"Roughing It"

So, when I was younger my brother played hockey. This was kind of a big deal where I come from- like 80% of males play hockey until high school (okay, I made that number up but it's probably fairly accurate).

Anyway, once they hit traveling hockey age (like...9) it gets to be a huge commitment. There are only a few weekends out of three and a half months where you won't be on the road at least partially.

Not having any family immediately by, and being a good big sister, I was along for most of these trips. (I got perfect attendance a lot before this- then I just started laughing at the concept of a full week of school.)

My brother and I are about three and a half years apart in age, the only thing we really had in common was a mutual love of our parents and cousins.

Until traveling hockey.

He was now old enough to share my love of Pokemon and DragonBall Z; we would sometimes swap games for our Gameboy.

Then we got the most amazing thing ever- A PS2.

No, it doesn't sound good anymore what with modern gaming consoles- BUT IT WAS GLORIOUS THEN! Because it not only played DBZ Budokai or Backyard Baseball (which I was pretty terrible at), but it played DVDs.

My parents got a little converter that plugged into the cigarette lighter and could generate enough power from that to power a little television we had placed between the driver and front passenger's seats AND the PS2.

(As a side-story, I sort of resent that television- it ended up eating my Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring VHS.)

It was amazing. Five hour drive to frickin' Virginia, MN? NO PROBLEM!!! We would just plug in some headphones and watch a movie or try and destroy each other with some Super Saiyan skillz.

Of course we also tried to do our homework >_> (Mostly we slept...that's probably why neither of us graduated with honors.)

Sometimes I wonder what kids did before this kind of technology existed...I imagine some of them ended up throwing their siblings out of the car door (obviously child safety locks didn't exist).