Rental House Horror!

Renting a vacation house can be hit or miss. Our Italy house was glorious. The Provence house was amazing too. That house in Baja is still one of the most beautiful homes I have ever set foot in. The house we rented in Hanalei on Kaua’i was great except for mosquitoes in the back yard. The house in Kailua on O’ahu was OK save for the anal retentive Scandinavian folk music hating owners who lived next door. The house we rented on the Kohala Coast on the Big Island in March was a train wreck: big dead cockroaches in the pool, no gas for the stove or bbq, giant free range centipedes, no wi-fi, and of course the evil, rat-fucker owner named "Captain Darrell Gardner" who tried to not give us back our deposit. What a jerk.


For some insane reason I decided recently that we needed to gather up a herd of people and rent a house for a long weekend. We probably are not going to be able to all converge at some fabulous place in Spain or Turkey or Greece any time soon, so I thought a mini-break to the ocean would be fun. 

Last weekend we rented a house on the Long Beach peninsula on the Washington Coast. Three to fourteen hour drive from Seattle depending on traffic, lots of bedrooms, lots of bathrooms, big flat screen TV, wi-fi, nice kitchen, right on the ocean.


My parents showed up Friday morning to cat sit. Then Mark and I headed to Metropolitan Market to buy hundreds and hundreds of dollars of food and wine for the weekend. Tonight I am cooking. Here is my menu:


Grandma’s Greens:
Greens sautéed in olive oil and anchovies then plopped together with garlic, pine nuts, golden raisins, Kalamata olives, and chicken stock.


Lamb Lolly Pops:
Rack of lamb marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, red chili flakes, oregano, and Kalamata olives then grilled on a hot fire.


Bucatini con cacio e pepe:
Long hollow pasta tossed with really good Pecorino cheese and lots and lots and lots of crushed black pepper.


It’s raining like crazy in Seattle but once we get south of the city it is sunny and really nice out. Sometimes it can take 11 hours to get to the other side of Tacoma, but today we zip right through. We get off I-5 in Olympia and head for the ocean. As we pass Evergreen College a big old ugly car with punk rock parents in it passes us. Their three year old kid is sitting in his car seat in the back with a big blond Mohawk. We laugh. Evergreen…we laugh.


The road past Olympia changes from a freeway to a highway and soon we see nuclear cooling towers in the distance. This makes me hungry so we stop and I make Mark go into a little store to buy me a tube of the new Pickle flavored Pringles potatoes chips and a diet Pepsi. I make Mark try a pickle flavored Pringle. His gag reflex seems to be intact. I enjoy them.


Eventually we get to the Long Beach peninsula. Suddenly all cell phone signals seemed to be blocked. This is not reassuring.


Mark and I are the first to arrive at the house. It’s big and on the beach as promised. I see no flat screen TV and there is no wi-fi signal. Not even one I can steal from the neighbors. I wonder if they even have electricity here. 

Oh, Hello ocean:
 




Instead of unpacking we decide to just open a bottle of wine. Immediately Mark breaks the only wine opener in the house.


He breaks the only wine opener in the house.


He breaks the only wine opener in the house.


Did I mention he breaks the only wine opener in the house?

Spastic.


Reacting quickly I find that by standing on the top floor of the house with half of my body outside the window I can get one bar on my cell phone. I call Roxanne. She is 45 minutes out. As I cut in and out I explain that we are in a dire emergency situation! Eventually she is able to understand that she needs to stop and pick up a wine opener immediately. And some golden raisins.


Desperately, Mark and I try to find some other way to open the wine. Eventually I take the wine bottle outside and chop its head off with a big knife sharpener.





Now our vacation can start. We toast to mini-breaks.


Soon Roxanne arrives with the wine opener, golden raisins, and…and….a body builder. A really big body builder.





My mouth drops open and stays that way. He comes over like he knows me and shakes my hand. “Um hello sir, may I lick some part of your body please?” is what I am afraid comes out of my mouth but in reality it was probably something more like, “Hi, I am Troy.” He nods and says yes, we have met before, his name is Carey. Carey? I remember Carey. I have met him before but he was little, cute, but little. It occurs to me that I probably should stop staring at his arms before Mark notices and hits me, but wow.

Wow.


An initial run of gaydar comes back negative. Are there really straight men that are body builders? Quickly I go open more wine with the new wine opener but I can’t stop thinking about those arms...

Hmm….let me try one more thing. I grab my iPod and turn on I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself by Dusty Springfield. First, because I really just don’t know what to do with myself right now, and second, because this song is one of the most tried and true gay tests ever developed.


I have several female friends who have asked me if I thought their teenage sons were homos. I always recommend putting on this song to see what happens. The song starts off slowly, then builds and builds to this dramatic cascading flourish. Certain males find this song irresistible. Your arms raise up above your head and your pinkies fully extend at a horizontal angle. You close your eyes and drift off into a special universe of fabulous drama. This activity is totally unconscious and completely involuntary -- if you are a big mo. There is no middle ground here, no chicken shit “bi” response is an option. Either your arms go up or they don’t. Carey’s arms do not go up. His pinkies don’t even twitch.

This is going to be a problem.  I am going to obsess about the arms all weekend.  All thought of the arms is suddenly stopped however by the appearance of this creepy baby doll.



What the hell?  She has a moustach, scary eyebrows, nipples, a belly button, and cryptic symbols drawn on the bottoms of her feet. I immediately name her Carol.  No e.  As the weekend progresses Carol moves about the house, into people's beds, into the shower, into the fridge. Carol is on the move!


Soon everyone else shows up. We walk to the beach, we drink more, it gets dark. It’s time for dinner. I have been hiding the can of anchovies that I am going to put into Grandma’s Greens. I have about 20 seconds here when no one is in the kitchen. I heat up olive oil, dump in the tin of little fish, and quickly they dissolve into a lovely velvety gunge of salt and umami. No one will ever know – till they read this.


The greens are a hit, the lamb turns out perfectly, and everyone even seems to like the pasta. I am totally relieved. I can’t cook any better than this. I shot my cooking wad tonight. If they didn’t like this I would have to hide in shame all weekend.


There is more wine then we decide to go for a walk on the beach at night.  There is a big full moon. I don't want to name names here, but some crazy person...


...decides that she has to wrap her feet in plastic before she can go out.



I, being the sane, sober person that I am, insist on going barefoot.


Soon I am shouting something stupid about how I know the Pashific Oshean and itsh warm for me and Carey should should let me give him a mashage and blah, blah, drunken blah.  Eventually I end up back at the house, passed out on top of the bed with my clothes on.

Photos are taken.





End of day one. More later....

--------------------------

Morning. 

Hangover.

I am up.

The sun is up. 

No one else is up.

Oh great, I passed out on my bed with my clothes on.  Better that than with my clothes off give that photos were taken.

I head downstairs to make coffee. 

En route I hear snoring.  Mark is snoring.  Roxanne is snoring.  Carey is snoring.  Michelle is snoring.  Lynnette is snoring.  Chris is snoring.  Matt is snoring.  Carol is snoring. The whole house is shaking with snore and I fear for a tsunami.

I make coffee.  I eat aspirin.

They are not letting me cook today.  Chris is cooking all day today.  Well what the hell am I here for then? 

I wonder if I can sneak in and take pictures of Carey. No, too overt. 

I have been reading this stupid new Dan Brown book, The Da Vinci Snore or something like that.  So bad.   I keep reading as I have nothing else to do.

5 or 6 hours later someone gets up…Roxanne….then one by one they all arise, slowly, like Nosferatu. No one is perky or loud. Oops, typed too soon.

Chris comes out of the kitchen and says, really loudly, “I don’t mean to be a bitch, but I am not going to wash all your wine glasses from last night and cook you people breakfast at the same time!”  We all roll our eyes and snort in her direction.  

She stomps back in the kitchen and Matt whispers, "I don’t mean to be a bitch, but I have to go trim my ear hair."

Roxanne looks up as says, "I don’t mean to be a bitch, but I have to go poop."

Lynnette adds, "I don’t mean to be a bitch, but where is Carol?"

I pipe up, "I don’t mean to be a bitch, but wouldn’t it be best for everyone if I cook breakfast?"

Chris yells from the kitchen, "I don't mean to be a bitch, but fuck you all!" 


Someone runs into the kitchen to clean wine glasses so Chris can start cooking.

She has brought all of the contents of her giant rich person’s house on the shore of Lake Washington on this trip, including her own chickens that are sitting outside right now.  They have not laid eggs yet.  Breakfast is going to take a while so I grab Mark and we go to the store.  Since they won’t let me cook today I am going to make Bloody Mary’s.

Zana texts me from Seattle to tell me she saw vampires on my front porch while she drove by.  Given that it is daylight out I question her motives.  Turns out she was driving by and had to pee really bad. She was just checking to see if I was home.  I text her back and say, 'I don’t mean to be a bitch, but I am not home, I am at the ocean making Bloody Mary's."  I encourage her to knock on the door and ask my parents if she can use the bathroom but she won’t do it. Drink your pee! Drink your pee!

Bloody Mary’s:

Open a can of whole San Marzano tomatoes and crush them with your hands.  I don’t mean to be a bitch, but wash your hands first. Then dump in a lot of horseradish, more horseradish, lemon juice, lime juice, celery salt, Tabasco…. and…and….oh, vodka.  And then add a celery stick to stir with.  And more vodka.

One Bloody Mary and I feel better. I grab some more coffee and walk over to the beach.

Here are some photos.

Evidence of last night’s bad decisions:

Breakfast is good, which annoys me.

I pick up The Da Vinci Snore again. It is so bad and it just will not end.

Later for lunch Chris cooks up part of a dead cow for several hours and then makes really good sandwiches out it. This annoys me also.

We play cards and drink Bloody Mary’s.

Chris has been out shopping at an antique store and she has bought a small statue of a tranny disguised as the Virgin Mary. It even has an adam’s apple.

She also gets the world’s most biggest Mexican rosary.

Another walk on the beach and its time for bar tending school. Michelle is getting bar tending lessons tonight so she can move to Barcelona and become a bar tender.

I am not going to get drunk again tonight so I avoid the Grasshoppers and Pink Ladies. No mixing. What else can I do? Take pictures? Sure.

Sunset.

What else can I take pictures of?

I actually did not take these pictures, some other homo did. OK, I took one, but that is all.

Tonight Chris roasts a chicken and tosses it with pasta. It’s good. So annoying

During dinner Carol shows up with a little friend.

After dinner everyone is drunk, except for me. They are singing and head out to walk on the beach. I head to bed, take my clothes off, and actually get under the covers. I drink some water and in a very smug way, fall asleep.

More later….

-----------------------------------

Morning.


I am awake and hangover free.


I am worried about the other people in this house. I think I heard them singing the We Like The Moon song out on out on the beach last night: http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song. Always a sign of excess alcohol consumption.


I hear a chain saw slicing though wood. Oh, no, that is just Mark snoring. Wow. That is unnatural and wrong.


I head downstairs to make coffee. Kim is in a sleeping bag at the bottom of the stairs. She is awake with a pained look on her face. “It was the only place I could get away from the noise, the horrible horrible nose!” she whimpers.


They are letting her cook today. I have nothing to do except finish that stupid Dan Brown book. I have a Bloody Mary so the book will not be so painful.This is not a book, this is a screenplay.  A bad one.



Kim’s breakfast is good too. Annoying.


Mark and I head back to Seattle around noon and decide to drive along the Columbia River to get to I-5. Outside of Longview we get a great view of Mt. St. Helens.

Finally we get to I-5 and 3G cell phone service. We can listen to KCRW now.




The drive home is fine, but I have an uneasy feeling. I am not sure what is up. We pass those creepy Christian cult statue things...



No, they are not the source of my anxiety. Something just isn’t right here. I look in the rear view mirror and I see the source of my discomfort. I scream and everything goes black.