My Chance at Being a Millionaire is Ruined Again
By: Bebe Nicholson
Tags: Humor, Satire, Travel, This Happened To Me, Humorous Life Lessons

My Chance at Being a Millionaire is Ruined Again

Why don’t I ever think about suing somebody?

Photo by Andre Iv on Unsplash

This afternoon I read the story of Breanne Ayala, 24, and my first thought was, That could have been me! My second thought was, Why don’t I ever think about suing somebody? I could be a millionaire by now.

Breanne Ayala is suing TripAdvisor after a runaway camel tossed her to the ground.

According to the lawsuit, she and her family, on vacation in Morocco, booked a sunset camel tour. But they didn’t receive a safety briefing first, and Ayala’s uncooperative camel ran off, dumping her to the ground. She is accusing the Massachusetts-based TripAdvisor of gross negligence and breach of contract.

Maybe you’re asking what this has to do with me.

Everything, the way I see it! Read my story, and you’ll agree!

My partner and I traveled to Egypt several years ago and, like Breanne Ayala, we decided to ride camels.

I was apprehensive from the outset. These camels were a long distance from the ground, and they did not look particularly friendly. If you have never ridden a camel, they are much bigger than you think. The only way for you to get up is for the camel to get down.

When my camel had lowered himself to the desert ground and I had settled myself into the saddle, he heaved himself skyward, lifting me an alarming distance from the place I had been standing moments before. The boy leading him handed me the rope, then walked behind us with a switch.

This did not give me confidence. Never trust a boy with a switch when you’re on a camel.

What if, out of sheer mischief, he swatted the animal into a gallop? Did camels gallop, or was that just horses? I didn’t want to find out.

As we set off across the desert, I clung to my camel’s saddle and sent up a silent prayer that this animal would not decide to extend a long, rolling walk into a bumpy, jarring run.

I didn’t have to worry. My camel and the boy with the switch behaved. But the story was different for my partner. I wasn’t paying enough attention to know what sent his camel into a full-fledged run, but he said later it was his camel boy. “That guy handed me the rope, raised his switch and swatted my camel on the backside,” he said incredulously.

See! I told you they can’t be trusted!

All I knew at the time was that when I looked up, his camel was moving at an ungainly, ground-eating lope, carrying them further and further away. Slipping sideways, righting himself and clinging for dear life, he managed to stay put for several hundred feet as the camel kicked up a cloud of desert sand. I thought my partner was a goner until the animal came to an abrupt halt.

Even though he didn’t tumble to the ground, for the rest of the trip he suffered from painful saddle sores.

This meant that every night during our Egypt vacation, I had to spread salve on his butt. This is not very romantic, and I think it’s grounds for a lawsuit. You are expecting to spend moonlit, romantic nights on the Nile, and instead, you’re tending to butt sores incurred from a runaway camel experience.

And that’s not my only gripe with camels. When we visited a Nubian village, unattended camels roamed free in the streets and they had a penchant for attacking women. These were chauvinistic beasts, no doubt trained by male owners with switches.

When one especially vicious camel lunged toward me and my female friends, we scurried to safety behind a thatched hut and watched as our male partners approached from the other side of the street. Would the camel attack our men? No, as it turned out. The camel was apparently only ill-tempered toward females.

But back to the TripAdvisor lawsuit. Ayala’s camel, according to news reports, was a pregnant female that decided, unprovoked, to break away from the tour. I’m guessing she’d had enough of boys with switches.

The sunset ride with its breathtaking views of the Moroccan desert was supposed to wrap up with stops at a traditional Berber house for mint tea. But the 24-year-old Ayala claimed the promise was just a mirage, so she’s suing.

I asked my partner if he thought we could sue over butt sores and mental distress, even though several years had elapsed since our desert adventure? He pointed out that a lawsuit was out of the question because we didn’t even use TripAdvisor. Ours was a privately-arranged tour with some guy named Maddie, who has long since disappeared from any reputable travel site.

There goes my chance to be a millionaire, but I will be following Breanne Ayala’s case with interest.