My Five Most Miserable Vacations

Anyone can have a #miserable vacation. It doesn't take much:  bad weather, altitude #sickness, food #poisoning, ratty hotel, the list goes on and on. And that's for norms--normal people with great expectations for an enjoyable holiday. Folks like me, your basic #dysfunctional neurotic, can have a total meltdown if even one thing goes wrong. Here's what happened to me once upon a time and here were my honest-to-goodness reactions:

1. #California See Everything from San Francisco to Santa Barbara: My expectation was to see beaches everywhere I looked, but of course in #SanFrancisco they were basically non-existent. My husband tried to tell me that I was jumping the gun, but I insisted on calling our travel agent and giving her a hard time. "Why did you suggest this trip when you knew darn well I wanted to  be near the beach? I don't care about the sharks, the sea otters and the beautiful view of Alcatraz. I just want to rest and relax. John Muir what? I don't care about #humongous trees. Right off that's too much shade for a stay-in and I want a tan, desperately. And by the way, why didn't you tell us about that early morning fog that lasts until noon? Half the day is over before I even think of getting into a bathing suit." I did settle down once we reached Santa Barbara, but by then my husband was ready to throw me to the sharks.
2. Bermuda in #Hurricane Season: Again, my expectation was beaches, and what did I get? Well, first off we ran into newlyweds, and I had to hear all about their wedding, her  dress that took six months to pick out and how great it was, and how terrific her in-laws are.  I was about to die of boredom, but  I  opted for an anxiety attack when I realized she looked way better in a bathing suit than I did. So I began to #obsess about that for the rest of the beach day. My #OCD was at its height then, so there was no stopping the ruminations. All I had to guide me through this black tunnel of doubt were MAO inhibitors, and despite my diligence monitoring my diet for foods that clashed with Parnate, I found myself after dinner  holed up in the hotel with a migraine-size splitting headache and the absolute belief that I was about to stroke out. Even though my husband spoke to a local ER doctor at a nearby hospital, I was sure I wasn't going to survive this massive assault on my brain. Fortunately the symptoms faded within one hour at which time I cursed my shrink for prescribing these pills and debated whether to #fire him on my return or just report him to the American Psychiatric Association. However the best of Bermuda was yet to come.

No sooner did we plan to take the ferry to Hamilton than the rains came. Who knew August was the worst month to plan a getaway to Bermuda. The rates weren't any lower, my travel agent never said a word, and we were too stupid to google the weather (oh wait, the #Internet wasn't here yet so we would have had to get our weather information the old way, whatever that was). As the rains inundated our hotel and all the pretty pastel homes nearby, we sat in the lobby and objectively considered our options. "Let's get the hell out of here," my husband said. "It's going to rain for the next 40 days and I can't stand looking at your sour puss much longer."
 I did feel disappointed and sulky, and things got worse when I heard over the radio that #Elvis died. Yup, every person from my generation knows two "wheres": where they were when  #JFK was assassinated and where they were when they first heard Elvis died. Well, I didn't cry or go hysterical or anything--I was never one of those music freaks who knew every lyric, what group recorded what hit, the backup singers, etc.--but I had counted on seeing Elvis sometime in Las Vegas. Now my dream was busted. That and the rain convinced us to fly home. But of course we didn't stay there for long--hubby wasn't into puttering around. So we kissed the dogs, paid the babysitter, and decided to finish our vacation days at the Playboy Club in the Poconos. Not a wise decision! The weather wasn't much better in #Pennsylvania, but at least I wasn't the only female strutting around in a bathing suit with a few extra pounds in all the #wrong places.

3.  A nerve-biting vacation was ironically our first trip to Arizona to scope out the area. Before we left Phoenix to drive via Lake Powell and Hoover Dam to Las Vegas, I heard about a passenger jet crashing and all the people dying on impact. Of course I obsessed about that for the rest of the time, but I must admit it didn't stop me from winning $140 at Keno (my highest gambling earnings to date).

4.  My trip through Virginia Beach to Myrtle Beach. This was a double doozie. When we got to Virginia Beach, I decided to make friends with a couple in the motel pool. They turned out to be a lot like us--no children and a wide-ranging fear of everything--but she introduced me to the book "Sibyl." That, as you may recall, formed the basis for a TV movie of the same name with Sally Field (of "you really like me" fame).  I loved Sally Field in the version, but my friend in the pool (let's call her "Nancy" since I really don't remember her first name anyway) practically read the whole book to me. Even before I checked the book out of the library, I knew Sibyl had a lot more personalities than in "The Three Faces of Eve" (a movie that starred Joanne Woodward). And her diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder was all because of abuse--her mother did lots of ugly things, but giving her enemas ad infinitum was the worst. When Nancy first divulged the story line, my imagination went berserk, and I started wondering if my mental problems were perhaps caused by some kind of abuse that I couldn't quite remember. I worried about this off and on until we arrived in Myrtle Beach. I stopped obsessing then only because we had a bigger problem. Potential fatal injury. The hotel we had booked was still being built, and we were supposed to walk around the exposed electrical wires, backhoes, and excavators to get up to our room, which was on the third floor overlooking a sun-lighted atrium populated by workmen. Well, the nonexistence of safety measures pushed me to the breaking point and I insisted we check out the next day and return home.

5. My #honeymoon--yeah, yeah I know it's supposed to be blissful, but what if you're exhausted? We thought it would be exciting to go to Hawaii since at that time it wasn't that commercialized and you could actually rent a car without fear for your life amid the heavy traffic congestion that was yet to come in the '90s and thereafter. It was about a 10-hour flight to Honolulu from Newark with a one-hour layover in LA. By the time I arrived in Oahu, my biological clock was so screwed I didn't know whether to eat dinner or breakfast. So I compromised and had a hot fudge sundae. I literally slept through the next 10 days as we junketed to Maui, Kaui, and the Big Island (where the volcano is now erupting) and saw everything and I mean everything. I especially remember dozing off at the Polynesian Cultural Center and dragging through a botanical garden, a perfume factory, and a special aquarium with endangered turtles. On a two-hour cruise to something historical in the middle of the Pacific that I cannot recall--perhaps Diamond or some blowhole, I do recall that my husband volunteered me as entertainment and I had to dance while the emcee wove a hat for me out of bamboo or some other indigenous plant. It was lucky that I was exhausted; otherwise I would have been even more embarrassed. Thank god, at least I didn't have to hula, or maybe I did--I may have wiped that memory from my cortex. I could go on, but these recollections are about all I can stomach.

  Email me with your most miserable vacations. Come on, we've all been there, no matter what we tell the folks at home!