SUBJ: The Trip to Eilat
By Alan Jacobi
Haifa, Israel
Submitted to HumourNet by Alan Jacobi

Our trip to Eilat had been planned for months. Everything was
carefully laid out and planned, from our aimlessly drifting between
the waves, to our aimfully sweet-talking beautiful Swedish tourists
out of their virginity.

To our last test we already came prepared. Granted, the shocking
Hawaiian shirts and the "just as colorful" shorts we were wearing
made us stick out amongst the "commoners" strung up in their
uniforms, but this did not even prevent us from giving the third
finger to the guard who asked who we were.

I scribbled up the last equation while slipping on the webbed shoes
and sticking the snorkel into my mouth, and to the sounds of the
mini bus honking outside we threw the test papers at the old hags
who were supervising the test (whose looks reminded me of vultures
looking at their pray, waiting for it to fall so they can enjoy its
flesh).

Not more than two minutes later we were already on our way to the
golden city, the fantasy of every teen in northern Israel. The bags
-- carefully packed by our parents, right down to the rubbish such
as hats, sun block, and a telephone card -- were thrown immediately
on departure into the school trash can, where an organized torching
of notebooks (and one old hag who wandered in there in search of
evidence of cheating) began to organize.

As we all are well aware, the last day of school is best described
as: "What can they possibly do to us *now*?" and as such presents
lethal danger to anyone in the vicinity -- teachers AND students.
That did not bother us at all as we surfed down the stairwell rails,
and leaped out from the window to one of the many poles that stood
in the school yard ever since that idea of crucifying cheaters
(which had sparked up the principle's imagination but had fallen in
the parents' committee meeting).

We completed the trip to Eilat with no particular difficulties.
That was the *last* thing we did with no particular difficulties.

Our smiles faded away as we opened up the Mini bus's doors. A
searing wave of heat hit us. We stood in the gates of the fabled
"Princess" Hotel and took comfort in the notion that we could
surgically attach ourselves to the A/C for the duration of our trip.

"Who reserved rooms?" a question arose from the crowd.

The looks that passed among us cleared up any doubts we had as to
our now-desperate situation.

"Nobody reserved rooms?" asked one of the victims. "Who the hell
was supposed to reserve the rooms?"

"I was told Danny would take care of that" said one. Danny, of
course, had never heard of the entire thing, and continued to claim
that he was told Itai would reserve since he has connections, but
Itai claimed to have no connections whatsoever and he was told that
Shai had already ordered reservations at the beginning of the year,
and Shai thought I won them on "Wheel of Fortune."

Sam meanwhile returned from the air conditioned lobby and told us
that even the hotel's cellars were booked till the 2000's.

Having no other options, we passed from hotel to hotel asking here
and there about rooms. Turned out that every single hotel was at
250% capacity at least till the end of the Summer and part of the
Autumn. In one of those we met with old friends who told us how
they got a special deal on sleeping in the janitor's closet and
inside the ice machine.

At last, in the outskirts of town, we came upon a rather poorly
maintained building with a sign Ho el. (The "T" was lying on the
ground beneath the sign.) Still, our condition did not allow us to
be picky, and we approached.

As the automatic door opened we saw a wild-eyed tourist standing
inside arguing with the clerk. Upon seeing the doors open, his eyes
widened, he grabbed his bags and dashed outsided laughing
maniacally. When he was outside he paused for a minute, turned
around pointed at us, and as the door closed behind us he started
laughing again, his eyes burning with madness.

Shaken up a bit, we dismissed it and approached the desk. We were
met by a man looking like someone out of a wanted poster, with a
rather large belly, -- not at all covered by his stained undershirt
-- holding a cheap wine bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the
other. He took a sip from the bottle and politely asked us,
"Whaddya want?"

One of our more courageous members took up the negotiations while we
took a look around.

There was a small fish tank above which sat a sign asking not to
feed the fish. The sign apparently was taken all too seriously
since all of these fish were floating bellies up, and their fishy
eyes blank and lifeless. There were a couple of pay phones, a sign
that stated there was a recreational room in the basement, and a
door that led to the pool (from which, strangely enough, screams
were coming). Just off the lobby was a small souvenir store.

Meanwhile we received the keys to the two rooms we took. A small
test confirmed our suspicion that these two keys were identical to
each other (except for the numbers on them). Another small test
revealed that actually they were identical to every other key in the
hotel (which, later that night, also proved to include the key to
the hotel's safe).

Upon entering our rooms, we heard some noise from the bathroom.
Opening the door carefully, we were met by a giant cockroach, the
size of about three blood hounds. In perfect Hebrew, he demanded
all our money. Horrified, we shut the door, catching one of its
antennas in the jamb. Swearing like a cheated prostitute he pulled
on his antenna till it got dismembered and lay on the floor. We
were on our way to the phone when we heard several gunshots, and
three nice, round holes opened up in the bathroom door. We grabbed
the phone and dived behind the sofa, dialing furiously for the
reception desk.

- "Reception desk, will you please hold?"
- "No dammit! What's going on here?"  We shouted between gun shots.
- "Is there anything wrong?"
- "A giant talking roach is in the bathroom -- tried to mug me, and
   now he's shooting at us!"

What would anywhere else in the world cause the desk to "hang up on
these weirdos" was met here with frightening comprehension.

"There's a shotgun behind the door for that exact purpose. Have a
nice day." <click>

A short search turned up a loaded shotgun from behind the door. I
took off one of my shoes and threw it across the room. The roach
turned to shoot the shoe; that mistake cost him his life.

We dragged his corpse to the hotel's trash bin and tossed him over
another one of his species.

Having secured the room, we looked around a bit. We found that the
air conditioner had only two options: Siberia or Hell. We chose
Siberia. Soon snow started to form above us which went nicely with
the static on the three- legged TV with the broken screen from one
of the killer roach's bullets. Some eggs were forgotten in the
freezer and now it looked like a certain scene from Aliens (the
second one). We closed the refrigerator. Pretty soon, we realized
that if get bored at night (and lose our common key) we could visit
each other through the windows that were closely linked to each
other.

This left us feeling miserable with the notion that we may:
A) Not be able to use the A/C
B) Not be able to use the refrigerator
C) Not be able to watch TV and
D) Have to post guards at night (since any third-rate burglar could
   just walk into our room (and also, another encounter with one of
   the "Roaches of Death" was possible).

Downstairs we also learned that the automatic door only works in one
direction. Inside. It was not in the owner's interest to install
sensors on the inner side of the hotel since, as the phrase goes:
"He who leaves, never comes back."

Having no other choice, we decided to scope out the hotel's
features. First, we walked into the souvenir store. It contained
hats, T-shirts, various clothing articles, cameras, batteries,
bathing suits, and other various objects, all having one thing in
common: All of them were obviously used. Some of them even bore
labels with the names of the previous owners on them.

Upon exit a colorful brochure caught our eyes. It told of the
hotel's special program for this week. Ugh! Special Diet evening
in the pool! The pool is gonna be full of fat people, only 300
pounds and above may enter.

BUT the evening starts only in the evening. The pool, for now, was
ours.

Sprinting, we arrived at the pool and with no further hesitation
jumped inside. It was not long till we noticed a few interesting
facts:

- There were plastic bags floating in the water
- The water was salty
- The water was foul, salty, and had plastic bags floating in it.

Actually, none of these made our mental alarms go off. It was when
Sam yelled that he'd been stung by a jellyfish that realized the
water had been taken from the sea, from the hotel's beach. Yes,
right next to the "Contaminated water, do not swim!" sign.

We darted outside and headed to the showers. Since the hotel's taps
produced the exact same water as in the pool, we had to shower with
the spring water we had brought with us to drink on the bus.

We would have checked out at that instant, but it seems the clerk
had disappeared. I put a dime into one of the pay phones and
immediately heard chewing sounds. That moment I could have sworn I
heard a burp. I would have been shocked, but after the encounter
with the roach, I decided anything's possible.

We reached the decision that we would stay in the Recreation Room in
the basement for the night, and head back on the first bus tomorrow.

The Recreational Room turned out to be a pretty elegant room,
equipped with several early-century pinball machines, whose only
fault was lacking any small silvery balls inside them. Also there
were some obviously out-of-order arcade machines, and some pool
tables.

For security reasons, the owners tied the cue sticks to the table
with a long metal chain. That is acceptable in many places.

What is NOT acceptable in many places is also tying all the balls to
each other, and all of them to the table, which was also nailed to
the floor. This design, by the way, spread throughout the hotel
right up to the chained soap bar and towels.

In our despair, we went back up to our rooms, and tried to shield
ourselves from the A/C's chill, which went right through our summer
clothes (and which would simply not stop once it had began its
deadly operation).

The next morning, exhausted from the cold and lack of sleep, we went
down to the lobby to arrange our much-awaited departure. Several
new items in the souvenir store caught our eyes. We recognized them
as our own personal items, among which was Sam's "Asthma medication
pump."

The primitive clerk explained to us in three languages why we could
not leave without an additional payment which he called: "The
payment for the non payment." Being as anxious to leave as we were
we almost paid that ridiculous bill when some unlucky tourist
wandered into the hotel and the doors opened briefly. We grabbed
our bags and made a run for it.

We welcomed the scorching heat as it cleansed us from the memories,
and we ran to the nearest bus station.

On the bus we met with our friends who had taken the janitor's
closet and ice machine offer. They seemed to be suffering from a
similar lack of sleep, and the unmistakable look of someone on the
brink of loosing his sanity.

We eyed them suspiciously trying to cover our own "scars" as they
did the same, neither of us wanting to appear as losers.

"So, how was it?" we asked...

"Great..." they said, dimly aware they were not fooling us. "How
was yours?"

"Fantastic" we said with an "if you won't tell, I won't" look.

"Ok, so we both had a great time," they said, entering into our
tacit agreement.

Silence lurked over the rest of the trip home as we left Eilat --
passing on our way a bus full of obscenely fat people all hunched
over some brochures...

The End

(Note: This story is strictly fictional. Neither I, nor my
friends, have ever gone through such a nightmare).

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