5 Bad Summer Stories to Cure Your End-of-Summer Blues

Summer’s over. (Or is it?) While some people spent their summer discussing climate change with fellow millionaires on a billionaire’s superyacht, many of us endured canceled flights, relentless heatwaves, cicada swarms, and the general reality that, unless you’re a teacher, influencer, or live and work in Europe, summer really doesn’t mean shit once you graduate college.

And that’s OK. As a little pre-game to Jezebel’s annual Scary Story Contest, we launched Jezebel’s Bad Summer Story Contest in July, because, just like New Year’s Eve, your birthday, or Wednesday happy hours, summer is almost never the carefree, sunkissed, jetsetting daydream you imagine it will be.

King’s Island

I was eighteen and my older sister called to say, “I’m picking you up in 20 minutes. We’re going to Pride night at King’s Island.” King’s Island is a big amusement park, the pinnacle of Ohio entertainment, and I couldn’t say no, even though I was out with a friend, wearing a dress, and wouldn’t have time to change. I don’t know what went through my mind, but I thought it would be OK to go ride roller coasters in a dress…without underwear on.

Yes, sometimes I go commando! Especially on hot August days. It was fine until we got to Invertigo—a rollercoaster where you lay down and are suspended with your belly facing the earth like you’re flying. This could’ve been OK, except to get on, in the loading dock in front of everyone, you had to clamber in and lay on your back with your legs essentially spread-eagled in the air. My sister somehow convinced me to get on despite the pus*y in the air risk, and I did, but when we returned, the ride broke down. I was stuck for maybe 30 minutes on my back, legs in the air, desperately holding my skirt down! Looking back I’m just glad I wasn’t arrested for indecent exposure. —Phoebe Myers

Your Dad’s Favorite?

The summer before I went to college, my ex-boyfriend threw a pool party for all our friends at his house. I got there early, but let him and some of my friends know that I wouldn’t be getting into the pool because I was on my period. As the night went on and we got increasingly drunk, I forgot that I was menstruating and got into the pool. I didn’t bring anything with me so my ex had to give me a towel, which he later asked for me to return around Thanksgiving as it was his “dad’s favorite.” Super awkward. —Nandini

Broke Backpacker

On the day I was set to travel to Europe for a one-month, summer holiday, I tripped and tore a muscle in my ankle. It was so swollen that I couldn’t even put on my shoes, but I didn’t let that stop me. I wrapped an ice pack around that sucker and hobbled barefoot through LAX (gross), had to stick my foot out in the aisle of the plane, catch two connections, go through customs, and then spend the whole month backpacking through Italy and Malta. I was in pain the entire time and there were some things I physically couldn’t do (those steps up to the top of the Duomo in Florence would have killed me). It’s been 20 years and my ankle still aches when it’s going to storm.—Nicole Rich

Beauty School Dropout

It was the late 70s, and I was about twelve, spending my summer with other bored pre-teens who were too young to get a job. My friend’s older sister was planning to go to cosmetology school to become a hairstylist and asked if anyone wanted a haircut. I jumped at the chance to get a more sophisticated look from the cool older sister. My long hair was all one length, but I wanted bangs and layers like Farrah Fawcett—layers were totally cool.

Well, this girl had NO idea how to cut hair. I got kinda sorta straight bangs across my forehead, and ONE chunky layer across the back halfway up my head. She realized she shouldn’t be cutting anyone’s hair and left me like that. When I went home my mom took pity on me and brought me to a real hairdresser and I ended up with a dorky short bob to be able to salvage the mess. —whyonearth

Sad Girl Crying in the Corner at the Club™, American-Abroad Edition

It was over 20 years ago, I was 17 and spending the summer with my mom in the small German town where she was from. She frequently ditched me to go hang out with her childhood friends who didn’t speak English well, and she never taught me German, so I was on my own most of the time.

I met two guys, ages 18-19, and spent the rest of the summer doing lazy teenage stuff with them and their nebulous group of friends and girlfriends. Their English was passable, and we spent a lot of time together, but I honestly can’t remember what we talked about. My clearest memory is of them singing the Khia song, “My Neck, My Back”—which played on the radio with the fully explicit lyrics—in their thickly accented Germ-English while we drove around in one of their BMWs.

As my departure date approached, the group decided to take me to a club that didn’t ID. You have to be 18 to drink liquor and I was only 17. The club gave each patron this punch card, and every time you ordered a drink they punched your card. When it was time to leave, you’d put your card through a scanner machine, it would tell you how much you owe, and a turnstile gate (like in the subway) would allow you to leave after paying with cash in the machine, or via a credit card with an employee standing guard. None of this was explained to me ahead of time.

We had a great time drinking, dancing, practicing our languages on each other (eight weeks in and my teenage dirtbag street German got a lot of laughs), and maybe a little bit of making out with the one hot guy I’d been eyeing all summer.

When it came time to leave, I put my punchcard in the machine and it read 385€!!!! In early-aughts money!!!! It turns out, some of the nebulous hangers-on had been telling the bartenders to put their drinks on my punch card. I had maybe 80€ cash on me, and no credit card. The guys I was with had already paid and tried to pony up to cover the rest, but we were still short almost 100€. I was VERY intoxicated, didn’t have a cell phone, and didn’t know what to do—but the bouncer, manager, and server who were now hovering around me demanding the money wouldn’t let me leave.

The guy I’d been smooching had the brilliant idea to drive to my great-grandmother’s house where I’d been staying with my mom, wake my mom up, and get her to ride with him back to this club 20 minutes away. I had almost an hour to sober up between sobbing fits to practice my excuses. Most of the group had left by this point, so I was the Sad Girl Crying in the Corner at the Club™, American-abroad edition.

My mom and the hot guy arrived and her expression immediately changed from red-hot anger to laughter. She laughed AT my sorry state, paid the rest of the tab, and asked me if I learned anything. The hot guy drove us both back home where my great-grandmother had left coffee and cake on the stove for me. We left a few days later and no one ever spoke of it again.

…Until two weeks ago when I went back to that German town for the first time since this incident, without my mom, and told this story to my cousin. Apparently the hot guy still lives there and coaches my cousin’s wife’s volleyball league. He offered to reach out to him and I said I’d die of embarrassment and would rather this live in the past. Should I have let him reach out to the guy??—Seabassy