Favorite Vacation: Final Draft (I don't have a title)

It all started because of football: my two brothers (John and Nathan) and myself were watching the Terrapins game, who just happen to have an awful front line--though you couldn't tell my brother John that, and he wouldn't believe you if you did, anyway. But, for the record, the Terrapins have an awful front line. I commented on how the linemen reminded me of the phalanx in ancient military tactics, to which Nathan responded (because he's not the best in history): "So what is this--Roman Elephants versus the Maryland Terrapins?" That comment brought on a lengthy debate on who had elephants--Rome or Carthage, the Terrapins lost their game, and before you knew it we were in Rome, on vacation (but more just to sort out Nathan's history).

Rome is, by the way, much more hot than San Antonio. So we went straight from the plane to the Pantheon, thinking maybe a tribute to the gods, or at least Apollo, would fix things up a bit--make things cooler. We spent a while roaming about the Pantheon and couldn't figure out what to do before deciding that the Pantheon didn't work and headed to St. Peter's Basilica, thinking maybe we had picked the wrong deity or something.

In the end, neither location made Rome cooler (literally). We went on to the Circus Maximus, which isn't really a Circus after all, but more just a big race track (who knew?). Nathan had thought that there would be elephants at the circus, and it made sense to me, so we spend some time waiting for the circus, or a parade, or something--anything really that might have elephants--until John told us "I told you so" and convinced us to go see the Colosseum. Nathan asked if that was where the elephants were, and John followed the map.

The Colosseum didn't have any elephants, but it was awesome: A big football stadium, basically. We all realized that and started talking about how great it would be if Rome had a football team and what they would be called when Nathan said, "The Roman Elephants of course." Then, remembering the point of the trip: "Oh yeah. Where are the elephants?"

John sighed. "They're not here. That's just it Nathan, Rome didn't have the elephants; Carthage did."

Nathan was of course yammering along with him, mocking him the way we did when we were kids. "Well, you know what? Elephants or no elephants, the Terrapins lost that game."

"And so did Carthage," said John.

Then we went home and made like the whole thing never happened, except every once in a while Nathan mentioned his new favorite football team, the Roman Elephants.