Near the end of any good vacation, the action items start creeping back in. You reconnect with your paused life, compiling a list of things to do, people to see, calls to make. The Feeling gently lets you push it aside so you can go back to your commute, your latte, your angst.

Sometimes, the journey is short, as from a spa back to the office; you’re back in a flash. Other times, it’s across the Pacific and it’s the longest day of your frigging life.

It all started with yet another person treating us to breakfast at a swank restaurant. It’s always hard for me to enjoy myself while embarking on a journey - there’s too much to be wary of. Passports? check. Money? check. Kids? Diapers? Toys? Bootleg DVDs? check. What is there’s a problem with my visa? With wife’s green card? What if we get held up at Customs? What if our bags are too heavy? So many things can go wrong - this kind of undertaking grates against my normally worry-free persona.

Packing should be fun - think “Tetris with clothes.” It should be a nice review of your trip so far, unless you’re packing drugs, weapons, and blood-stained boxers. You shouldn’t be screaming at your spouse to leave the wok here because, yes, they do sell those in America. No, you don’t need to bring back seven pounds of pine cones, fly scrotum, and tiger eardrums. Yes, I know curtains are important. Yes, honey, I like spatulas. No, I think a bathmat is a good idea. Just not in my carry-on.

As an American, I’m expert at saying goodbye with lies.
“I really have to leave, I have to go to work - I’ll call you - yeah I had fun, too.”
“This isn’t goodbye, I’ll see you soon. Maybe we’ll think about possibly getting lunch when I get back.”
“It’s not you, it’s me.”

We hate goodbye. It’s final. It’s dark, worrisome, and comfortless. It’s a European movie in which the hero dies. It’s Atheism. It’s an incurable disease. So we pad it, soften it, hold it off until we’re already gone and we didn’t ever really look it in the eye.
“This isn’t goodbye.”

Well, my Chinese family reminded me that no parting is ever guaranteed temporary. As we were leaving, they cried. They may see us later this year. They may email us repeatedly, and talk to us on the phone weekly. But it’s not the same, and they know it. They know goodbye - they look it in the eye. They’re right to be wary. There are no guarantees. So as the bus pulled out, I waved and let their tears remind me what family is. Family is crying at goodbyes.

This sets the stage for the trip home. The cast of this poor play:

• one four hour bus ride from Foshan to Hong Kong.
• one twelve hour flight from HKG to SFO.
• one child, 5 years old, undiagnosed ADD, cries at the drop of a hat, acts out.
• one child, 2.5, diarrhea, spoiled diva.
• one child, 0.5, teething, too old to lie down for long, too young to sit or stand.
• five immense bags, three smaller bags.

At the border, the bus company tries to gouge us into buying another ticket because we have so many bags. They saw a foreigner coming and thought they’d get paid.

Trouble is, we’ve already paid and are halfway through the trip. Imagine landing in Cincinnati on a connecting flight, and being told you’d have to buy another ticket. We were livid. Picture us standing between China and Hong Kong - legally, we’re nowhere - screaming in Mandarin, saddled with about 200 lbs of luggage, three kids and throbbing headaches.

My wife’s a wizard - she eventually finagles us a private car directly to the airport. An upgrade of the highest order, and we didn’t have to pay a dime. Take that you gouging bastards!

In the car my daughter has her first meeting with Montezuma, which enables me to break out that one-handed-put-on-a-diaper-two-sizes-too-small-from-the-front-seat maneuver I’ve been working on. They should seriously make a game show for parents. Make it like Double Dare, but with liquid feces. I’d be their Ken Jennings.

Get to the airport, wait a couple of hours to check in, try to keep the two ambulatory kids from running away - it is the biggest building in the world after all. Try to keep your wits - you can do it. Welcome wife’s cocky best friend. Expect a hand with watching the kids for a short time, feel disappointment when she brings brats of her own. Not their fault, though. Take a deep breath.

Finally check bags. Beg for mercy when it turns out your wife packed an 80-lb bag. Accept friend’s invitation to lunch gladly. Also accept her offer of help when daughter’s runs return. Feel surprise when friend brings back pants full of rocky road. Go ahead, feel your hackles rise. Now go wash your hands.

Eat your bland noodles with a grimace as young son cries and wife’s friend takes everyone else to McDonald’s without telling you. Yell at people to get the hell out of your way as Ronald’s revenge hits. This happens thrice more. Mentally note that your daughter shits a Ferris Bueller in the airport. “Nine. Times.” Be thankful when wife’s friend insists on buying your daughter “medicine.” Politely say nothing when she tells your wife that she’s lacking in mothering skills - Cantonese humor is dry - isn’t it?

Explain your misgivings as friend tries to make daughter take the caustic Chinese pellets right before you head into the security check. You’ll think, “God, that smells like char-broiled Death.” Not Pepto but Chemo. That’s okay. Try to assuage daughter’s panic as friend holds her nose shut and pours them down her throat with water. Say calming things. Tell friend to back off. Hold that famous anger. Hold it. Watch as daughter vomits twice into your hand. Now, hold that.

Watch in horror as your 5-year old nephew sees this and throws up in his mouth. See him scurry to the garbage can and coat it. Feel that wetness on your arm and pants leg and realize, with a sense of the ridiculous, that your daughter has released another ass salvo. Go ahead and turn, look at your wife and say, “Kill me now. Please.”

Do all that and you’ll have recreated one of the craziest passages of my entire life. Daughter emerged from the bathroom wearing wife’s friend’s son’s clothes. He was in his underwear. Thanks, kid.

Security went fine, rushed to the head of the line to board, seats ok, all’s well. Then, as plane is taking off, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be just perfect if..” And then,

“Daddy! Daddy! I have to poop!”
“Excuse me, my daughter has to use the bathroom - now.”
“I’m sorry sir, we’re still climbing - she’ll have to wait.”
I exchange glances with my wife. The flight attendants exchange glances with each other.
“That’s not going to happen.”
The nearest quickly grabs her and holds her on the toilet, while somehow remaining in her seat. A minute goes by - nothing.
“Sir, she appears very anxious - maybe you should come help.”

Walking the four feet there is like climbing a mountain. I get in and hold my kid’s hand. She lets go, but because we’re climbing at such a steep angle, the ejected material goes not down into the bowl, but almost straight to the left, splashing up and around, but luckily not into my eyes, which God left for me to tear out myself.

After that, our son made an appearance, filling a few diapers and refusing to go to sleep. Then there was a medical emergency and they actually asked over the PA, “Is there a doctor on board?” “You lucky devil.” I thought. Then I blanched at the prospect of turning back or spending a night in Seoul. But eventually the kids and wifey slept, but not me, as the c-word sitting behind me refused to put her seat back, and so neither could I. I wanted to tell her that we’re supposed to be sleeping. It was, after all, like 4 AM for us. I wanted to tell her she was the only one on the plane with her reading light on, and that that was inconsiderate. I wanted to tell her that I paid for the ticket the same as her and I shouldn’t be denied the right to sleep. But mostly, I wanted to kill her. I sat there like a scarecrow in a body cast and actually pictured it in slow motion - me taking out her entire row in a parental rage like a married version of The Incredible Hulk. Thankfully, better instincts prevailed.

As we approached America, I once again loathed my wife for making me check “yes” on the customs form that asks the vaguest question on earth. “Are you bringing in any fruits, vegetables, plants, plant products, seeds, food or insects?” Then I had to go through with a dictionary and a book by Gregor Mendel to figure out just what my in-laws had given the wife to bring back to America.

“OK, those toenail things, are those plants?”
“What nails?”
“The toenail things - those white, curvy things for the soup.”
At this point the person sitting next to us gives me a priceless look.
“I don’t understand.” Wife says.
“Remember that time you made the soup with that bark and the pear and those pinto beans?”
“No.”
“Forget it - I’m putting NO and taking my chances.”

Handing our passports to the guy at immigration is nice. We’re almost home. “Sorry sir, can you go to the office for some additional questions?” What? “Sure.” Then we enter the SFO office of Homeland Security. This is where wife is starting to freak out. Here we are, once again, neither here nor there. The unhappy endings from this page of the Choose Your Own Adventure are numerous.

Luckily, the Homeland Security guys are cool and it’s something about Wife’s green card. They do their thing on the computer and tell us to have a nice day. Waiting for bags is fun when daughter and nephew get ahold of a luggage cart and start racing around. With someone’s purse in it. Of course, our bags are last off the plane.

Rides are waiting, and home we go. At long last. Allah hu Ackbar. Short catching up, relaxing, small unpacking. My fists finally unclench, then my teeth. My butthole unpuckers. I breathe out. Everything’s going to be OK.

“JON!!! What the hell? I was gone for four months and you didn’t even clean ONCE?”

Home sweet home.