To say that it was “A Vacation From Hell” might be a bit of an exaggeration.
Just barely, though…
“Here at Better Beach Rentals we are working to be better everyday. In order to get better, we need your help. Please take a few minutes to review the home and your Better Beach Rentals vacation experience…”
I sat there staring at my computer in disbelief. Before me: an invitation to leave a review for Eden Cove 9 (aka EC9), the beach house in lovely Oak Island, NC, in which we had just spent 5 weeks living in while our regular home was being repaired and renovated.
Did they really want my honest opinion of my experience to be shared with others? I grinned wryly to myself, as I couldn’t help but think that they might just end up learning a little life lesson about “being careful what you wish for.”
Frankly, though, the breadth and depth of things I had to say about our experience with these asshats was so immense, I realized there was no way I could ever write an appropriately succint-yet-thorough enough review. At least not one short enough for the attention span of unwitting potential vacationers who would otherwise be blissfully unaware that Eden Cove 9 is, in fact, quite possibly a Gateway to Hell.
So instead, I turn to you, Dear Reader, to spread the EC9 anti-gospel. Though to convince you, be fore-warned that it’s going to take several sessions…
First, some context though: one must recall how we ended up in such a luxurious beach house for such a long period of time in the first place. The overly-long version can be read here, while the brief version is that I was clever and mischievous, and forced our home insurance company to let us stay in “absolutely the most luxurious town homes on Oak Island” instead of some milquetoast property closer to home, much to their chagrin. And best of all, good ol’ Amica Insurance was footing the bill for our month-long semi-vacation at the beach!
In other words, we were going into it brimming with excitement that were about to live fancy af for a little while. It felt like we were at the foot of the Mountain of Purgatory, and the only way to go was up. “Could this be the beginning of Heaven?” we wondered aloud to ourselves…
Level One: I Guess I’m A Drug Mule Now
Since we have a lot of ground to cover, and I don’t want to take up your entire Sunday afternoon, it’s best that I ease you in gently to begin with. I’ll start off with a rather boring topic: stairs. But oh, were there so many ----- stairs.
Now this one is probably on us. You see, we’re what you might call “Flatlanders”–folks who live in a ground-level single-story home, and the most stairs we have to encounter in one day are the two steps from the sidewalk up to our porch. Yeah, maybe it was foolish of us to rent a place with pictures like this in the listing:
“What a wonderful view!” you might say. Yes, indeed, but did you ever consider the price you might pay to enjoy such a view? We sure didn’t–but we know the exact cost now: 3 excruciatingly long sets of stairs.
And if you’re wondering why you would need 3 sets of stairs for what is apparently only a 3-story townhouse, it’s because what the trees in the picture are hiding is all the carports that comprise the ground level. That’s right: we had to traverse a steep-ass set of stairs just to get in the front door.
Further exacerbating the situation was the fact that they put the kitchen and living room on the gosh darn middle level, meaning that any time we got groceries, we had to heave-and-ho them up two ----- flights, all the while trying avoiding tripping, slipping, and breaking our necks.
Now all of this might have been fine and dandy if we were only there to have a relaxing 1-week vacation. But oh, no, it could never be as simple as hauling a mere 5 suitcases up those stairs. Were we there to relax and relate? Heck, no! We were there to work and live on a semi-permanent basis.
That meant we needed in-house childcare, so at all times we had at least one grandparent living there with us, too. So even more possessions to haul in and out and up and down! Oh joy!1For the record, their contribution to the quantity of said possessions was actually negligible.
In total, there were 3.5 adults, 2 children, and 2 “dogs”2For legal purposes, we can neither confirm nor deny whether or not the pets staying with this were or were not actually of the canine variety. living there at any given time. In other words, we had a lot of shit to move in, and once you throw in the work and school desks for those of who still had to work remotely and attend virtual school…
Well, you probably get the gist already, but let me throw in a visual aid for good measure. Around the time we moved in, my go-to attire for below-the-waist were Adidas jogging pants that had zippers at the ankles instead of elastic bands. Well, the morning after we moved into our new accomodations, I went to put them on only to find that I couldn’t zip them down over my swole-ass calves–nearly busting the zippers in the process!
I couldn’t help but immediately think of an infamous comment3https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/steve-king-and-the-case-of-the-cantaloupe-calves by the dishonorable4The guy got disowned by the Republican Party, for fuck’s sake. So I think it’s safe to objectively state that he was a bit of piece of shit, regardless of your political affiliation. former Congressman from Iowa, Steve King, making a case for keeping any and all Mexicans out of the U.S.:
For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another hundred out there who weigh a hundred and thirty pounds—and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling seventy-five pounds of marijuana across the desert…
Politician who somehow managed to be too racist for the Republican party
Well, what a pleasant surprise! I went into this with zero expectations of achieving my life-long dream of developing calf muscles that could scare the shit out of raging bigots, but alas, here we are…
Logically, this leads to one of the topics of the next installment of Eden Cove 9: The Extended Vacation Rental Review: “If only there were an elevator…”
Believe you me, I’m just getting started, so stay tuned!
Content created on: 9 June 2021 (Wednesday)
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