Once upon a time, there was a wedding. The destination of the wedding you ask? The beach. Thus, by the fate of living in a land locked state, before there could be a wedding, there had to be a trip to the beach. On a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon, the family and friends packed up their belongings and kids and left on their 4.5 hour journey to Ocean City Maryland, two hours behind schedule of course. Because why would it play out any other way?

Oh, you think two hours would put a damper on our trip? Just wait. Sit back and picture, if you will, the mayhem unfolding.

Here we are, on our way, the kids – one being two and a half, the other being one – are (finally) dosing off somewhat content in their car seats. Our journey required two vehicles: the bride leading the brigade, with her son and grandmother as passengers; and the car in which I was the co-pilot, with the maid of honor behind the wheel, her mother and the two aforementioned kids in the back. We were cruising down the Interstate, which for the purposes of this article, will go by “I-666 South” – for reasons which you will soon understand.

About an hour into the drive, we see the car in front of us swerve pretty severely and a motorcyclist with his bike sitting on the side of the road, in the midst of trying to figure out why the car in front of us swerved, we, for lack of a better term, ran right into the reason.

The MOH, who was in a panic, thinking she hit a person, had actually hit what appeared to be whatever was strapped to the back of the motorcycle that was sitting idle on the side of the road. Once I had convinced her that she hadn’t hit a person, she turned the air vents off and heard a clanking coming from underneath the car. Luckily, we were close to an, apparently (and comparatively speaking), safe place to pull over.

Of course, as soon as the vehicle came to a stop, the kids both woke up, yelling. I kept them pacified with bottles, as the two others went out to inspect the undercarriage. As it turns out, the fuel vapor filter box – which I wasn’t even aware existed – became partially detached from our car. While evaluating the damage, we noticed hypodermic needles scattered about the ground near our car, and, by default, the children.

It was next when we smelled that smell that nobody really ever wants to smell – poopy diaper. Carefully moving the guilty party to the front seat, the MOH and I had to double team the blow out of all diaper blow outs. The culprit? Blueberries. In the midst of wipes, butt cream, and powder, the munchkin decided to fuel his caffeine addiction, unbeknownst to the adults, by pulling out my Mtn. Dew Kickstart from the front cup holder and pouring it all over himself and my seat. The update: we now had a screaming crying naked child covered in sticky orange liquid trying to throw himself out of the front seat of a car parked in a field of needles.

Thankfully, the bride, who had pulled over a couple miles up the road when she realized there was trouble in paradise, trekked back on foot on the side of I-666 wearing a yellow poncho for safety and dragging her mother’s luggage behind her. She rescued the munchkins.

Two men, who shall remain nameless, swooped in to rescue the rest of us. One used the shoelaces off of the shoes I was wearing to tie up the dislodged box. The other followed us to a nearby service plaza where he followed up the handiwork with duct tape and twine.

Needless to say, without these men – or some shoelaces – we wouldn’t have made it down to the beach. Yes, we arrived at our destination at midnight and had to sleep with 6 people in one bedroom, but what’s a journey without a few bumps in the road?