PRETTY MEMORIES

The post below reminded me of when my sister, Kelli, and I went to Orlando in 2001. It was just the two of us and we were there to go to Disney World, of course. I believe we stayed about four days. We had a good time, but did have one bad experience.

We headed for Orlando around 8 in the morning and once we arrived we decided to get some lunch before checking into our hotel. We didn’t have any particular place in mind and we were just kind of riding around looking for something. We came upon Jeff Foxworthy’s Redneck BBQ Restaurant and decided that--a) we both liked BBQ and b) we were both rednecks--so we went on in.

We just loved the food. The whole time we were eating, we kept commenting about how good it was. We ate pulled pork. Feeling stuffed, we headed to our hotel. While we were waiting in line to check in, sounds started happening. Very loud rumblings.

We looked at each other and almost simultaneously said, “My stomach doesn’t feel right.” I wasn’t overly concerned at this point because we had just eaten a big meal and thought we probably ate too much.

Concern turned to panic by the time we reached the room because we were literally knocking each other down trying to get to the bathroom! People, it was not pretty. It was BAD! Remember the scene in Dumb and Dumber? That is exactly what it was like. For those that haven’t seen that movie, think of sounds like firecrackers and 5 gallon buckets of water being poured off a building. It was terrible. It was one of the sickest times of my life.

We each felt guilty while the other one was waiting to use the one bathroom, because waiting was pure torture. I remember sitting on the toilet while opening the door to yell at Kelli on the bed to see if she was still alive while she was waiting her turn. We took turns like this for an hour straight. We apparently had a touch of food poison. It got so bad that I contemplated calling someone to take us to the hospital, but we toughed it out.

Once we were drained of all bodily fluids, Kelli decided she wanted to call home and check on my niece, Kaitlyn, who was still a baby at the time. Neither one of us had a cell phone and the room phone wouldn’t work right. We were able to get the front desk on the line and they said they would send someone down to check it out.

After I hung up, I realized that someone was getting ready to walk into a room that…well… it sure enough didn’t smell like roses, ok? Too late. The guy knocked on the door and we let him in. There we sat, looking pretty as you please, while this poor guy had to work on our phone. The whole time, Kelli and I were looking at each other about to die laughing. He eventually decided that he couldn’t fix it, although he didn’t try very long, and they moved us to another room.

We were glad too, because someone stank up the bathroom bad in the first room and we didn’t appreciate it.