Lights Out in Paradise

Oh how I envied the savvy, sophisticated $45 breakfast buffet diners!!!

We drifted off to sleep in our lagoon room only to find that the power had outtaged 20 minutes later.

To a person who doesn't depend on life-critical highly sensitive carefully calibrated medical equipment to prevent likely sudden death during so much as a nap, this isn't an issue.

But to me, waking up suffocating because my CPAP had halted, it was.

Most of the hotel looked like it was out. People with flashlights wandered around.

After 45 minutes or so, it came back. We gave it 20 minutes and went back to bed. Shortly thereafter, I almost succumbed to asphyxiation again. I barely had the presence of mind to take a breath through my mouth before perishing.

The above scenario was repeated, and when the power came back, it stayed on for good.

An idea began to form in my mind and I drifted off again.

The next morning, I woke up (big surprise) in the lagoon room in paradise. I made some coffee in paradise in the Bodum french press thingy.

I poured the paradise coffee too early and had a cup full of paradise mud. You have to press the plunger thingy before pouring the coffee.

The second try at it was great.

We opened up the wall and I had paradise coffee on the paradise patio looking at the paradise view of the paradise lagoon and listening to the fucking loud paradicial birds.

We had some breakfast, nibbling on the goodies we'd acquired here and there.

Then I opted for a cleanse in the paradise shower. I had only just gotten nicely soaped up when I adjusted the angle of the shower head and it came off the spout and fell to the bottom of the shower.

With the shower head removed, the supply line provided a torrent at approximately 6000 pounds of pressure, enough to remove a nipple if ones aim were bad.

I also found out later that it quickly soaked a large part of the bathroom outside the confines of the tub/shower.

Good God! Eyes full of soap, I managed to get enough water on my hands to wipe enough soap out to see enough to turn off the fucking paradise water cannon. Fuck!

Next step was to turn off the flow and attempt a slippery-handed repair, something I learned in the back row of a movie theatre.

The nozzle assembly was not interested in mating onto the supply stem, and I don't blame it one bit after having been rejected so violently.

The only thing left was to turn on enough water so that I could get the soap off.

That done, floor dried, monsoon soaked up, I shaved in the sink, dressed, and headed out of the room.

The Lobby Battlefield

Jake was the young man's name, and he was my mark at the front desk.

"Nice to meet you, young Jake," I started. "Jake, do you know what is in this plastic bag?"

"Ummmm..."

I handed the bundle to him.

"Open it."

He did.

"It's... it's a shower head?"

"It is! It's the shower head that almost fell on my toe, breaking it, and unleashing an aquatic pandemonium. Fortunately, the only ill effects on me were being scared shitless, being momentarily blinded by paradise soap, and the loss of a nipple."

"Oh my gosh! I'm very sorry Mr. Flusher..."

My moment to pounce.

"I really would not like our stay here to be put off track by such a thing. First of all, I would appreciated it if you would arrange for an immediate replacement. I'm sure a professional plumber could manage it in a few minutes, and you certainly must have a spare in stock."

"Yes, I'll take care of that -"

"Jake, it would really make me feel better about things if you could, say, provide us with breakfast tomorrow morning."

He said he'd have to ask his manager but I knew I had them.

Gold Coast Tourist Shuttle loss - more than covered. Because the breakfast buffet is $45 a person.

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The beach at the Gold Coast is amazing. One of the nice things about the Sheraton Mirage Hoidy-Toidy is that it has private access directly to the beach.

I'll let the photos do the talking on this one.

Next post... we hit lunch, and the Gold Coast pokies!

We came across a message in the sand.