This has been among our best beach trips despite. The despite list gets pretty long.

We booked a house in a gated community with some of our family on the beach and others no more than two blocks away. There are ten of us in the two blocks away contingent. My wife and two kids, a sister in-law and brother in-law and their two, my mother in-law, and my brother in-law’s twin.

The house slept twelve. It had a rooftop pool and a basement with a wet bar and three huge flat screens across a wall opposite a huge leather couch. We were destined for elation. Then we got the first call.

There were terrible issues with the house that required workmen and the delays inherent in employing workmen and they would not be able to honor our rental agreement. I didn’t believe it. I assumed they got a better offer from some other punters. I was wrong.

They put us in a second rental. Again, sleeps twelve. Then we were told that someone bought the house from the people we signed a lease with and that the new owners didn’t want to honor the rental agreement. I didn’t field that phone call and I’m glad I didn’t. The person who did is an attorney and devilishly clever so I’m sure my tact was already out the window, but I’d have said no. We have a lien by way of a lease and you bought the house – with all attached liens. I’d try to see what they were willing to do to get out of it. The rental was roughly eight thousand. I’d let them buy us out. I bet we could get four thousand. That said, I never saw the contract and the attorney that did and handled the call is devilishly clever.