Have you ever had one of those vacation moments you wish you could take back? One of those hilarious yet embarrassing situations that you still can’t figure out why the universe threw at you. I had one of those about five years ago. My husband and I were celebrating our 10 year anniversary. We left our two young daughters with my parents and embarked on a cruise to the Caribbean.
This cruise meant everything to us. We were still very much in love but going through one of those times in our lives where every move we made was for survival. My husband was going to school while working two jobs. I was a stay at home mom, attempting to budget our money and working as a nanny. My nanny job paid for this cruise.
In celebration of our ten year milestone, we went all out. We booked a room with a balcony, bought the unlimited drink pass and booked an excursion in every port. We were going to live as much as we could for the next seven days. The first night of our stay, after one rum drink, I’m crying because I miss the kids and I feel guilty for leaving them. My husband in his attempts at cheering me up, encourages me to drink more. I haven’t drank alcohol in years. I’m mom right? Mom’s don’t drink or party or do crazy things. Those days disappeared the moment I saw the two pink lines on the EPT.
I finally start to relax and before long, I’m remembering how to have fun! I’m remembering that crazy, care-free person I used to be. We embark on our first excursion in Cozumel, Mexico. We take this high speed boat out onto the water, it spins a few 360’s in the water and dumps us off at this dinky little sandbar proudly named, “Isla Passion.”
We are split into two teams and our tour guide kindly asks us to watch ourselves around the alcohol. She tells us to get drunk but to not get, “so drunk,” as to where we can’t function. There was a liability with the speed boat and people unable to hold their heads up properly. That warning was precisely for people like me.
We laugh and hit the beach. There is an open bar. I promptly start drinking and before long I’m happily drunk, soaking in the sun. For hours, I play out in the water, climbing up the inflatable climbing wall and jumping on the water trampoline. My husband is smiling at me and I know he finds me cute, fun, and unbelievably sexy.
We take a break, walking on the sand bar and we stop to use the bathrooms. The bathrooms are a cabana style building, with art deco sinks and wooden stalls. I go into a stall, lock the latch, use the bathroom and then bang, the lock is jammed. I wiggle it! I bang on it! I attempt to force it to unlatch! Nothing! I’m trapped in this bathroom stall, alone and in a sweltering heat that is making me sick to my stomach.
I start banging and screaming for help. My husband, my hero, hears my cries and comes right in the bathroom to try and help me. After attempting to get me out, he finally tells me, “I’m going to get help and see if they have a ladder.”
In tears, buzzing with alcohol, I’m left alone, in this sweltering heat, feeling my anxiety building. I think about the inflatable climbing wall. I’m a tough, strong little gal and I realize that I can climb over the top of the stall and then jump onto the sink. I quickly scan my surroundings and gently climb onto the back of the toilet. I grab onto the top of the stall and attempt to pull myself up when the entire toilet tips and falls over. I’m hanging, mid-air, watching the gray water flow out of this disgusting toilet and I’m trapped.
I’m no longer able to hold myself up so I drop down into the water and start screaming for my life. My husband suddenly appears with a staff member and behold, they have no ladder. What on earth? How can the entire island not have an emergency ladder? The staff member is freaking out about the flooding toilet and he starts frantically attempting to break the door down. It doesn’t budge, meanwhile I’m crying and screaming and cursing the alcohol I drank.
My husband, who is ex-military asks permission to break the door down. The concerned staff member obliges and I hear, “Honey, move to the back of the stall and cover your eyes.” My strong hero, using all the might in his hands and shoulders, crashes through the wooden door as wood chips fly in my direction. I jump out of the stall into his arms and make up a quick story about how I simply leaned up against the toilet and it fell over.
The entire bathroom floods and they close it down. Meanwhile, overheated, embarrassed and worried I’m somehow in trouble, we head back to the speed boat. That night at dinner, we meet another couple, we share a few drinks and with the cruise ship speeding away from the port, I admit the truth. There is a collective laughing and then the man tells me, “I find your story particularly funny because I’m a plumber!”
Well….this plumber proceeds to tell everyone he meets my story. Before long, I’ve apparently become an urban myth on the cruise ship. The drunk woman who flooded the bathrooms on Isla Passion. The rest of our cruise goes smoothly, I have no more embarrassing incidents and we are still having the time of our lives. We pull into our last port and meet this poor couple who crashed a couple of mopeds on their excursion. I attempt to cheer them up by sharing with them my embarrassing story. This couple looks at me, starts laughing, and says, “That was you! You’re the woman who flooded the bathrooms!” My mouth drops open to the sound of my husband’s howling laughter.
I resign myself to this fact…I may be a stay at home mom, I may be a little out of practice while vacationing, but at least I’m fun! There is never a dull moment in this crazy family life I lead.
Love the stories….
Awe! Thank you!