A Little Anxiety on My Vacation

Greetings! I'm just getting home from a nice mini-vacation that was, for the most part, extremely relaxing. We spent a few days in a rented condo on the beach in Seabrook Island, SC. We were looking for something quiet and extremely chill, and our condo at Seabrook delivered perfectly. Unfortunately, I did not make it through this getaway without a couple of jarring moments.

The first one came while getting caught up on the collection of magazines that had slowly piled up at the house over the past couple of months. I kicked it off with a Golf Digest, a magazine I was certain I could skim through in 10 to 15 minutes. Sadly, I came face to face with a site for which I was ill-prepared.

One thing you learn as you get older is that nothing is sacred. You recoil in horror as the sports you loved as a child are trashed by self absorbed, overpaid players. Your blissful ignorance is shattered when you realize that neither law nor common decency prevents a wretched rehashing of an all time classic like The Karate Kid by the likes of Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. Still, you figure some things and some people are beyond compromise. And then you flip past the editor's column in Golf Digest and run into this ad...

I'll have that frozen daiquiri shaken, not stirred.

Are you kidding me?! James freaking Bond posing with a Louis Vuitton man-purse? Unacceptable. Don't you get your status as knight revoked for this kind of abomination? This may just tip the scales in Roger Moore's favor when ranking those who have portrayed Bond. Truthfully, if Connery shows up in any more of these he might just find himself below the enchanting Timothy Dalton as well.

Following that incident, the trip sailed along smoothly until our return drive home earlier today. We brought our dogs along for the festivities, knowing that they would enjoy running around on an otherwise empty beach. Traveling with the dogs did cause some alterations to our general road trip routine, though. Chief among the changes was that one stop along the way needed to occur at a rest area to afford the dogs the chance to stretch the old legs and handle their business. Now perhaps some of you are big fans of the state run rest stops that dot our interstates, but I personally haven't stopped in at one in many a year.

I do harbor a generally low opinion of them and, as such, was on the lookout for unseemly characters and activities. It was with this mindset that I entered the men's restroom at the rest stop at the Georgia-South Carolina border. My initial impression was good enough, I've certainly been in worse looking restrooms. I surveyed the scene and noted one fellow bathroom patron as I slid into the end urinal. That's where things took a turn for the worse. Over the next 30 seconds three additional gentlemen joined us, all of them selecting the urinals closest to me. Not good.

"Stay calm, Craig. These are probably just well meaning travelers not familiar with the etiquette that dictates they select urinals with as much spacing between men as possible."

And so I focused my attention on the sink, avoiding all eye contact and trying to escape as quickly as possible without appearing rattled. After a quick hand washing session, I speed walked over to the door without looking up. I reached for the handle and my escape to civilization...the door was locked. Uh oh. Panic quickly settled in as I more violently attacked the door handle. It was definitely locked, and now I was sweating it. There was now no choice but to lift up the head and fully assess my situation. It was at this moment that it quickly became clear that I had spent the last 30 seconds trying to storm my way into the janitor's closet, with the actual exit door about five feet to my right. Good times on the open road!