"The Peasants, They Love Me - Pull!"

Anticipated with pleasure, experienced with discomfort, and remembered with nostalgia...

• Mel Brooks films?
• Prom night?
• Finally giving it up?
• College friends?
• Toilet bowl moments?
• Bar Mitzvahs?
• Getting busted at a sit-in with three other hippies?

Any of the above could be correct; however, the original author was describing family vacations. I can't help thinking he/she never stayed with Becky and David in Colorado Springs.

To paraphrase Tevye: If this is discomfort, may God smite me with a similar curse.

Most people I know live in a house. Becky's place is more like an intimate compound minus David Koresh and all his creepy followers. Husband and I had to leave bread crumbs in order to find our room. Our boys used bullhorns to request water in the middle of the night. Maps detailing exit routes are located in every bathroom.

In other words, this place is huge.

My youngest lost one of his baseball caps and we may as well kiss it goodbye. Effectively searching nineteen rooms is damn near impossible. Perhaps Becky will discover it next winter when she makes her annual pilgrimage to the south wing. Keep your fingers crossed.

My husband made a big mistake and tried to play hide and seek with the kids. Jackson, Becky's six year-old son, hid in a long-forgotten-about closet (something I didn't think existed) and actually fell asleep waiting for the "seeker" to arrive. Right hand to God, the kid had day-old stubble when my oldest finally found him.

Of course, paradise comes with a few problems.

Husband was outside touring the grounds and sneezed. Within seconds, the community's guard (think Luca Brasi from The Godfather) shows up with complaints of "noise issues" from "concerned neighbors" and my groom was threatened with legal action. The poor guy took Sudafed and Xanax at the same time.

Becky and David's friends were less than thrilled with my ideas about redistributing wealth in this country. One of them mumbled that socialists should be stopped at the gate.

In addition to artwork worth more than several third world nations, they also own a dog the size of a pony. Every night he eats a small cow for supper and lets off enough gas to rival an entire stadium of Chicago Bears fans. Seriously, I had to retire to the North Lawn for a breath of fresh mountain air.

Then I saw a bear and had to fight my man for the last Xanax. He won.