California Dreamin’! Subtitle: What Else Could Possibly Go Wrong?

So there we were at the beautiful rental house on the ocean. The place seemed deserted as ours was the only vehicle we had seen driving in.

The sun was setting. The temperature was dropping and it was beginning to get windy and cold. And we were in short-sleeved tees.

And we (as you may recall from my earlier installment) were locked out.

The keys were inside the house. The rental car keys were also inside the house. And my cell phone was on the kitchen counter.

I looked at Vince and I burst into tears.

Vince looked at me and just shook his head.

We were both tired, hungry and more than ready for a little R&R. And, instead, we were dealing with a situation. Again.

Fortunately, the car was unlocked. So I sat inside and blubbered for a minute. I just needed that moment until I could think logically and figure out what to do.

Vince, on the other hand, was on the move trying to find a way out of our predicament.

He checked the windows. Locked. He walked around to the other side of the house and checked the front door. Locked. He even checked to see if a key was hidden under the rocks in the garden. No luck.

Meanwhile, I sat huddled in the car calculating how much it would cost to replace a broken window. But since most of the windows were floor-to-ceiling, I discarded that idea. I truly didn’t want to have to take out a second mortgage to finance this vacation.

Finally, I came out of the car and suggested we walk back to the guard station and get the guard to help us. Vince suggested I was crazy as it was more than two miles away on a twisty road with no street lights and it was going to be full-on dark by the time we reached the guard house.

IF we reached the guard house. Probably he had visions of my cousin finding our lifeless bodies amongst the growing heads of romaine lettuce on the side of the road.

When I realized that Vince had his cell phone, I asked to use it. And then I realized that (a) he had never communicated with the homeowner and didn’t have her phone number in his cell and (b) I knew no one’s phone number off the top of my head.

Eventually, it occurred to me that I could send the homeowner an email message from Vince if I could find the house rental information on VRBO again. So I sent her an S.O.S.

It also occurred to me that she may well come over with a check in hand and tell us to go find somewhere else to stay as she was sick of dealing with the likes of me.

Nevertheless, I sent the message, not knowing how long it might take her to find her message on the VRBO site.

And then I realized that if I could only log on to my Gmail account on Vince’s phone, I could access her direct phone number.

So I tried logging in to my Gmail account.

Have you ever tried this? I hadn’t as I had never needed to before. I didn’t realize that Google takes security pretty seriously and the only way for me to log in to my account on his phone was if they sent me a code. On. MY. Cell. Phone.

Which was on the kitchen counter inside the house we were locked out of.

OMG.

The frustration from this turn of events had me sobbing.

But, finally, I pulled myself together. I started plotting how we could spend the night inside the tiny little Hyundai Accent. I knew we still had one suitcase on the front porch and I was ecstatic to realize it was filled with clothes – and not our toiletries. Facial cleanser and shampoo were not exactly on my list of high priorities at that particular moment.

And then – wonder of wonders – in the waning light I saw a woman with a big Doberman coming toward me!

While the dog barked ferociously, I implored her for help. At that moment, I didn’t even care if her dog took a chunk out of my leg – I was beyond cognitive thought.

Her dog, by the way, was a lover not a fighter. But he evidently didn’t like the looks of the crazy lady with the tear-streaked face waving a cell phone in the air.

Couldn’t blame him.

Turns out that this woman lives in the community year-round. She was walking her dog on the beach, which is where Vince saw her and started waving his hands at her to get her attention (although he didn’t have a tear-streaked face. Fortunately.). But when she saw him, she turned and hightailed it off the beach.

He didn’t know at the time that it is a “no-no” for people to walk their dogs on the beach as it is protected. Plus, she had her dog off his leash. Another “no-no.” So she wasn’t sure who Vince was and figured she should probably find another place to walk Killer.

Oh and P.S., the dog’s name isn’t really Killer. In my crazed state, I couldn’t remember the dog’s name.

Her name, on the other hand, is Patricia. Since she turned out to be our savior, I remember hers! Probably I should’ve remembered Killer’s name since he didn’t take a chunk out of my leg.

Anyway, Patricia had the name and phone number of the guard, who drove up from the guard house and wondrously produced a key and let us into our rental.

I was never so happy to be inside a house in all my life. And I was incredibly grateful that we didn’t have to sleep inside our little subcompact rental car.

So we had a glass of wine. We had our salads and (now-cold) roasted chicken.

And when my cousin Trish, her son Chris and his girlfriend Sonia finally arrived an hour or so later, we had actually pulled ourselves together and looked relatively calm and relaxed.

Sort of.

Because we still had the issue of Vince’s diabetic medication. We had received alerts from the USPS that the envelope could not be delivered as the address was not valid.

Really?

Every indication of the address of the rental was exactly the same and was the address we had provided to Vince’s brother.

Turns out that at some point, the City and ZIP code changed. I wonder if the homeowner knows this? Probably not – and I’m not going to be the one to tell her. She is probably not speaking to me, anyway.

At any rate, we called the local post office and they assured us that they had the package and it would be delivered. A day late, true. But it was being delivered.

Not so much.

Vince went to the mailbox and was unable to find the envelope. On our next trip out, I went to the mailbox and (shhh…don’t tell anyone), I opened the other mailboxes in the row of mailboxes.

And lo and behold – I found the envelope! Evidently, the mailman has a slight case of dyslexia as he delivered it to “342” instead of “324.”  

Hunh. Dyslexia is probably not a great thing for a mailman to have.

The medication is supposed to be refrigerated and, clearly, for two days while it floated between San Diego and Monterey, it had not been – so Vince was a little trepidatious. But he took a chance and used the medication.

And, no, fortunately, I don’t have any stories to tell you about Emergency Room visits or 9-1-1 calls. Whew! (See? Our vacation was looking up!)

The next morning was simply gorgeous! And, for the next several days we had zero calamities. I may even tell you about some of the highlights.

It wasn’t until the very last day that we had just one more teeny-tiny little "situation." I’ll tell you about it next…

Stay tuned!