The Land of Bad Ju-Ju

I'm a firm believer in the law of attraction. The law of attraction suggests that the energy you give is the energy you receive. Positive energy/attitude attracts positivity....negative energy/attitude attracts negativity. So in keeping with that theory...I have no-one to blame but myself because I was one HUGE force of negative energy this weekend!

DAY 1

Me and my friend D car pooled to Pennsylvania with our 3 boys for their gymnastics meet. This wonderful weekend began on Friday. We drove for 10 uneventful hours to our destination....Allentown, PA. Arrived at the hotel to find out that they only reserved one room..."no problem" they said, "we'll get you a second room". They also reserved us for the wrong days..."no problem" they said, "we'll just change that".

That 1st 5 minutes in the hotel should have been my 1st clue.

We arrived around 8pm because we stopped for dinner first....so by the time we got settled into our room we were all tired and ready to call it a night....we had to be up by 6am the next morning for the meet. We did not realize, however, that our hotel was also occupied by an entire school of teenagers and their chaperones for a ski trip. I actually "tattle tailed"....at 2 in the morning....and again at 2:30 in the morning....because they (the PARENT CHAPERONES!!!) were up yelling, screaming, slamming doors, and partying....ALL.....NIGHT......LONG! So.....I "tattled". I turned up the blower in the room to drown out the music...and.... I "tattled". I'm not proud of it... but it had to be done. I officially feel like a crotchety old person...I mean I actually tattled. Who does that...I mean really! So after the second call the security finally came and I heard them ask the "chaperones" to keep it down.

That kinda worked.... temporarily..... but then we were kept awake by the rabbits above our room. The rabbits received a 9.7 for speed, a 9.8 for rhythm, and a perfect 10 for endurance. The rabbits finally passed out from exhaustion after about an hour and the party people began again. So, at 4am I actually opened my room door and, like the crotchety old person that I am, screamed down the hallway "IT'S FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING....ARE YOU KIDDING ME.....SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!" I'm just not a pleasant person when I don't sleep...I'm the first to admit it. They pretty much just laughed at me and kept partying. I then heard D open HER door at 4:30am and say, (in a much more diplomatic tone....because she's a much more diplomatic person) "I can appreciate a good time too but it's 4:30 in the morning and we have kids that have to be up for a competition in a couple hours can you please keep it down"....and they listened. Security complains...they don't listen....I scream....they don't listen...D sweetly asks and they oblige...BRAT!

So I got a whole 1 hour of sleep....and the boys got a whole 2 hours of sleep. Hefty Smurf now has to compete on 2 hours of sleep. I got out of bed and went to make some coffee. There's a coffee maker....there's coffee creamers and sugars......there's no coffee. I call the front desk....

me - "is there suppose to be coffee to go with the coffee MAKER in my room"
front desk man - "yup"
me - "I don't have any in my room"
front desk man - "oh....well....security is making his rounds now" ::::WHERE THE HELL WAS SECURITY AT 4 IN THE MORNING::: "so if you'd like some coffee you'll have to come get it"
me - OMG YOU MUST BE KIDDING....
front desk man - "oh, but wait...let me check and see if we have any left...."
front desk man - "nope, sorry, no more coffee"
me - OMG YOU MUST BE KIDDING
front desk man - sorry, it's been that kinda night
me - click

Now, I don't consider myself a very picky person...I consider myself relatively easy going...give me a good nights sleep in a clean room and some coffee in the morning and I'm generally a pretty happy traveller....I got neither....they were, however, kind enough to leave a condom in the bathroom tissue box. And another mom in our group was searching for the remote control under her bed and you can imagine her surprise when she found personal lubrication entitled "Gay Glide" under her bed.

I'm not creative enough to make up shit like this.

So we go down to the restaurant for breakfast.

There's no menu...just a buffet...and 1 server for the entire restaurant...an entire restaurant that's full of teenagers, chaperones, and young gymnasts. The scrambled eggs weren't cooked; they were slimy. The sausage was cold...I don't mean they were luke warm because they had sat out too long....I mean "they were never cooked to begin with" cold. The ONE server brought me a cup of coffee and I never saw him again....I've never wanted a coffee refill so desperately in my life....Dreamy Smurf asked for chocolate milk and he received a glass of ice with a splash of chocolate milk (who the hell puts ice in chocolate milk??!!) We sat there with our group of gymnasts and parents complaining about the evening and the service and literally never saw the server again. We actually had to skip out on the bill because we had to get the boys to the gym. It was literally the worst and most disgusting hotel I've ever stayed in.

So..... we get to the gym and Hefty realizes that he left his gym bag back at the hotel. OMG. I drop them off, drive back to the hotel, get his bag, and rush back to the gym just in time for the competition to begin. I'm sure you can imagine the mood I was in.

Hefty Smurf had the worst meet he's had all season. There were many falls and a few tears of frustration. He was talking to Papa Smurf on the phone afterward and said "yeah...I fell SEVEN times....do I have to remind you that there are only SIX events!" It was just NOT a good day!

So while we were at the gymnastics meet we called to find a new hotel. When day one's competition was over we checked out of hotel #1 and travelled to hotel #2. Ahhhhhhh. Much better. Excellent service, quiet night, comfortable bed, morning coffee. What more could we ask for. D and I felt the need to work off some steam so we worked out in the gym that overlooked the hotel pool while the kids went swimming. Now we're talking!

Day 2

Full nights sleep, lots and lots of coffee, wonderful breakfast with wonderful service. It's gonna be a good day. NOT.

Get to the gym. Dreamy Smurf is missing one of his ring grips from his bag. This is the 3rd set of ring grips we've gone through since November. Hefty Smurf's ring grips are still in the car from his competition the day before but they're too big on Dreamy...warm ups did not go well because of the size of the grips but he actually pulled it off during the competition. Not his best meet but over all he did very well.

Left the competition and decided to drive an hour to downtown Philly to see the Liberty Bell and run up the Sylvester Stallone "Rocky Steps"...yes, sadly enough, Dianne and I, dorks that we are....felt a compelling need to run up the same steps that Rocky ran during his training in the movie....all the while singing the Rocky theme song. But before doing this we had to park the car. We got shnookered by some bimbo in a vehicle collecting parking fees...there was no sign saying that parking was $7.00 but who was I to argue...so I said to D "wow, high-way robbery"....the lady then says "I heard that, but I've heard worse...I've been called a drug addict, a thief, so whatever..." she then starts yelling at the car behind me "what are you looking at...f--king a-- hole...bleepity bleep bleep bleep" my windows are rolled down and the kids are hearing all this....D and I are just looking at each other like WTF was that....I'm still waiting for my change because I've handed her a $20 but she has no money to give me back...so she calls over some thug in a car next to her who looks like he's ready to start a fight with the car behind me....I still don't have my change....D and I are still trying to figure out if there's a hidden camera somewhere...or a hidden sign that says that this is a paid parking lot....the guy finally gives me some change and we drive off to park thinking we were just hosed. We run the steps come back 15 minutes later and the "money collectors" are now gone....we were hosed! Oh well.

Then we go to dinner at Applebees in New Jersey...never been to New Jersey...it'll be fun.... We sit for 15 minutes before our drink order was even taken. So we decide to speed up the process by placing our drink order with our appetizer and dinner order...all at once. Drinks arrive. Appetizer never arrives. D's dinner arrives....we cancel the appetizer order. No-one else's dinner arrives. Dreamy is starving and crabby.... We wait....and wait....10 minutes later Hefty's dinner arrives. Dreamy is still starving and still crabby.....we wait....and wait.....10 minutes later Dreamy's dinner arrives....we wait...and wait....I'm starving and I'm crabby...

me (to the waitress): "is there a reason all our meals didn't come at the same time...D got her meal 20 minutes ago and is done and the rest of us still haven't gotten our meals."
waitress: "I'm REALLY sorry about all this...we are like way understaffed and the kitchen is like a total mess right now."

10 minutes later my dinner arrives....10 minutes after that David's meal arrives....and no...I'm not exaggerating....An hour and a half later we finally finish our meals and leave a little miffed.....we then leave New Jersey to start our 2 hour trek back home (should've only taken 75 minutes but we got lost)

Day 3

.....and 12 hours later...the next morning.... while getting ready to leave for our 10 hour car ride back home....I realize that I left my credit card on the table of the restaurant....the restaurant back in New Jersey. OMG. So I call the restaurant...no one has turned it in. This is like the 5th time in the past year that I've lost my credit card. I really think I need to just cut the damn card up and start paying cash...I'm tired of cancelling cards...I mean how sad is it that I know the number to my credit card's customer service by heart....no I'm not kidding! OMG I've had enough of this vacation....there is some serious bad Ju-Ju attached to this vacation. Can anything else possibly happen. I mean really. Why yes...something else CAN happen...I CAN come home to find out that my daughter has the STOMACH FLU AND JUST THREW UP ALL OVER MY MOTHERS COUCH!!!!!!!!

I used to think of PA as the romantic home of the Pocono Mountains...Now PA is the home of the bad Ju-Ju.