Holiday Nightmares

by Barbara Elsborg

I sometimes think the words – It always happens to me – should be tattooed on my forehead or butt. Yep, on my butt, I don’t want anyone to see them. I don’t like to think of myself as accident prone but the truth is – I am, especially on holidays. The worst thing I ever did was accidentally dance on a dead dog – in my defense it was covered with sand- but since I’d seen the poor mutt no more than fifteen minutes earlier – not covered in sand, you’d have thought my brain – or Brian as I call him – would have registered what lay beneath that tempting soft pile.

I could go on about the passport falling into the sea, the boat I got stuck in a narrow channel, the boat I steered into the quay, the last minute jump onto the passenger ferry that was going the wrong way, the trip on the Greyhound bus where the last seat was next to a guy only wearing underwear – it was snowing outside….but you get the picture.

My worst holiday nightmare was on a snowy vacation in Austria. Husband decided to ski one more time down the slope from hell, while I sensibly decided to go on an organized tour of a glacial cave. Much safer. Yes, you’re fine in ski boots – said the guy in the hut. The ONLY guy who spoke English. I slithered down a steep slope to join a group of ONLY German speaking tourists – none of them in ski boots. I should have turned round. One foot into the cave and I remembered I don’t like enclosed spaces. The tour involved squeezing through narrow passages and descending vertical ladders. My heart was thumping in my mouth and I was so slow I lost sight of the people ahead. I turned the wrong way and in moments was in darkness.

Panic? Me? YES! I swallowed my scream and eventually found the others who were busy taking snaps of the fantastic ice formations. Long story short – I survived. Lesson learned – don’t do things like that on your own, I might have never been missed if I’d slipped and fallen. By the time I’d crawled – and I did have to crawl partly because it was so steep, and partly because my knees were shaking – back up the snowy slope that led down to the cave, I was on the point of hysteria. I spotted my husband and as I mustered the strength to throw myself into his arms, I noticed the color of his face. White.

“I need a hospital. Now. I’ve got a burst appendix.”

Yes, I know men exaggerate and it wasn’t his appendix. It was kidney stones, but he did need a hospital and both in Austria and back in the UK. So it doesn’t always happen to me – it happens to him, too!

**One lucky person will win a copy of my 1NS story - On the Right Track - as well as a copy of my suspense novel - Chosen. In addition I'm going to send 'A taste of England' - a suprise package of foods that are quintessentially English. Now, that's going to work if you're American or Canadian or from somewhere else in the world, but not if you're from the UK. In that case, I'll send a package that is quintessentially American**