Before
"THREE IDYLLIC WEEKS IN ARUBA",
ever took place,
we had earlier Aruban catastrophes on
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ISLAND.
In 2003?, Doug & I
did the same arrangement,
of tacking on extra Aruban time
to our pre-existing condition of Week 13,
from 1999 until death.
We found an apartment to stay in,
until we were due to show up
at our hotel on Friday.
I don't recollect the exact handling of
THIS disaster,
& it certainly didn't come from
Internet research,
but it was equally
as crappy as any other
"non-Hotel-like joints"
that we have experienced.
This was a Pepto-pink-stucco
grouping of two-story buildings,
with private terraces.
My multi-piece lower back
somehow always ends up
on the second floor,
bouncing luggage up the stairs
(now, my husband is the
consummate gentleman &
would carry ME on his back,
if forced at gunpoint,
but I have to weigh doing it myself,
against HIS back going out &
ME carrying HIM on MY back,
for the rest of the trip.
I'll take my lumps, as they come.)
Can't handle trauma, in volume.
Need it doled out,
little by little.
So, we get upstairs &
check out the joint.
It's pretty crappy,
which is pretty much par
on our scorecard of Aruban get-aways.
But we're resilient!
We're not Jappy...not either of us.
We can handle pretty much any scenario,
no matter how bizarre,
as long as it's set in a
tropical locale.
We unpacked &
settled in.
Because of our timeshare unit
that comes with a kitchen (oh, goody),
we drag along a magic suitcase,
with all kinds of culinary shit in it.
-- Wait. Don't judge me.
You don't know what we've faced,
in trusting innkeepers to provide the basic necessities,
like FORKS.
You should see how much fun it is,
to make food & then discover that the last inhabitant took home the only spatula.
It forced us (ok, me)
to become ridiculously
anal-retentive
about planning/packing
for our Caribbean adventures.
I took pictures of the timeshare unit,
with the drawers open,
so that I would not rely
on my senile mind to recall
what they provide &
what they do not.
or
salt and pepper...."
You get the gist.
Then we'd arrive &
realize that in order to get
that hot pot off of the stove,
I had to go into the dresser drawers,
find the comfy fru-fru socks
that I wear for
sore feet
& slip them on my hands.
I looked like
Kookala, Fran & Ollie,
getting a facial from the
steam in the pasta pot,
cause the last cheap bastards
that stayed here
went home with a set of
Aruba potholders,
which came,
no doubt,
from the Aruba Dollar Store.
So, back to the magic suitcase.
We unpack some stuff &
zip up the rest, referring back to it,
when we need something else.
We do our grocery shopping,
which we love....
The main market there is called
"Kong Hing,"
which I never get right.
It's inevitably Hong Kong, King Kong,
Ping Pong, Donkey Kong....
they get really pissed off,
when you don't get it right.
"Attention Stupid Tourists:
Leave your arms &
legs at the service desk."
legs at the service desk."
You can buy an
entire pineapple for fifty cents,
but an American newspaper
will set you back six and a half bucks.
Screw it.
If I wanted to know
what was happening in the USA,
I would have freaking stayed there.
As long as the borders are open
when we hit the ground in New York,
I couldn't care less
if it was eaten
by Donkey Kong.
This STUPENDOUSmarket
(it's just so far beyond SUPER)
sells alcohol!
Even on Sunday!
Their receipt system,
apart from doing the translation of
Aruban Florins
to U.S. Dollars,
also gives you totals by category.
Yikes.
When your liquor-subtotal
outweighs your food for two weeks,
by more than 60%,
you've got a slight problem.
Canned goods: $9.81.
Seafood: $62.75.
Plastic COCKTAIL cups: $82.00.
Alcohol:
$793.58.
God, I hope we don’t get audited.
They’ll find nothing illegal,
but I just know they’ll judge us.
So we get all of our great
grocery items put away,
in their proper place.
We go to sleep & when Mr. Coffee
wakes up to make the coffee,
he discovers half a bag
of some healthy snack we picked up,
like
Crunchy Cheetos
(Hey! It’s made with cheese)
There were Cheeto remnants everywhere.
I think this sloppy little mouse
stepped in the cheddar cheese residue &
tracked it everywhere!
So inconsiderate.
Hhhrrrmmppp.
So we jump back into our car &
head right the hell back to Ping Pong
for some nice glue traps,
which were imported from Holland,
the Mothership of Aruba.
Doug buys out all of the
damned glue traps that he can find,
plus four jars of the
shittiest peanut butter
from The Netherlands,
to the tune of forty-seven
American bucks.
I thought it was a tad excessive,
but I was not going there.
When we got back to Shangri-La,
Doug set about
setting up the sting operation.
He disinfected that kitchen,
like he was prepping for surgery.
Then he laid out all of the traps,
in a diabolical pattern,
that would not only trap the mouse...
once he got him into his lair,
but pretty much
piss the mouse off
so badly
by not leaving him
(I’m assuming gender here)
a fraction of an inch to
manipulate his mousy little body,
that the mouse would not only get stuck,
but first commit suicide,
out of pure frustration...
in our uber-sterile kitchen.
He carefully placed
these extremely sticky traps
in the exact configuration
that he had drawn up
on a piece of scrap paper,
when we had first returned.
On each trap,
he used an ice cream scoop
to generously dole out
a golf ball-size-serving
of the aforementioned
lousy peanut butter.
He threw away
the papers from the traps,
carefully cleaned the scoop &
stepped back to survey his handiwork.
He looked pleased,
which scared me a little.
He quietly turned off
the kitchen light &
we went to bed.
Waking up with Doug
the next morning,
was akin to waking up
with my brother on
He hated me,
but on the Eve, I HAD
to sleep in his room, in his bunk bed,
so that I didn’t get a jump
on the Christmas morning goodies.
Doug was similarly
a little territorial
with the viewing
of our very frustrated,
very dead mouse.
We had to enter
the kitchen TOGETHER,
side by side.
We had a fever pitch of anticipation,
approaching the kitchen.
Holding my hand,
we crept into the kitchen.
Why did we do that?
Was he afraid that the mouse
might only be stuck &
not fully dead &
any excitement might
put him into cardiac arrest???
I don’t know.
Doug reached for the light switch &
I think I uttered a
small sound of euphoria,
just as I swore you could hear
that loser sound effect they play on
Let’s Make A Deal!,
when you in fact,
lose.
We looked at his matrix of
white rectangles
& were quite perplexed
to find not so much as
one goddamned mouse,
along with not a single
remaining scoop
of shitty Dutch peanut butter.
The little bastards ate
EVERY SINGLE SCOOP OF
PEANUT BUTTER.
We stood there,
mouths agape,
like a couple of homeowners
that had just put the key in the front door & discovered they’d been completely
cleaned out by burglars.
There wasn’t so much as
a single strand
of mouse hair left behind.
It was such a clean job.
We were pissed off,
but I have to say
very impressed.
We threw out scenarios
of how they had pulled this job off:
Visions of them dipping
their little feet into
Goo Gone &
sliding straight into the scoops.
They might have then
stood up on their hind legs &
lifted the scoops,
with all their might.
It was either that or
they have a little circus act,
where they suspend
each other from their legs &
the other mouse simply lifts the scoop
off of the tacky paper.
They were organized.
I’ll give them that.
As we
Monday-Morning-Quarterback,
we are giving up on
non-brand-name hotel venues
in the Caribbean.
Jus’ sayin………..
~SusiTheJ~
