The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. Today my sister Corryn had an idea: "Let's go to the beach. We can book a hotel and use the pool."

"Are you sure the beach is a good idea?" I said. "The weather's looking a little cloudy today."

"Nah, it'll be fine."

6-year-old was excited. He packed his armbands and swimming costume into his Avengers backpack. The rest of us packed some stuff too and we all walked to the bus station.

On the bus, I realised I hadn't told Girlfriend we were going away for a couple of days. Oh well. I was sure she wouldn't mind.

I let 6-year-old send her a photo of the bus seats. He wrote the caption: "Lluret de marm".

"Lloret del mar?" she wrote. "Do you know when you'll be back?"

"Tomorrow," I wrote.

She sent me four emojis. And they weren't heart emojis. They were all the emoji of a face with its eyes wide open.

Then she wrote, "You could have told me. I'm working tomorrow and 1-year-old doesn't have nursery."

After an hour's bus ride, we in Lloret del Mar. It was me, 6-year-old, my sister Corryn, and her 12-year-old daughter Aurora.

We had to walk a mile uphill to get to the hotel. Actually, it was me, Corryn, and Aurora walking; 6-year-old was riding on my shoulders.

We reached the hotel. Hotel Ridomar. Two Russian women were working on reception. We checked in. They gave us the cards for our rooms.

We went up to the hotel roof to see the pool.

But there was a problem: the hotel pool had no water. It was just a big empty hole.

"The pool has no water in it," I observed.

"Oh my god," said Corryn. "On the website, they said they have a pool."

"It's probably because of the drought in Spain," I said. "Hotels are only allowed to refill their swimming pools with seawater."

"Well, there's always the sea," I said.

So we went to the sea. The beach was deserted. The waves were huge, as tall as houses. The waves crashed against the walls, sending up clouds of spray. I got wet just by standing next to the beach. Two policemen were putting up plastic fences at the entrances to the beach.

Aurora was shivering from the cold. I offered her my jumper; she took it. 6-year-old was wearing two jumpers. I later found out Spain issued an orange warning for rain and strong winds today.

I stripped down to my swimming trunks and ran into the sea. The water was so cold that I ran straight back out.

With nothing else to do, we walked along the beachfront. 6-year-old started reading out the t-shirts hanging in front of the tourist shops: "I love Lloret del Mar. I love sex. I love 69. I love big boobs. I love lesbians. Daddy, what's a lesbian?"

"It's a woman who wants to have sex with other women," I said.

"I love MILFs. Daddy, what does MILF mean?"

"A MILF is a mom who is very beautiful. It's a mom you want to have sex with."

Corryn must have been nearby listening because she said, "You can't tell him that!"

"It's sex education," I said.

"He's only six years old!"

"It's never too early to start learning," I said.

Then I saw on TripAdvisor there was a fair nearby called Sould Park.

"It's probably called Sould Park because it's old," I said.

"It'll probably be crap," said Aurora. "There'll be a Mario but it'll be a strange knockoff Mario with purple and white clothes."

I think that's Waluigi?

"You're assuming it'll even be open," I said.

It was open. But Aurora was right: it was crap. There were just little rides for kids. 6-year-old went on a water boat ride. Bumper boats. 6-year-old was the only one on the ride so all he could bump into were the walls.

Two teenage girls were running all the rides. They weren't much older than Aurora.

Corryn went off for a cigarette break. When she came back, she found us all inside a Jurassic Park Arcade game, shooting the bejesus out of velociraptors. I was getting really into it:

"COME ON THEN! YOU WANT TO DIE? THEN COME AND DIE, YOU MOTHERFLIPPERS!"

"I KILLED YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS AND NOW I'M GOING TO KILL YOU TOO!"

"YOU WANT TO DIE AS WELL?"

I was killing every dinosaur in Jurassic Park. There would be no dinosaurs left for John Hammond to show the guests, which wasn't my fault, because the dinosaurs were attacking me, so I had a right to kill them. I was defending myself. Unfortunately, I lost the game because I failed to stop a raptor from eating a woman's face.

We went to KFC for dinner. I upgraded my meal to a large. But the meal didn't seem large. It was a burger, a small salad in a box, a tiny thimble-sized ice cream, a single chicken nugget, and a can of coke. Maybe the KFC workers gave me a small meal by mistake. But I was too unconfident to go up and ask them about it.

Then we went into an arcade where we played a game called Mario Kart Arcade GP. Aurora won the first race, I won the second race, and I let 6-year-old win the third race.

It was dark when we got back to the hotel room. 6-year-old wanted to watch TV. "Daddy, can we watch TV? Please? Pleeeeeeease?" It was almost 10 pm. "No," I said. We went to bed. 6-year-old had a lightswitch next to his bed and he kept turning on the light on and off.

"Goodnight," I said, turning the light off.

6-year-old giggled and turned the light back on again.

"Ok, well goodnight for real this time," I said. I turned the light off.

6-year-old turned the light back on again.

We did this a few more times until finally 6-year-old got bored and fell asleep.

***

At 5 am, noise woke me up. People were shouting and laughing outside my hotel room. I heard someone shout: "Run! Run, quick!" More laughing. I went back to sleep.

At 7 am I woke up, and 6-year-old woke up shortly after. It was still too soon for breakfast so we watched Spidey and his Amazing Friends on the hotel TV.

At 8:30 am we left the room and knocked on Corryn's door. The door opened. It was Corryn. She had bags under her eyes.

"We've had a terrible night," said Corryn. "The room next to ours had some girls in it and they were awake until 4 o'clock in the morning."

"You were awake until 4 in the morning?" I said.

"It was horrible," said Corryn. "It was these teenage girls in the room next to ours. They wouldn't stop talking and laughing. Eventually I got up and went and told the receptionist," said Corryn.

"What did the receptionist do?" I asked.

"She knocked on the door, and when the girls opened the door, the receptionist said, 'Now come on girls, it's time to go to sleep.' The girls just laughed and slammed the door in her face."

We all went to breakfast. No one else was in the dining room; the tables and chairs were empty. Maybe everyone was recovering from the noise of the teenage girls last night. The breakfast was a self-service buffet. I filled a plate with sausages, bacon, and eggs while reading bilingual signs written in Spanish and Russian.

We all sat down to eat. I ate four plates, Aurora barely touched hers.

"I heard you had a bad night?" I asked Aurora.

"Oh my god," said Aurora. "It was so bad. These girls were making noise all night. I banged on the wall to tell them to shut up," said Aurora. "But guess what they did. They just banged back."

"They were probably telling you to keep your noise down," I joked.

"At 1:30 a boy came," said Aurora. "I could hear his deep voice. All the girls started shrieking with excitement."

Lucky guy. Those next few hours were probably the best of his life. As well as the last hours of his life. Maybe it was like when Amazon women subject Zapp and Fry to snu-snu in Futurama. I imagined the hotel workers would find his corpse dumped in the bath, and the autopsy would reveal he died of a shattered pelvis. "His pelvis has been smashed to dust," the coroner will say sadly, while shaking his head.

I noticed a strange curtained-off section of the dining room. Occasionally the curtain would lift and someone would come scuttling out to get food. An old lady, a man, or a 14-year-old boy. I guessed they were related to the owners of the hotel. Once they got a plate of food, they would sneak back behind the curtain again. 6-year-old peered through the curtains as we left the dining room and saw they had strawberries behind there. We didn't get strawberries.

We packed. We left the hotel.

We were all standing outside the hotel with our suitcases when I asked "So does anyone want to do anything else in Lloret de Mar?"

Corryn, Aurora and 6-year-old wanted to go home. So we got the next bus home.