It wasn't the greatest experience when I suddenly felt the cold rush of the wind against my bare legs. I looked down, a mortified look of sheer terror stretch across my face. I wasn't sure which sight was scarier, the ocean and beach hundreds of miles under me with nothing to stop me if I dropped, or the fact that my shorts were suddenly plunging down towards said ocean and beach hundreds of miles below me.

I was in the isle seat scrolling through the airplane movies when a voice sounded through the speakers. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, as we start our descent, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Thank you."

Not listening to that announcement was the first mistake I made on this vacation, even if it wasn't the worst one. One of the flight attendants glared at me and fixed my tray, she noticed I hadn't been paying attention and stomped away while mumbling something about crashing the plane herself under her breath. I still payed no attention to her, because I planned to enjoy this vacation. I took my little stuffed pikachu out of my purse and smiled at it.

"We're almost there!" I whispered to it, which attracted concerned looks from the passengers sitting next to, in front of, and behind me. There was a little girl sitting across the isle from me who kept staring at my plushie. After a long time she acknowledged it.

"I like your pikachu!" she blurted out.

"Oh! Thanks!" I then thought that that was the end of it, but she kept on talking. The plane engines were so loud that her voice started to blend in with the loud sounds. I could tell her mouth was moving and there were noises coming out, but I couldn't really tell what those words were. So I just sat there the rest of the ride smiling and nodding and saying, "hehe, yeah". I now hope she wasn't saying something like, "wouldn't it be funny if a lightning bolt just came down and struck us out of the sky and everybody died?!" and I was just like, "hehe, yeah".

When I arrived at my hotel, I was chased by a mongoose.

I know, slightly random, but it's true! It saw me with my blatantly full bag of peanuts from the plane and decided it wanted them! I spent half an hour trying to get away from that thing until a local told me to just give up the stupid peanuts, but no! They were MY peanuts and I was going to defend my honor! Big mistake. Let's just say that I wasn't sleeping in a hotel that night, and instead I hid out the night in a dumpster. The next morning when I woke up the entire dumpster was covered in mongoose. I spent most of that morning getting away from them.

After the trauma I had endured I decided to take a break and go to the beach.

When I got to the beach I immediately went straight for the water. I honestly think that this was the most normal day of my vacation looking back on it... I swam around in the shallows until I built up my courage to go into the deeper parts. The water felt so good, it didn't taste that good though, I guess that's because it's salt water, but I thought it would taste a little salty, not, "HOLY HECK THAT'S SALTY!" salty. When I lapped it up and spit it back out with a super flattering look on my face, I could hear some teenagers laughing at me from on top of the jumping rock. I did try to get up to them just to prank them, but I might've slipped and done a belly flop into the depths below. They laughed at me from their hiding place, that was the day I met my sworn enemies. But I never saw them after that.

I made the bad mistake of signing up for an open-door helicopter ride, that was the biggest adventure of my trip, but I never expected to get close to death.

It all started the next morning at around 8AM, I went to the building and signed the waiver and confirmed that I had signed up and I was on my way. The helicopter ride started out normal, but I sensed something was off with my pilot, my theory was proven when he tried to steal my purse. I pulled back with such a force, forgetting that there were no door behind me, and fell out the side of the flying contraption of death. I noticed I was falling and quickly grabbed the landing skids, the helicopter tipped sideways even though I was on a diet. I knew what was going to happen next, I was gonna look down because I could hear the pilot screaming at me not to. It didn't help that I'm afraid of heights. I clutched the skids even tighter when I saw how far up we were. I felt something terrible, the bandanna I had tied around my slightly big on me shorts had flown away, and my shorts were slowly slipping down. It wasn't the greatest experience when I suddenly felt the cold rush of the wind against my bare legs. I looked down, a mortified look of sheer terror stretch across my face. I wasn't sure which sight was scarier, the ocean and beach hundreds of miles under me with nothing to stop me if I dropped, or the fact that my shorts were suddenly plunging down towards said ocean and beach hundreds of miles below me. This truly was my worst nightmare, publicly humiliated while being suspended several feet in the air. I then decided to accept the fact that this was the end for me, there was no way I could climb back into the helicopter, I'm not an action story protagonist, everything wasn't gonna work out for me in the end.

I thought of all the people who would miss me, my mom, who is my biggest supporter, my best friend, Angela was always watching my back, my fiance, Spencer always made me laugh, and my cat, Pig, who refused to eat anything else but bacon flavored puppy treats.

Nobody would ever hear from me again, and no on could contact them since my phone was in my purse, which I dropped when I fell and was probably at the bottom of the ocean by now.

It was just as I was welcoming the sweet embrace of death that a rescue helicopter pulled in above me and dropped down a rope.

"Grab on and hold tight!" One of the rescuers shouted into a megaphone.

I grabbed the rope and held as tightly as I could. On the ride to safety, I did my best not to look down, but the view was so captivating that I didn't notice a bird headed straight towards me. next thing I knew I had a mouthful of feathers to deal with, and I still didn't have any pants!

Eventually we arrived safely and they bought me a new pair of shorts so I didn't have to leave without any bottoms. Needless to say, it was a big adventure, not quite what I was looking for in a "getaway", but I do have a story to tell, if none of this had happened, you wouldn't be reading this right now, so I bet you're pretty glad it happened, just remember, if you go to Hawaii and sign up for a helicopter ride, don't fall backwards.