This spring, i took a break from cabin life and full-time glamping to go to the beach and spend time with friends.

(At least i think it was spring. Spring in Oregon starts in late February, when it stops raining for a day and a half and you think..wait for it…is this it? Then.. nope! Instead, let’s have a freak snowstorm and cancel all the things! Then in March, the snow melts and rain slows down just enough that daffodils and narcissus poke their little bud-heads out of the ground and we think THIS! This is IT! But Mother Nature is a tricky gal and just as the shoots begin to bloom…BAM! Haha!! Let’s have a deep freeze! And then rain! Yay for ice! Then in April, we see a third attempt at spring which wobbles along with a day of sun here, a break in the rain there, until Third Spring happens in May with 3 or 4 days of wait……what? 80 degrees? Did we miss something?? And then.. fooled you! Made you look! Temperatures drop and it rains and hails for two more weeks.)

 

But it was technically “early spring”, according to the calendar, and so time for the Annual Game Weekend at the Coast.

i belong to a tribe of the wildest, craziest, board-game-obsessed people ever seen on the planet Earth. We regularly get together for game nights (Unless the “candice factor” comes into play – more later on that.)

Once or twice a year, in the off-season (because it’s cheap!), we converge on the Oregon Coast, meet at a huge vacation rental, and spend a few days gaming round the clock, eating ourselves stupid, and laughing until we snort homemade complicated cocktails out of our noses.

These folks have epic hoards of board games each and are regular kickstarter contributors often giving hefty and undisclosed amounts of moolah towards the completion of the next much anticipated wackiest and coolest game. They are some of the smartest people i know, and their most beloved games are often lengthy and convoluted with tons of really really awesome little game pieces. Those are my favorite. The really really awesome little game pieces. i never really learn how to play the game but give me a tiny panda? And i’m IN!!!

This is my first time to this particular vacation home and right off the bat, i know something’s different.

First of all, i actually show up.

My friends call it the “candice factor”, but i often commit to things out of excitement and i always really REALLY intend to go. But, in an eyes-too-big-for-the-stomach sort of way, when the time comes, i often find i either double or triple-booked myself, or am just too pooped to party from my crazy schedule. But this time, i committed, paid, and am HERE! Yay for me!

(i need a manager. For SO many reasons….)

Secondly, when i actually do arrive at the rented beach home (surprise everyone!) i notice the eclectic, oddly disturbing decorations.

The entrance announces itself with a large, Bates Motel-ish handmade sign and an even larger, somehow menacing piece of driftwood shadowing a glaring gargoyle perched on an overturned flower pot.

i could hear my friends laughing inside because i arrived late. (Of course.) so i walk right in, knowing that if everyone’s laughing, no-one is getting psycho-stabbed.

Yet. 

As i follow the laughter up and around and up again through the winding, twisting, labyrinth of a house, i notice more and more of the odd decorative touches the owners had incorporated into the decor of this coastal retreat.

For example..this:

Which maybe made some decorative sense in some coastal transplant’s head at one time, but didn’t always work out the way i think they planned….

And in other places, they forego random stones stuck in bricks for something even MORE fancy:

And the definitely out-of-the-box decorative choices didn’t end with twisty bricks and grumpy gargoyles.

For example…THIS:

Or THIS:

 

But the oddest and definitely spookiest design choice by far was the Harry Potter Punishment Room.

In a house the size of a small city, with garden spa tubs in every room and three stories of ocean views, this tiny, unfinished room was totally creepy. We promptly decided it was the room for BAD children and made sure to ominously stare at the two kids who came to Game Weekend with their mom.

 

As it turned out, no columns collapsed and no children were locked up. The weekend was loud and fun and crazy and wonderful and then?

candice fell.

Which is nothing out of the ordinary. i mean, i fall, like almost every day, right? l twist, strain, sometimes break things but it pretty much follows the same pattern: i am moving along, minding my own business, then suddenly i see something sparkly and BAM! The ground reaches up to trip me and i fall, usually in front of an audience, and almost always managing to somehow bruise ALL the things.

But this time was SPECIAL.

Like, Barbie-pink-bicycle-with-sparkly-silver-handlebar-streamers-and clackety-clack-wheel-spoke-flappers-that-make-a-THRRRRRRRRRRRR-sound-when-you-ride-REALLY-fast, special.

It started innocently enough, while i was working my way through the great room full of great friends gathered around several tables laughing over their games. No one was paying any attention – I was carrying my half-full plate of nachos into the kitchen to get more nachos. (Don’t judge! i love food! And they were NACHOS!!)

i was halfway across the room with my attention on the kitchen counter covered with all the ingredients to make yummy nacho awesomeness, when suddenly, i simultaneously and audibly FARTED and fell forward, flinging my plate of nachos through the air in my effort to grab something…ANYTHING..to keep me from hitting the floor.

Looking back, it’s not clear if beginning to fall caused me to tense up and fart or if the fart PROPELLED me forward, causing me to fall. i’m pretty sure it was the latter because i went flying forward like someone had shoved me and when i realized that letting loose of that plate like a glorious flying nacho frisbee wasn’t enough to stop my fall, i just let gravity win and ended up face down on the floor amidst globs of refried beans and sour cream.

That just seemed like the right thing to do.

But the best part of the whole fart/fall/fling thing was the reaction of my friends.

At first there was silence.

Then a chorus of: “What just happened?” “Where did she go?” “Are there any nachos left?”

And then i heard, “OMG! Stay right there!” And i thought maybe my friends were concerned about my welfare and whether or not i had seriously hurt myself. Perhaps they were worried about a neck or back injury and were practicing good first aid. Perhaps someone was going for the first aid kit. Or a cellphone to call 911.

But…no.

They were going for their phones, yes, but not to call emergency services. Instead, they were all TAKING PICTURES.

And laughing. Laughing hysterically.

“Stay there!” i heard several say. “Oh this is SO good!”

And before i could haul myself up off the floor, (cuz all my friends were otherwise occupied immortalizing my fart-propelled plop on all the social medias) this picture was taken, edited, uploaded to Facebook and printed out on one of my dear tech-nerd friend’s portable bluetooth printer, which of COURSE she brought to game weekend.

i lay there, face down in nachos, listening to all the laughter and feeling the love and knowing that i’ve got the best friends in the world. And that as soon as i could get up? i was TOTALLY gonna get me another plate of nachos.

P.S. Later that weekend, one of the GOOD kids, who didn’t get locked up in the Harry Potter Punishment room, fell in the EXACT SAME PLACE losing her bowl of cereal! Pictures were taken again, and this piece of artwork created.

My mom offered that perhaps there is a wrinkle in the carpet or the transition to the brick floor is not even but me?

i blame poltergeists. Nacho-hating, twisty-brick-loving, poltergeists.

Man, those nachos were good.