Have you ever had a distastrous holiday...

[Edwina's Secretary]

Does it count from my childhood? My family (mother, father, brother, and one sister) went to a dude ranch in Colorado. I was 10 or 11. I was expected to pack for myself. I forgot underwear. Had to wash the same pair every night. Had to go to Mass in a dotted swiss dress with no slip. My sister and I HATED the dude ranch. We were not into roughing it.

I am the youngest so I had to ride in the "way back" with the luggage. From Illinois to Colorado. On the way back down the mountain my brother said he felt sick. My mother gave him crackers. I said I felt sick. My mother said you just want crackers like your brother.

I shouted to stop the car. I stood outside the car....in front of a whole group of kids at a camp and puked.

So then I said, "NOW can I have crackers?" My mother (who denies this story every time I tell it ) said....you don't need crackers now!

The next year my sister and I were left at home.

[Tonya]

Gosh, catnapper, that must have been horrible! That is what scares me about cruises...If it isn't any good, you are sooo trapped.

Edwina's Secretary, that bites! I hate getting carsick.

[Tonya]

Ok, last story...I even have pictures for this one. lol.

I have to give a little background first. I have a circle of friends, Jessica, Tina, and myself. We have been bestfriends since I moved to town in the 8th grade. There is a girl, Amanda, who was in their click since Kindergarten. Amanda hated me from the start. She was real serious, negative and motherly. I was to cheery, spontaneous, and positive for her. We didn't fight, but we didn't like eachother much. She moved away our freshman year, so we were never close.

March 2003, My best friend was going to be getting married in Oahu. At first I wasn't going to go because at the time, Jaden was having alot of issues. (They were saying that he was autistic and whatnot.) But, I decided to go and leave Jaden with my parents. (Mike was working alot of hours at the time.)

I found out Amanda was going. No one had seen Amanda in about 5-6 years. I remembered how we got didn't get along in the 8th grade...but hey, we were 24 years old now...I'm sure we'll get along just fine now.

So, we all met at the San Fransisco Airport. So, we all start off on our trip on a pretty good start. We ordered cocktails on the plane and were laughing and swapping stories.

Then, Amanda casually mentioned that she belongs to these clubs and she goes with her boyfriend. Because of the young ones at PT, I can't go into detail, but Amanda lives in San Fransisco, and they have some pretty gross, illegal, and immoral ummm clubs there. (No offense to those of you who belong to these groups ) And apparently, this stuff is no big deal to her. So, Jessica and I are kind of thinking "Whoa..." But, trying to be halfway polite. All I nicely said was "Wow, I couldn't bring myself to do such a thing." And she started screaming at me about how I am to close minded and this and that. So, I appologized and thought "Gosh, this chick is wierd." Then later on I find out that Amanda's boyfriend is 63 years old. She's 25, with a 63 year old boyfriend who *cough* likes to dress up like a woman and go to these *cough* clubs with her. Wow. So, okay, a little awkward of a start.

Then, Jessica announces that she only brought $50 to spend the whole week. I'd already paid for her flight, Tina (the bride) had paid for our stay, but still....we had five days there! And Jessica was the maid of honor, she can't be running around Hawaii without money. I didn't want her to be embarrassed so I gave her $300.

So, we get to Oahu and go to rent a car. I find out that I can't rent one because I was two weeks from my 25th birthday and you have to be 25. Amanda was already getting her own rental car, so I offered to pay for it if she'd give us a ride here and there. Not to inconvienient, we're staying in the same place and going to the same places. It was a bummer, but no big deal. At least to me...

So, we get into the car, Amanda is driving and we get a little lost. Who cares? Were in OAHU! I smile and go "Look, wild boars!" (There were some boars on the side of the road." She slammed on the breaks in the rain right on the freeway, pulled over and goes "Is everything in life a game to you, Tonya? We're f#@ing lost! And you're excited over some stupid pigs! You've got to be the stupidest person I have ever known." I replied, "OH, I am sorry, I'll try to be a little more upset."

Well, the whole trip was totally neurotic. Amanda had to take pills for every occasion. Apparently, she had all sorts of mental disorders. We were all sharing a room at the little bed and breakfast. She locked us out more then once because "we were up to late". She flipped out and started screaming at me because I used her shampoo. (Jessica had taken mine, and I didn't notice until I was already in the shower.) I can go on and on and on, but I'll just name the major things...

We were on our way back to the room from the beach. Amanda was driving and fully clothed, the rest of us only had swimsuits on. She angrily pulls into the Albertson's parking lot and says to me "Tonya, go get ice." Now, this is a grocery store in a residential area, I wasn't about to go walking in there in a bikini. I handed her money, and nicely asked her to go buy it since she was dressed. So, she gets out of the car, slams the door so hard we thought it was going to fall off the hinges. When she came back, she goes "Was that so f#$@ing difficult!?" and swung the ice bag like a baseball bat, hitting me in the face with it. My lip was bleeding, and I was livid. By then, after all she'd put me through, I was ready to fight. But, I (barely) got in the car and shut up because I didn't want to ruin Tina's wedding.

After Tina's wedding, at dinner, after a few drinks, Amanda announced to everyone "Tonya and I never were close friends. I never really liked her. To be honest, I still can't stand her." WTF am I supposed to say to that? Tina's whole family was there. The room totally got quiet...Boy was that an awkward silence.

Amanda wound up flipping out and leaving a day or two early. I was relieved to know after she left that everyone thought she was psycho and that she had no reason to be so hard on me. I was relieved because I was kind of wondering if she truly was such a freak, or was something wrong with me. I've always considered myself an easy going person, so it was hard for me to understand why she hated me so much.

On the last night, we went out....Jessica was out of money, so I told her I'd put everything on my card, she got drunk and bought drinks for the entire bar more then once. My tab was $360. We lost Jessica for hours, she'd wandered off and gotten lost with some guy.

Oh, and to top of all that stuff, a few hours before Tina's wedding, I am on the beach, and I get a phone call from my parents. The child protective services had taken my son from school that day. His school was evil, so I don't know what the story really is, but he had some bruises on his shins from dirtbike riding. Apparently, the teacher said that she asked him where they came from and he said "My mommy, she beats me all the time." So, of course, I was in hysterics. I was trying to find a flight home, but then my parents called back and said that everything was straightened out. They decided Jaden wasn't abused. But my phone continued to ring all week with family and friends telling me that Child Protective Services had interviewed them. I was so freaked out.

So, that was my trip. Two weeks later, Mike and I returned for my birthday...that second trip was wonderful. And now, pictures, so you can put faces with names...

This is the pic from Tina's bridal shower...From left to right, Jessica, Myself (don't laugh at how tall I am), Amanda the Freak, and Tina...



The wedding, I'm on the left side of the bride, Amanda is on the right. I am not as happy as I may look in this picture...

[almamee]

great pictures though you are tall

[heinz57_79]

I can usually make the best of anything. Find humour in a beach trip getting rained out, that sort of thing. But this really took the cake.

Back in February, I actually won an all expense paid trip to hawaii for the Pro Bowl!! 4 days FREE!!! In one of the nicest hotels, food and activities all taken care of. Snorkling, whale watching, luaus, it was awesome! I was so excited to be going back for a little while. I was excited to see all my old friends and get some awesome food! Well, I brought my ex (my then gf) with me. BIG mistake! I should have known better, considering who she was.

She B*tched about EVERYTHING! I saved my entire paycheck so we could get some souveniers and all, cuz everything else was being paid for, and yet somehow, we had no money. She didn't wanna do this, she didnt wanna do that, why do we have to go there? I'd rather skip it. Blah blah blah.

I coudln't have had a worse time in one of my favourite places. I didn't get to see my friends, and didn't get to do half of what I wanted. Definitely my worst vacation ever! Especially since I knew it was a once in a lifetime oppertunity. We broke up soon after we came back.

[almamee]

That nust of been a horrible days poor you

[Tonya]

Heinz, we should have sent your ex and Amanda together on the trip to Hawaii...Let them be miserable together.

[DJFyrewolf36]

I agree with Tonya lol!

I haven't had too many trips from H**L but here is one that was really annoying

I was returning back home for a holiday from college. I live in Nevada, the college is in Virgina. Not a big deal to fly...

Wrongo

We were in Baltimore *me and my parents, they decided to come so they could fly with me*, on the plane ready to take off when they tell us they have to go back to the gate and kick us all off. Ooook. Then they tell us to get out of the terminal and go to the main area. ooook. Mind you they never told us what was going on. I'm dancing around with my headphones on waiting *hey why not make the best of it?* and then I notice a camera from CNN focused on me ! I was like "Umm can I help you?" and the camera guy just wanders off without telling me anything! Grrr. We still are clueless. It had been about three hours and we knew we were going to miss our connector flights *groan* and we were pretty tired having had to be at the first plane in Virgina at 3 am. It was now 5 pm. Finally they tell us that EVERYONE in about 1/3 of the airport had to have all thier luggage rechecked and had to go through the security checkpoints again. This takes about 2 hours. Then we FINALY get back on the plane and wait on the runway for an hour for other planes to go through. With no AC. .

We missed our connectors by miles so we had to bounce to about 5 cities in order to get a flight to Vegas. Then we had to sit in Vegas for about three hours. While in Vegas I see on CNN what exactly happened in Baltimore. Some moron called in a bomb threat and they shut about 1/3 of the airport down to check all the planes and all the luggage.

A flight from Virgina to Reno took about two days At least they didn't play that CNN footage of me dancing around like an idiot! *so far as I know *

I swore that I'd never set foot on a plane again...and I haven't since then either!

[AmberLee]

Oh my, that reminds me of the time we circled Seattle for hours due to weather and there was no food on the plane. For some reason the a/c wasn't working well either... I'd thought that part was miserable. They kept announcing they were going to backtrack to Portland and bus us up. At one point they landed in Portland but wouldn't let us out to get food or bring food on for us.

Later that same trip my brother took us into Canada. His car was in poor shape, very poor shape, and the Canandian guard was VERY dubious about letting us in. Apparently there was some gravel in the hubcaps and we did sound dire. I was embarrassed about some of his comments about crazy, dead-beat Americans and whether we could make back out again safely. (Apparently he was having an awful day, but still!)

The worst part was when we got home though. As we walked in the door, the phone was ringing. My grandmother had died while we were on the trip. It was a total shock.