For those of you who follow this column, you know that one of the vacations I take every year-with my parents and my son-is to our family place on Cape Cod. And every year, for various and horrendous reasons, I swear it will be the last year I go. Well, call me the girl who cried wolf, but I really, really mean it this year.

My trip reads like a run-down of the biblical plagues-just substitute food poisoning and bodily (mal)functions of cats for famine and pestilence, and you'll have the idea.

I knew the trip wasn't going to be one for the happy memory book as soon as we landed at Logan Airport in Boston. My parents always pick up my son, Jesse, and me at the airport so we can spend some time in Boston before heading for the Cape. As we crossed into the public area, however, my folks were nowhere to be found. Since we didn't have to pick up any checked baggage, Jesse and I had nothing but time on our hands, so we waited. For an hour.

I put a call into my grandmother on the Cape, which is our message center in case we get lost or mixed up or some combination of the above. My parents have yet to move into the cellular age, hence this rarely successful arrangement. My grandmother reported that there had been no word from my parents. My option at that point was to hail a cab, a ride that would've cost almost $300-believe me, I checked.

I was in line to grab a bagel for my son to chew on for the hour-and-a-half, eye-poppingly expensive cab ride, when I saw my dad walking casually through the airport. "Dad!" I screamed, happy visions of paying my electric bill instead of the cab fare dancing in my head.

Looking pleasantly surprised, he asked, "What are you doing here?"

Um, huh?

"The airline told us you were still on the ground in Baltimore," he explained.

The fact that I had never been in Baltimore, let alone stuck on the tarmac there, led us to conclude that the airline had been feeding him the wrong information. But, happy reunion complete and cab ride averted, we figured there was no harm done. I mean, after that rough start, what else could go wrong?

As it turned out, plenty. First and foremost, the sheer number of people staying in the house at the same time we were. My dad is one of four siblings, all of whom showed up for the week-plus one boyfriend-and my grandmother, of course. Add in the four of us, and it was one full house of people teetering precariously on the edge of sanity.

Both of my parents got food poisoning-at different times and for different reasons, if you can believe that. My dad's youngest sister tried to kill him by undercooking chicken one night. Granted, you'd think he would've thought twice about eating chicken dripping with blood, but like most men, he was hungry and dinner was served. End of story.

My mom got food poisoning a few days later after unknowingly drinking milk that had been left out on the counter a tad (read: two days) too long. I don't know if it's an East Coast thing or just my family, but they don't think there's anything wrong with leaving cartons of milk out. Or mayonnaise. Or ham. Apparently, they've built up some sort of immunity to salmonella, but my poor Midwestern mother makes a habit of refrigerating things.

Added to the number of people in the house were three cats, all of which thought the living room was their litter box. The natural smell, lovely as it was by itself, was given a boost by the humid Cape Cod weather. Enough said. Except to say that two of the cats were "troubled by the tension and unaccustomed to the crowd," according to my aunt, their owner. And how, you may wonder, did they show their displeasure? By leaving a pile of partially digested food outside my bedroom for me to step in every night.

These are just some of the stories; rest assured, there are more.

My son had a great time-can't wait to go back next year. But I've vowed to everyone I know that this was it for me for a long while. And if I start to feel pangs of guilt, I'll just remember-well, everything. TPW