This past winter I sent my parents the information for an all-inclusive trip I was planning on taking to Punta Cana with some friends for spring break. I was worried my dad might be skeptical of the trip, but he was actually quite receptive. He responded by email, “Hey there falcon! Your mom and I thought this all-inclusive deal was so enticing we had to swoop in on it like buzzards! We thought we could nest up together in one villa like a bunch of eagles. Can’t wait to migrate south with you soon, raptor!” (I don’t know what he was doing with the birds of prey stuff). To say the least it was not the best vacation. Here’s why:

• My mother kept thinking that all of our waiters were Ricky Martin. I had to explain that a platinum-selling musical artist wouldn’t be waiting tables.
• My dad is interested in the Aztecs, and he wanted to see the ruins. But his entire source of knowledge is the critically-panned movie “Apocalypto,” so I had to keep convincing him that various gas stations, bus stops, single-family homes, and fishing boats were not ruined sacrificial altars as he insisted. And that we were not even in Mexico.
• Mom buried me in the sand when I was sleeping as the tide was coming in “to give me a good scare.”
• Dad crushed me in pool basketball in front of everyone and called me a “limp-wristed canary” the rest of the day (again with the birds).
• One day a sea turtle washed up on the beach to lay eggs. Dad insisted that it was dead and tried to carve out the insides so he could take the shell home.
• He brought it home on the plane wrapped in a shower curtain that he stole from the hotel. He made jokes about “carry-on carrion” as he wedged a 200-year old endangered beast into the over-head compartment.
• My friends were actually impressed by my dad’s wanton murder of sea creatures.
• They also thought it was hilarious when my mom put a sea urchin on my towel and I got poisoned. My leg swelled up to the size of a trash can.
• While leaving the bar one night, two guys tried to rob us at knife-point. Dad started screeching while he knocked one guy’s teeth out with the lid of a trashcan and yelled, “Don’t mess with the flock!” And Mom broke the other guy’s nose with an uppercut.
• Anyway, I will not be going on spring break with my parents next year because my friends invited them to Atlantis instead of me.