In Which Blogging Is Therapeutic and I Have an Adventure

“To be nobody but yourself in a world doing its best to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human can ever fight and never stop fighting.” - E. E. Cummings


So my day started out by being woken up by my friend's phone asking "Are you my mummy?" Those of you who are Doctor Who fans will know just how terrifying this was. (Long story as to why my friend was spending the night the day before we went to the beach, but...)


After we took her home, I decided that I was going to drive the full 3+ hours down here to the island. This was the first time I've ever driven on the highway for more than three miles at a time, so I was understandably nervous. Just my mom, her best friend, and me in the car, since their husbands, my sisters, and "brothers" had taken our van.


We make it to the coast with only a few minor mistakes which didn't hurt anyone, but make me more and more frazzled as time goes on. We stop at a Subway for lunch, and all is well. I get back on the road.


Then we receive a phone call from the other car. "The house we rented burst a pipe. They're putting us in a different one. From a different agency. We'll call you once we've found it. No, we don't know the address."


So not only am I driving in fairly heavy vacation traffic faster than the average road at home, but I no longer know my destination. However, we haven't reached the island yet, so it doesn't matter. My expectations for our house sink dramatically, because clearly they just tried to find some place for us to stay.


We arrive on the island. I pull into the parking lot of the other agency. My mom goes in to talk to them. My mom's friend's phone rings while she is in there. The others have found the house, and they know the address: (House Number) Partition B at ## Street and East (Street Name).


Which happens to be on the exact opposite side of the island. So we start driving. We locate ## Street and East Street Name, drive around...can't find House Number.


I turn around and drive over thirty blocks the way we'd just come to find West Street Name. There isn't a ## Street near West Street Name, despite there being streets with the numbers on either side of it. We call the others. No one picks up.


I pull into a random driveway and we wait for them to call. They give us slightly-better directions. "The kids are waiting outside to wave at you."


I drive back to East Street Name and ## Street. There is a bush in the most strategically inconvenient place possible for me to turn left. In order for me to see around said bush, I would literally have to drive off the other side of the road into the grass. So I make the turn blind.


Still can't find the house. My mom asks me if I'd like her to drive. "No," I say, "If I'm going to drive to the beach, I'm going to drive to the stupid beach."


There's a car behind me, so I turn onto the next street so they can go by. We call again. They say they can see us. I look in my rearview mirror, and there they are; not waiting by the road to wave at us, but standing on the porch of a house I didn't even realize was on this street.


I shift into reverse. I stop because a car has just pulled out of the driveway. It is the owner of Partition A, and she stops to laugh at me and welcome us to the house, which apparently no one has rented before.


I finish backing up and pull into the driveway. The house turns out to be way more awesome than I had expected, even if we are several streets back from the beach (yeah, I'm a spoiled suburbanite who hasn't stayed farther away from the ocean than across the street since she was four. Twitter hashtag in the form of a common trending topic: #thingswhitepeoplecomplainabout).


By this point, I am so pissed off that three people ask me if I would like a glass of wine.


Because there was a complimentary bottle waiting in the fridge. **is bitter**