Bumbled

ANNA MARIA ISLAND – It’s Sunday, our first full day in paradise, and I’m sick as a dog with a rotten cold and sore throat.

To be clear: I am not feverish.

It’s early, and Rebecca’s still sleeping, bless her heart. Maddie’s half-asleep with one eye on the egrets roaming outside our patio and both ears on anything dumb enough to breach our tastefully-decorated condo in Bradenton Beach.

Still drowsy, I walk into our rented condo’s kitchen at 7:45 a.m. to make a warm salt water cocktail and gargle away my ickiness.

To escape some of Michigan’s winter, we’re renting a place at Runaway Bay, a lovely complex off Cortez Road on the southeast end of the island. There are dozens of one- and two-bedroom units. Trouble is, from the outside, they all look alike.

You don’t want to have one-too-many margaritas at the clubhouse on bingo night, or you might not make it home. At least not the right home.

So, as I head to the bathroom, I hear rustling at the front door. It’s not the wind. OMG. Someone is walking into our unit!

In my congested stupor and without my Coke-bottle lens glasses, all I can make out is a blurred figure in a black ski mask with at least two, maybe three, lethal weapons. I’m guessing.

Holy crap! The door was locked, I swear. Where’s Rebecca? Where’s Maddie? Where’s my Mom?

Then the shadowy figure stops dead in its tracks, declaring in a rather high-pitched Pennsylvania lilt: “Oh, dear, I’m in the wrong condo!”

Yes. You. Are. Dear.

At this point, Maddie has opened her other eye and jumped down from a perch on the Everest-like king-size bed, becoming the true badass dog she is underneath all that fluff: a killer St. Bernard named Cujo.

With that, her “I-wanna-bite-something” barking commences. The Keystone State burglar suddenly pivots in the hallway, runs out, slams the screen door and flees down the stairs.

From the second floor, I can see she’s wearing a straw hat, yellow windbreaker, black yoga pants and hot pink Skechers. She looks like a giant bee with sore feet – a deadly combination any day of the week.

I stick my head out the door wanting to yell something like, “Hey, bring back those organic bananas, lady!”

But I’m too tired and not in the mood for a chase, so I head back inside, gargle and return to bed.

I cannot wait to see Queen Bee at the pool.