When I planned the Jansma annual winter break vacation in December it was with the idea that the entire family would be going to the US Virgin Islands. However, that was when we thought Shirley’s parents (Al and Sue, those are their real names) were stuck in Arizona at their winter home. Fortunately, they were able to get scheduled for vaccines in Newaygo County, return to Michigan in January, and are currently minding our kids as Shirley and I take a much needed vacation. Not much planning went into this trip, I booked airfare and a place to stay. So, when we arrived and we realized there were no rental cars at the airport I began to panic. I am claustrophobic in all areas of my life, it goes beyond small spaces, it can be my home, or even a resort in a tropical paradise. Even on vacation I have to get out and go to the store on a daily basis as well as make a morning Starbucks run. Sadly, I don’t think there is a Starbucks here so I have had to settle for imitation cold brew from the breakfast place at our resort, and when I say resort, I mean that in possibly the loosest way you can use the word resort.

When we arrived last Thursday I received a call on our way to the place that I thought we had booked telling me we had been upgraded. I couldn’t understand much of what the guy was saying, just congratulations and upgrade. Hard to get excited when you have no idea what the place you originally intended on staying at was like nor any clue what the new place holds in store for you. The shuttle driver dropped us off at the original place we booked because I figured they just changed our room to a better room. Turns out they changed our entire location and we were now staying on the beach roughly 300 yards from the original booking site. The office was a converted guest room that didn’t exactly instill confidence in our new digs and when I couldn’t get the door to our room to open I began to have serious reservations. Turns out because it had rained prior to our arrival the door had expanded and the door needed someone with a little more know how than what I possessed to get it open. After a day of traveling I needed a shower and discovered there was no hot water. Ultimately I endured two days of luke warm showers before we spoke to someone who fixed the issue only to have the hot water go out again 24 hours later. The sketchy place we were staying at recommended a rental place a couple miles down the road and I blame myself for what ensued. Why wouldn’t a sketchy vacation rental place not be in bed with a car rental place at least as shitty as they were, if not more? I left them my number when they told me they didn’t have any cars, George called me back on Saturday informing me that a car had been returned and wanted to know when he could come and pick me up. In my excitement I didn’t ask anything about the car or the price and told him I”d be ready in ten minutes.

To say the car was a giant pile of shit would be an insult to giant piles of shit. It was a Ford Focus that was probably an early 2000’s model. Stupidly, I got in the car and he drove me to the rental headquarters which was a trailer a couple miles away from the resort that would not be suitable to inhabit even in Allegan or Ionia County. For some reason I didn’t balk at the rental fee of $65 a day nor did I protest the $4 government tax, that actually seemed like a bargain. Furthermore, I opted for the $15 a day insurance coverage even though the car had no actual value based upon its current condition. I never opt for the insurance, but they drive on the left side of the road here and George claimed a lot of insurance companies from the states use that fact as a way to dispute any claims made by their policy holders when they are down here on vacation. I drove away and immediately had buyers remorse. The interior door handle was missing a piece and was rubbing up against my leg and causing me a moderate amount of discomfort, way more discomfort than you should receive for $84 a day (I also had to throw down a $500 deposit, which was about 500 times the value of the car).

To be honest, I was in a bit more vulnerable state on Saturday than normal, the night before I was over served to the point that my alter ego Steve only had a five minute window to enjoy my drunken state before I went into full on black out mode. Shirley and I had decided on getting pizza and by the time we began to eat I took on the persona of wet noodle mumbling a lot of non sense and claiming that I had the investing savvy to allow us to retire immediately. I had just opened up a TD Ameritrade account in October to jump on some Hertz and now was off and running with a lot of hits, and a few misses, so it wasn’t all drunk talk, I”d easily be able to navigate us into retiring by our late 70’s with my investing prowess as long as I could disable Shirley’s amazon prime account. On our way out of Red Hook prior to getting a taxi back to our resort which was less than a half a mile from our resort, we stopped and made a reservation for dinner the following night. It went against every fiber of my Dutch being to not walk into and out of town but helicopter rides are safer than pedestrian walking on the streets of St. Thomas.

Saturday morning Shirley gave me a hard time about how inebriated I had become the night prior, the good news for her is I was in such a disabled state I didn’t even make a play for some business time, the bad news for me was that when I made a play for it Saturday morning I got the heisman, it was a stiff arm even more debilitating than anything Derrick Henry could dish out. I was also warned that I had to be on my best behavior if I was going to cash in later that night. (I didn’t even remember stopping to make the dinner reservations) The reservations we had made were for four people enhancing my chances of Steve staying away for the night. Shirley had met a couple from North Carolina on the beech on Friday and they had invited us to go to St. George Island with them on Saturday. Steve had agreed to this adventure but Jason wasn’t feeling it out of fear of being trapped for the day, and in true Jansma fashion Shirley agreed and texted our new found friends that we were out for the day trip but still on for dinner. We slowly made our way out of bed and headed to the breakfast place for the first time. Shirley asked the man behind the counter “how’s your sausage?” My response was “that’s kind of a personal question isn’t it?” The guy didn’t even smirk making me think he either didn’t hear me or he was a democrat.

I have made little mention of my kids and the reason for that is those little assholes don’t even miss us. The only time they reach out to us is when they want more screen time. We have face timed them a couple times and they have about as much interest in us as Shirley has in hanging out with Steve. To make matters worse for Al and Sue the kids have winter break and today was a snow day so the only respite they have this week is a half day of school tomorrow. On top of that, while I was typing this blog Aiden contacted Shirley because he couldn’t get on Roblox, he thought Shirley pulled the plug on him but it was corporate. Apparently you aren’t suppose to say inappropriate things on Roblox, even if you spell it wrong, and he called someone a bich in the chat and was red flagged for it. Kids is a chip off the ole block. Failing as a parent when your kids are there with you is one thing, but I never would have imagined we could do it when we were thousands of miles away from our kids. The right thing would be to keep him off Roblox for a month which I heard Shirley mention but didn’t really catch what she was saying until I heard her tell Aiden “ok, I’m going to get you back on Roblox but you can’t say any more inappropriate things because I assured them you wouldn’t and I don’t want you making me look bad the Roblox people (whoever that is).”