i only wear white when it rains

$500 a night buys you this

When Hurricane Charley ripped through Florida in 2004, it ravaged Captiva Island causing widespread damage to South Seas Island Resort. Read: the subsequent renovations imply that the rooms you rent for $500 a night on Labor Day Weekend in 2011 will be fairly updated.

Add that assumption to the long list of things I’ve come to regret, even now as I Google “bed bugs.”

After an almost 3-hour trek during which I was forced to place my seven year old in a Dramamine-induced coma, I found myself driving directly into 1985.

As if waiting for nearly two hours to check-in to our condo freshly vacated by BenGay-wearing nursing home escapees wasn’t bad enough, witnessing the horror that was inside forced me to finally admit that I’m a hypochondriac who suffers from what I like to refer to as Fiscal Amnesia. This became quite obvious once I demanded my daughter Purell the soles of her feet after walking on the carpet, which had not seen a vacuum since the last time Blanche Devereaux invited over a gentleman caller.

Not realizing that more than half of South Fleas villas are individually owned, I was sickened to think the lack of vacancy at the Ritz Naples coupled with my inability to make plans before the Thursday of a holiday weekend had launched me into a nightmarishly itchy episode of the Golden Girls featuring 3-decade old, faded pelican watercolors and an 18-inch TV.

Not fair Hurricane Charley spared this

I was confused. How could that destructive asshole Charley spare this?

I envisioned my daughter and I returning to St. Pete announcing that we discovered the origin of the head lice that was spreading through her school like the lingering smell of burnt toast in Kindergarten. How could I have avoided bed bugs in the coach cabin of the Eurorail in Italy only to find myself exposed to them on sheets that were more wood than cotton?

As my daughter rearranged the dusty, teal and mauve-colored silk flowers popular only between 1990 and 1991, I beg-asked her if we should leave. Go someplace else where the rooms are cleaned by a hotel staff and not your great-grandmother right before she shits herself.

But while I was itching and tossing out bath products that were more citronella than citrus, Ainsley was delighted to discover the type of campy mermaid guestbook only Jerry’s parents would have laying on the glass coffeetable of their Del Boca Vista retirement home. While I frantically scooped my suitcase off the floor wondering how high fleas could jump, she was happily jumping on Rose’s bed. And while I resisted the urge to call the front desk and announce that I am not paying for this abortion of decor unless Bea Arthur comes back from the dead to make me scrambled eggs in the morning, I instead called to see how late the ice cream shop was open.

The showerhead did little more than pee on me all weekend, and I have splinters from the sheets. But I think I’ll soon forget the whitewashed rattan furniture with maple syrup-stained arms and rusted dolphin figurines. Because instead I’ll replace those memories with my daughter’s giggles as she frolicked in the sea. Or her simple, innocent declaration that the hotdog she ate for lunch at the beach bar-amshackle nearby, was “the best meal” she ever had (quite a testament to my cooking).

South Fleas may have had me itching, but luckily the company could always make me smile.

Stay Golden, Ainsley. Stay Golden.

Too bad I only brought my Betamax tapes