typewriter, still sitting on the desk where hem
hunted and pecked his way to immortality. When that grew boring,
they walked up to Mallory Square for the sunset extravaganza,
then back to Sloppy Joe's or Mac had got in
(10:39):
a fight with a guy who called Hemingway an average
writer and a giant son of a bitch, wound up
with a black eye and a chiptooth. The memories Mac
polishes off his yingling in size my Hemingway period. Shi
it something I had to get through Later at dinner
(11:03):
at some absurdly priced seafood place with eighteen dollars old
fashions and forty two dollars mahi mahi steaks, Mac says
to his boys, high time to make this a spring
break to remember. So tomorrow, at the crack of dawn,
I'll want you to up and out of the house
(11:25):
without your mother, and don't come back without photographic evidence
on those goddamn phones of yours that you made it
down to okracoke boarded at least one commercial fishing vessel
sat at a bar in order to beer, even if
the bartender tells you to get lost and chat it
up at least one girl half as good looking as
(11:49):
your mama. Hey, thanks for listening to this original audio
presentation of Brainbreak, narrated by the author. If you enjoy
today's story, please take a few seconds to rate, review,
and subscribe to this podcast, and then go to Thomas
(12:11):
William Simpson dot com for additional information about the author
and to view his extensive canon. The ten Minute Storyteller
is produced by Andrew Bliglisi and Josh Kalani and is
part of the Elvis Duran podcast Network in partnership with
iHeart Productions, So until next time, this is Bill Simpson,
(12:35):
your ten minute storyteller.
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator, and author. We hear at the ten
minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to
(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Mac, Ma's on vacation with his
(00:46):
wife and teenage kids. They drove down to Duck on
the Outer Banks for a week of sun and fun.
Mac is not happy. Mac dislikes vacations, hates sitting around
on his duff, but he has to toe the line.
Can't irritate the wife, ruin it for the others. The
(01:07):
days grind on, Mac starts to ruminate, recalls his spring
break to Key West, back when he was a senior
in high school. Spring Break. Mac and the family drive
to Duck for spring break takes close to ten hours
(01:29):
with all the Easter weekend traffic. Takes an hour just
to get out of Jersey and over the damn Delaware
Memorial Bridge. Mack just about jumps out of his skin,
drops more f bombs than a Scorsese gangster flick. His
wife is not happy, evil eyes abound, and the kids
(01:49):
in the back of the packed minivan snickering every time
another bomb drops. And then a week of long, languid
days on duck in an almost beach front house, Mac
can ill afford gigantic six bedroom monstrosity. His wife booked
(02:10):
playroom on the ground floor with ping pong and pool tables,
five bedrooms, each with its own full bath on the
first floor, kitchen, dining room, living room, one vast wide
open space with huge picture windows on the second floor,
and a third floor master bedroom suite larger than most
Manhattan apartments. All this for Mack, his wife, their fourteen
(02:35):
year old daughter, and their two sons, ages sixteen and seventeen,
Five of them in a house that sleeps thirteen. Just peachy,
thinks Mac as he opens the massive Tully carry box
on top of the mini van and starts hauling in
the prodigious amounts of gear. When he was a kid,
(02:57):
his family never went on vacation, and when they did go,
thirteen of them, well, actually only eleven, including mom, Dad, Mac,
his seven siblings and their mother's mother stayed in a
house that may be slept five or less packed him
in no big deal. Nobody complained. At least, the weather's pleasant,
(03:18):
mostly sunny and warm enough for the wife and kids
to lie on the beach and work on their tans
and stare at their phones. The whole lot of them
can lie around on the beach for hours, even the boys.
It drives Mac crazy. He's too antsy to work on
his tan or lie still for even five minutes, and
the ocean's way too damn cold for body surfing. So
(03:42):
what does Mac do? Well? He tries reading a book
something he finds in the house, summer Land or Summertime
or something. Mac makes it to page fifty three or
so when suddenly the main character, an eleven year old kid,
starts talking to fairies and wears and long dead baseball players.
(04:03):
Enough of that shit. By the afternoon of the second day,
Mac is bored to tears. He's walked to the beach,
gone on a couple bike rides, done some surf casting
with a rented rod, throwing the lacrosse ball around with
his boys, played some pool and ping pong, and eaten
more goddamn pastries. And he usually eats in the year.
(04:26):
He's ready to get the hell out of Dodge or
duck head home, get back to work, finish that chapter
about his protagonists old man that he's been struggling with
for months. But hey, the family's on vacation. They tell
Dad to chill while they sit around eating chips and
scrolling through their goddamn phones, taking iPhone picks of themselves
(04:50):
and each other out on the big wrap around decks
with views of the world beyond. One of the kids
sticks an oh b X sticker on the of the van.
Mack would like to stick a sticker on the back
of the van that says vacations suck well. Mac is
a veteran of the family vacation. His wife insists on
(05:13):
at least two of them a year, usually three. Mac
knows he has to just sit tight and try not
to get too gnarly, hold on a happy face, or
at least a face not too obviously fed up and
pissed off. Late in the afternoon of the third day,
Mac twists the top off an ice cold yingling, takes
(05:36):
a couple deep swigs, and begins to ruminate. He always
winds up ruminating on vacation. It's all there is to do.
Sitting up on the widow's walk atop is master bedroom,
sweet the three hundred and sixty Degreviews of the Atlantic
and Kuratuk Sound to kill for. Mac recollects his spring
(06:00):
break when he was his oldest son's age, a seventeen
year old high school senior with just a few months
until graduation commencement. What did he do well? He climbed
into a Ford station wagon with four or five other
knuckleheads and drove non stop from Jersey to Fort Lauderdale,
(06:23):
drinking bud and smoking weed and changing drivers on the fly,
Climbing into the back of that wagon with the Duffel
bags to take leaks out the back window, right out
onto the interstate, with fellow highway travelers looking on aghast.
Twenty or so guys from his senior class staying in
three or four rooms in some cheap motel a few
(06:46):
blocks back from the beach. Nobody's sleeping, much partying night
and day, playing volleyball on the beach with good looking
girls from Virginia wearing teeny bikinis, shades and wide brimmed
straw haeses. All you had to do was ask Still
his literary aspirations already simmering, Mac was done with the
(07:10):
Fort Lauderdale scene after just a couple days. He asked
Buckley if he wanted a hitchhike down to Key West.
Buckley had been going along with Mac's schemes and dreams
for years without a word, and so off they went.
Made it to Marathon by around nine that night. Mac
felt lousy, weak, and sunburned. They paid twenty bucks for
(07:35):
a flea bag room and a no name motel. Cockroaches
the size of cats raced around the bathroom. When Mac
flicked on the light, scurried down the shower and sink drains.
His piss was bright yellow, the color of the sun.
The moron was totally dehydrated. He barely had a sip
(07:56):
of water all day. His face was redder than a
ripe beef steak tomato. He puked twice and went to bed.
One double bed in the room eighty five degrees at least,
no ac, no fan, windows opened wide, but it made
no difference. Like a goddamn sonnet in that room, they
(08:20):
both tossed and turned and sweated all night long. The
broken screens led in the skeeters. They feasted on Mac's
sunburned skin. No matter. They had places to go and
shit to do, and old dead guys to see. They
had youth on their side. Not long after dawn, they
were back out on Root one, thumbs out, bellies filled
(08:43):
with eggs and bacon from a local greasy spoon. Mac
had a gallon jug of water at his side and
a brand new floppy hat on his sunburned head. Some
queer bell and a Pontiac convertible picked them up and
hauled them across the street of Florida to Big Pine Key.
Along the way, the dude asked them if they wanted
(09:05):
to make a hundred bucks, what do we gotta do
for it? Asked Mac, just play on the beach naked.
Let me shoot a roll of Codo chrome. Fuck dude seriously.
Late morning, they reached Key West, found another cheap flea
bag out by the high school, stowed their gear and
headed into town. Cozied up to the bar at Sloppy
(09:28):
Joe's on Duval. No one carted them. They drank some beers,
then over to Captain Tony's on Green Street, more beers
and a shot of whiskey, each thoroughly soust The two
young men, both college bound in the fall, stumbled over
to Whitehead Street and paid a couple bucks to enter
the old Hemingway house At nine o seven. Mac tripped
(09:53):
on the front steps, where he sat for quite a while,
laughing his ass off and telling Buckley how old had
penned such classics as for whom the bells tolls, the
snows of Kilimanjaro and green hills of Africa. Right here,
little man, right here, in this fucking house, right here,
where we're sitting right now. They toured the house and
(10:18):
petted the cats, and Mac stared in awe at Hemingway's
black Royal typewriter, still sitting on the desk where hem
hunted and pecked his way to immortality. When that grew boring,
they walked up to Mallory Square for the sunset extravaganza,
then back to Sloppy Joe's or Mac had got in
(10:39):
a fight with a guy who called Hemingway an average
writer and a giant son of a bitch, wound up
with a black eye and a chiptooth. The memories Mac
polishes off his yingling in size my Hemingway period. Shi
it something I had to get through Later at dinner
(11:03):
at some absurdly priced seafood place with eighteen dollars old
fashions and forty two dollars mahi mahi steaks, Mac says
to his boys, high time to make this a spring
break to remember. So tomorrow, at the crack of dawn,
I'll want you to up and out of the house
(11:25):
without your mother, and don't come back without photographic evidence
on those goddamn phones of yours that you made it
down to okracoke boarded at least one commercial fishing vessel
sat at a bar in order to beer, even if
the bartender tells you to get lost and chat it
up at least one girl half as good looking as
(11:49):
your mama. Hey, thanks for listening to this original audio
presentation of Brainbreak, narrated by the author. If you enjoy
today's story, please take a few seconds to rate, review,
and subscribe to this podcast, and then go to Thomas
(12:11):
William Simpson dot com for additional information about the author
and to view his extensive canon. The ten Minute Storyteller
is produced by Andrew Bliglisi and Josh Kalani and is
part of the Elvis Duran podcast Network in partnership with
iHeart Productions, So until next time, this is Bill Simpson,
(12:35):
your ten minute storyteller.
Host
Bill Simpson
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