The Best Worst Vacation Ever

When I was in middle school, I experienced the best worst vacation ever. I went with one of my best friends and his family to the Cheeka Lodge in the Florida Keys. It had everything: tennis courts, a golf course, a swimming pool, and it was located right on the water!

The first day was great. My friend, Phil, and I wandered the premises, scoping out what we wanted to do. We swam in the pool, played a little tennis, had a great lunch, and got excited about testing his new water skis on the boat the next day. We decided to spend the afternoon snorkeling.

Now, at this point in the story, we made a decision I really can't explain or defend. We stepped outside and surveyed the scene. Before us lay two bodies of water: the beautiful azure ocean, warm and inviting, and a bog-swamp slush pond that, looking back, clearly wasn't made for swimming.

Somehow, we ended up in the sludge pond. As we paddled around, resort guests stared at us like we were nuts, but our middle school brains really didn't think much of it. There was nothing to see through our masks.

It was kinda cool, I guess. After we swam, we decided to play a little golf. When we got out on the course, I was feeling fine, but Phil started to get a little queasy. We couldn't figure out why.

Phil started feeling worse and worse, so we headed back to the hotel. It was time for dinner and his family was getting ready to head out the door. I did what any good friend would do. I joined his family for some grub and left Phil groaning in hotel room.

When we got back to the hotel, Phil was looking a little green. He had spent the evening running between his bed and the bathroom. I got into my bed for the night and offered him some words of sympathy and encouragement.

Phil couldn't sleep, on account of all the vomiting, so after a while we decided to turn on the t.v. There was bad news.

"Phil, I had no idea you liked Princess Diana," I replied.

"I don't, but my mom does. Have you seen her haircut?"

I didn't really know what Princess Diana looked like, so I was puzzled.

"My mom adores her and modeled her hairstyle after Diana's. She's going to be devastated."

From that moment on, every time anyone mentioned Princess Diana, I could only picture Phil's mom with a crown on. Anyway, Phil was right about one thing. His mom was beside herself. She could hardly say a word at breakfast, she was so upset. Phil was still vomiting and his mom was in mourning, so his dad, brother, sister, and I decided the only logical thing to do was to break in Phil's new water skis on the boat. They worked great.

That evening, on the trip home, Phil was still feeling very ill. He sat in the car complaining. He's probably the best complainer I know. I loved it when Phil got mad at something because it was always hilarious. When we pulled over to get him some over-the-counter medicine to settle his stomach, he launched into a Phil-quality rant.

Phil loved coke!

That made him feel a little better for the rest of the trip home. The next day, I learned that Phil was admitted to the hospital. Apparently several days straight of vomiting will do that to you. In fact, he ended up staying for almost an entire week, something he is very proud of to this day.

Apparently, one night in the hospital Phil was woken at about 3:00 am to some strange noises. He turned over to see that his mom had turned on the live broadcast of Princess Diana's funeral.

They never quite figured out what kind of coffin virus he picked up in that cesspool, but the moral of the story here is pretty clear. When faced with the option of swimming in a bacteria infested sludge pond...try to keep your mouth closed.

Careful! This One's About Vomit.

All names have been changed to protect future employers from being humiliated that they actually hired any of us.

One weekend in college, my roommates and I hosted a party in our on-campus apartment. We were all acting in our typical fashions. Craig was making Ultimate Frisbee freshmen chug beers out of discs, Tom was holed up in his room talking about philosophy, I was nervously putting cups under coasters and cleaning up after everyone, and Corey had jumped ship and wandered upstairs to visit his girlfriend. Or so I thought.

As the party was winding down, I was entering my usual mode of "I'm stressed that people are still here because I should be in bed right now on account of all the homework I need to do tomorrow," while pretending to have a good time.

Then I found out Corey was not upstairs.

I was trying to subtly tire out a guest - "I love Sealy Posturepedic mattresses. I love it when it's late and you're tired and you can just crawl into bed and sleep for hours and then you can pass all your classes because you are so well rested..." - when Jeb tapped me on the shoulder.

"I have a question," he said. "Why did Corey just walk out of his bedroom, walk directly into your room, and close the door behind him?"

I really didn't know why, so I lead the charge to my room. I stood outside the door wondering, "Do I knock on my own door? I don't want to be rude. I guess I should knock. " I tapped on the door and called out his name. Nothing. I knocked again and cracked open the door, cautiously peering in.

It didn't look like my room anymore. It looked like someone had played paintball in what used to be my room using bright red paint balls, only the paint was kind of chunky and smelled like rotting fish guts and cherries. Then I saw Corey crouching like a little abandoned kitty in the corner wearing only his boxers. His eyes were watery and confused and there was some of the cherry fish paint running down his chin.

Confused, he looked up at us, pleading for answers. We had none. My first thought was of the time, when I was a child, that I found an abandoned kitten starving in the bushes and wanted it to live so I shoved a huge chunk of doughnut down its throat, only for it to be hacked up a few minutes later.

This memory made me realize that Corey had puked everywhere. Apparently he had drunk too much of some sticky, sweet, cherry and sugar and giggles flavored alcoholic beverage at his girlfriend's party upstairs and now it was all over my room in vom form. I later learned that he had, in a drunken haze, mistaken my room for the bathroom. My emerging face was his first lucid memory of the incident. The slop was everywhere - on my bed, on the window, dripping off the window sill, running down the walls, even in the light socket. Somehow, by the grace of God, the splatter went all around my desk but perfectly missed my computer in the shape of an angel.

By this time, all my roommates were standing in the hall. Corey stumbled out past everyone and bumbled into the real bathroom. I just turned and closed the bedroom door behind me. The cherry fish vomit was of the most horrifyingly pungent variety, and the scent had begun to drift into the hall. Sensing a situation that required some form of actual responsibility, most of the party guests made their way for the door.

Finally, Tom decided that something must be done. He marched out to the kitchen and returned with an empty trash can and some cleaning supplies. "We have to fix this right now. It's going to stink up the whole apartment. I'm already gagging."

"No way!" the rest of us pleaded. We can't open the door again. It's too gross and it will release the smell.

This was a real dilemma. On the one hand, we could hold our breath and try to slosh around as much bleach as possible. On the other hand, that's gross and maybe if we just kept the door closed we could pretend like nothing had happened. I could forfeit all my belongings and move into the common room and we would never open the door or talk about it again.

I was all for the latter option, when Tom decided he was going in to at least open the window in the room for ventilation. With the way we carried on, you would have thought he was sacrificing himself to the explosives on the meteor in Armageddon like Bruce Willis. We begged him not to go. Finally, he looked back at us as if to say goodbye, swiftly opened the door, and disappeared.

We all waited in disbelief (and to be honest a little relief because none of us wanted to go in there). This is what we heard: "Ugh! Ergh! Mmmmmph!" Bang!, Bang! "Damn it! Ugh! Gag!" The window was stuck. (I actually knew it was stuck shut but I forgot.)

Finally, the door flew back open. Tom took one step out, closed the door behind him, leaned forward, and puked into the trashcan. Once he had emptied the contents of his gullet, he looked up and said, "The smell was too much. I couldn't take it." The rest of us squealed with delight.

At this point, Corey had emerged from the bathroom and in a drunken haze of shame, went into a furious cleaning mode. I'm telling you, he staggered into that room and made it spotless. It was incredible.

Meanwhile, Tom had brought the trashcan of his own vomit out onto the porch. He was sitting next to it, talking to a friend, when Jeb returned. He had left the party before we found Corey crouched in my room and was unaware of what had transpired. Apparently, Tom decided to jokingly insult Jeb for leaving the party. Jeb, having no clue about the contents of the trashcan, did what anyone would do in this situation. He dumped that trashcan right on Tom's head. Imagine his surprise when Tom's very own vomit came oozing down on him. Jeb immediately sensed that he was in for it and turned to run. Tom was chasing after him, threatening to give him a big vomit covered hug. They ran off screaming into the night.

The next morning, I woke up and immediately realized that I had set my alarm for the exact time I was supposed to arrive at work. I had a job in the welcome center and I was supposed to stand in the student union to greet prospective students and their families as they arrived for an on-campus event. I grabbed my pile of dress clothes and screamed into the hallway for Tom to fire up the Impala. Tom sat up in bed and, no questions asked, picked up his keys and headed straight for the parking lot.

In a panic, I scooped up my clothes, shoes, and socks, and made a dash for the front door. As I sprinted out onto the lawn in front of the apartment, I felt my foot hit something squishy and slid out from underneath me. Laying face up in the grass, a familiar smell helped me realize that I had slipped in the vomit from the overturned trashcan and I now lay in it. There was no time for anything, so I rolled around in a cleaner spot of grass, jumped in Tom's car as it pulled up to the curb, and threw on my clothes as we sped off toward the union.

Later that day, as I was serving on a student panel for prospective students, one kid in the back raised his hand and asked, "Does everyone just do homework at this school, or do people like party and stuff?"

"If it makes you feel any better," I responded "I'm currently wearing my roommate's vomit from last night."

He was pretty satisfied with that.