Just Margie and me, and her sister makes three.
Mary Louise came down from Virginia to spend the week with us.
Now it’s just the three of us, catching our breath after a “relaxing” beach vacation.
You know the kind…relaxing right up until it isn’t.

Josh, Cierra, and the kiddos have packed up and headed home.
The noise has faded, the toys are gone, and the fridge is looking more like a science experiment (lots of food to throw away instead of lugging home.
We’re pooped, but we survived…. Mostly.

Along for the week were our daughter, Christine, her son Josh (our grandson), his wife Cierra, and their two: Lucy and little Harrison—aka Cranky Pants (LOL). He’s six months old, teething, and not particularly thrilled about the whole beach vacation thing.
Felt kinda icky all week. Poor guy.
Luckily, he won’t remember any of it.
The rest of us? Oh, we’ll remember.

It’s Friday already. Checkout’s looming (10AM tomorrow).
We’ve had a good run. Great weather, just a few showers. In all, a fine, relaxing week.

Well… mostly relaxing.

Wednesday night, 11:30PM.
Outta nowhere, total blackout.
Us along with 262 of our Folly Beach neighbors, suddenly and completely powerless.
No AC. No fridge. No ceiling fans. Just silence. Initial info we got was that expected repair was at 6AM Thursday.  We were immediately concerned that  both our food and us were gonna get hot.

We were all awake at 1:30AM, talking and trying to stay cool. I went out on the porch where it was a bit cooler.  Just 80 degrees. Practically refreshing.

We were sitting around trying to figure out what to do about the food in the fridge when it happened:
The smoke alarms.

The smoke alarms went off with a loud shrill sound that would wake the Devil. Maybe it’s supposed to, but only if there is smoke.  There wasn’t any.
It was probably caused by the power outage

We waited about 30 minutes, hoping they’d stop on their own. Then the power came back. Lights, AC, fridge, everything.
BUT the smoke alarms? Still screaming.

Christine called the emergency number for the property manager. Their advice?
“Remove all the batteries.”
Translation: climb up, yank them off the ceiling, and remove the batteries.
So that’s what we did.

Aah…silence…finally.
We can get to sleep now.

Thursday.
We left three voicemails for Vacasa.
No response…surprise.

Friday morning.
I drove down to their office on Folly Road to talk to nice human lady. 
She put in a work order and said someone would come out to take care of the smoke alarms.
A couple hours later, a tech showed up, looked around, and told Josh to just reconnect the alarms.

He did. Fixed.
About a day late, oh well.

Now it’s Saturday. 6AM.
We gotta get out of here by 10, and I’m wide awake.

I can’t do much at this point. I’m freakin’ old.
They’ve only asked us to strip the beds, clear out the fridge, and start the dishwasher.
Seems simple enough…until you look at the fridge full of food.  Did we overstock?  Probably.

I’ll do what I can to help, but I can’t steer this ship.
That’s up to Christine or Josh now. They’ll handle it. I know they will.

Still, it’s not easy stepping aside.
I’ve spent a lifetime steering.
It’s tough for this old geezer to relinquish control, but that’s the sitcom plot, which is unchangeable.

Watch us, kids. We’re a glimpse into your future.

Enuf already!!