“Are we there yet?” You might have wished you were if your vacation turned disastrous -and so wrote the poets of this week’s contest. Of all the mishaps they managed, only one passed for funniest, and that was:

Untitled, by Deb Whittam
Travelling around the countryside,
Ask the Whittams, Ask the Whittams,
Travelling around the countryside
Ask the Whittam Family.

Dear Whittam Family,
What do you do when your nut comes off, dear Whittams, dear Whittams?
What do you do when your nut comes off, dear Whittams, your nut?
Call for a tow truck, dear viewer, dear viewer?
Call for a tow truck dear viewer, a tow truck?
But I have no reception dear Whittams, dear Whittam?
But I have no reception dear Whittams, no reception at all?
In that case dear viewer, dear viewer,
In that case dear viewer, you are kind of f*****

Travelling around the countryside,
Ask the Whittams, Ask the Whittams,
Travelling around the countryside
Ask the Whittam Family.

Congratulations, Deb! You are the funniest poet for the week!

Admittedly, I had a REALLY difficult time choosing only one winner. These were hilarious, especially the ones that were true! Debbie won for a clever parody of an old favorite and for an appropriately funny cuss.

…On a side note, I actually read when this happened to poor Deb…

For a better laugh than the time these poor poets had, read on:

Untitled, by Sara
(This is a TRUE STORY! Only, it was my parents dealing with my little sister.)
There’s that smell

I can tell

She threw up, again

Will this ever end?

We pull over

To clean the car

We’re not nearly there

Our destination is far

As we scrub the floor mat

And her little car seat

Little did we know

We were in for a treat

Parked alongside a lovely, vast field

Ignorantly assuming a safe place to yield

Off our gal trotted, right into it

And here’s the ironic, “humorous?” bit

Two seconds later, we hear a sharp cry

It blew back the grass and tousled the sky

Baby girl was stuck

My, oh my

Our vomit-covered darling

Had stepped in a cow pie

Best holiday ever, by Hobbo
(Full version at Hobbo’s site)
We should never have chosen off peak
It was raining, the car sprang a leak
David squashed granny’s best hat
Baby Alfie was sick on the cat.

On the moors, dad ran over a ram
An hour later, we’re stuck in a jam
We got there too late for the ferry
Mum found the bar and got merry.

We arrived there to find we’d left gran
At the caff, with a man from Japan
Our five star was under construct
And all of the rooms double booked.

The food gave young Lucy the trots
And Christopher broke out in spots
German measles, our french doctor said
And confined him to ten days in bed.

Going home, despite begging and pleading
Dad got a ticket for speeding
When the copper told dad he could start
Our tyres were as flat as a fart.

Once home, track-traced for Covid 19
So then, yes you’ve guessed, quarantine
And because we are now isolating
This vacation gets zero star rating.

Basil and Mabel, by Geoff LePard
(You’ll have to disqualify me because it’s too many words, but I hadn’t the heart to cut back on Basil and Mabel…)
Basil and Mabel went to Spain
Again and again and again.

He drove from Dover
And to remain sober
He’d refrain, refrain, refrain.

One day on the Costa
He thought he’d lost her
The pain, the pain, the pain.

To dull the fear
He ordered sangria
Again and again and again.

Mabel was worried,
Around she hurried
The fool, the fool, the fool.

It began to concern her
When inside the taverna,
On a stool, a stool a stool

Basil was slumped.
‘Oh you old chump’
Dabbing the drool, the drool, the drool.

She left the bar
And found the car
Near the pool, the pool, the pool.

‘Where to, Bas?’
‘Let’s try La Paz’
‘It’s cool, it’s cool, it’s cool.’

They took to the road;
She drove like Toad
Too fast, too fast, too fast.

On a blind bend
Tipping end over end
They met their last, their last, their last

The moral of the fable
Of Basil and Mabel
Is you always lose
When full of booze
So try and abstain
When in Spain, in Spain, in Spain.

That Holiday Air, by Obbverse
(Certain hotels should have had their names changed to protect their guilt. But what the hell. And pushing the PG13 rating? Ah, what the hell.))
We breezed into Kingman, wafted up up to our pre-booked room,
‘Twas a romantic cute boutique newly tarted-up hideaway hotel,
Even in this modern times, foolish dreamers, do not presume
That an Arizonan night of heavenly pleasure can’t go all to hell.

The owners had been penny wise when fitting out the Brunswick,
True to its history they’d turned to every possible cheap trick,
An attempt to retain all original features, all part of the plan,
So, creaky bedsprings and no air-con except the ol’ ceiling fan.

Outside a high desert wind buffeted the shuttered window pane,
Inside, an ill wind blew no good, thanks to a lousy hotel’s buffet,
Dawn saw the leaving of two wretches that guest house won’t see again,
Now neither of us dare speak of, much less wish to repeat that sorry day.

Four gormless teenage lads on the road, by Doug Jacquier
Dora Dora has a single building
bereft of any sort of modern gilding;
pub and general store all rolled into one;
no exotic idyll baking in the sun.

Entering we see a bar
that you might see in Lilliput afar;
we become an instant crowd
eight feet sounding too loud.

Behind the bar, in a top hat,
sits a man with a newspaper and a scabby cat.
‘Corn flakes and milk?’ we enquire
‘Not in the bar, take three steps to the side.’

Groceries obtained, we ordered beers for four
and he nodded to where we’d been before.
Shuffling left, he pulled four ales,
fixing us with eyes like bloodshot snails.

Enough was enough and we re-join the track,
thinking it was never like this for Jack Kerouac.
And we realise somethin’ very disturbin’.
We’re not sub-culture, we’re just plain suburban.

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Thank you, thank you to all who entered! Come back at 10 a.m. tomorrow for next week’s prompt.

Deb, here’s a badge for you to use on your site. Congratulations!

©2020 The poets, and their respective works

Do you love to laugh out loud? Silently snicker? Guffaw as you …gallop? You’re in the right place!

Here are the rules for this week:

1. The Theme is road-trip disasters or vacation mishaps. Did you travel all day and into the night, only to find another person in your bed? Find a flat tire midway through Nebraska? Get chased by roos in The Never-Never? Poem about it.
2. Length: flexible. Keep the word count between 5 and 155 words.
3. I recommend Rhyming, but it’s up to you!
4. Arriving in a strange town where no one speaks your language and discovering you haven’t packed spare underwear is very frustrating, so the Rating can be PG-13 or cleaner.
5. MAKE US LAUGH. Sad as you feel/felt/will feel, capture the humor in the annoyance.

You have till 10:00 a.m. MST next Friday (November 6) to submit a poem.

Use the form, below, to remain anonymous for a week.

Otherwise, include your poem or a link to it in the comments. Drop a comment if your link-back doesn’t show up by midnight the day you create it.

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Bon voyage!

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©2020 Chel Owens