My holidays
have been extremely varied.

They range from the downright awful - week in Yorkshire in the pouring rain in October, in a cramped, dingy and downright filthy little cottage (used jamrags under the bed), to the otherwise lovely bedsit in Devon with the 17 ratdogs and water running down the wall, to the week in Minorca in October when it only didn't rain the one day.

One of the worst was a couple of years ago. Having made the incredibly stupid decision to invite Stalker Boy to Paris ("he can't be that bad, it'll only be four days"), we set off for the capital of Froggyland*. Within ten minutes of checking into the hotel, he wanted to look up "gay clubs" so we could go off and get into them so he could pretend to be gay, take photos and make his best enemy Tris jealous. We were both 17 at the time and I wasn't willing to piss my parents off for what Stalker Boy wanted to do. Even if he was ratting me out about what time our "deep and meaningful" (= one sided rant at me about how I should "forgive and forget" anyone who had ever wronged me and not ever have sex) had ended "Ooooh, she didn't go to bed till MIDNIGHT!", which was pissing me right off.

Aside from this he was being his usual twattish self during the day, dragging me at top speed across Paris and terrifying ticket officers at La Défense for being too much of a wanker to admit he'd made a mistake. Admittedly I'm not a big fan of metro systems anywhere, but even when I said to him I remembered jumping the barrier with an old lady after we came up the steps he still carried on ranting and raving and calling me "fucking stupid woman" (note absence of parents) and trying to stab his ticket into the RER line and wondering why it made that angry beeping noise. Then this happened.

Stalker Boy (in French): I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO VALIDATE MY TICKET IN THAT MACHINE OVER THERE! I NEED TO GET TO GARE DU NORD NOW!
Ticket man: Look, that's not the right line.
Stalker Boy: BUT THAT IS THE WAY TO THE METRO!
Ticket man: No it's not. Here, have some more tickets.
Stalker Boy: RIGHT THEN! *marches back to the wrong ticket machine and pushes ticket in*
Ticket machine: *beeps*
Stalker Boy: *marches up to girl mopping the floor* DO YOU WORK HERE?
Girl: Y..es.
Stalker Boy: HOW DO I GET ON THE METRO?
Girl: Down the stairs and to your right.
Stalker Boy: ...oh.

After this, I was invited to join him and his family for a week in Austria. It would have been pleasant enough if he wasn't there; the sad thing is that the rest of his family are absolutely lovely and have no idea that they've spawned the devil. It was beautiful - we went to see Hitler's house and all kinds of stuff. It even snowed up there. However, he would barge his immense frame into my room every night to watch the pr0n channel because his own was fuzzed out, and despite my protests: "Hey, not cool" (= "turn that crap off, if it comes up on the bill, you're paying"), he persisted. Thank Eris he stopped short of getting "David Dickinson"** out to fwap and said "scared it'll make you a lesbian?".

The final morning, he came down to breakfast and announced that his room was "haunted". As I've mentioned before, Stalker Boy claims to attract ghosts and was "a passenger on the Titanic", a repressed memory jogged only by the release of the James Cameron film in 1997. By a dressing gown-shaped thing. For the last night, therefore, we all had to push all our mattresses into his mum and brother (who must have been about 13)'s room.

You read that right. He was 17, constantly boasting about how independent and mature he was, and afraid of a ghost so he wanted his mummy.

Click "I like this" if you think he's a big fat wuss.

I'm going on holiday next Friday with the parents to Cornwall, in a place that sounds like it belongs in Father Ted. Could be interesting...

* My ancestors were French, so I'm allowed to say that.
** Yes, that really is what he calls it.
( Maladicta, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 23:23, Reply)