My girlfriend has tasked me with booking a visit to the Lake District for a few days. All I have to do is book the accommodation and a mode of transport. How hard can that be?

I'll tell you how hard it is. It's very fucking hard, that's how hard it is. Read on to find out more. If you dare.

Airbnb

My first idea was to book an Airbnb, even though I hate Airbnb because

1. using Airbnb means I'm giving more of my hard-earned money to landlords, people I despise because they have a house and I don't have one, and
2. Airbnb is a successful tech company and I don't have one of those either.

Here's the Airbnb home page.

I typed 'Lake District' as the place I want to go to. Five options come up. Five! Fucking hell, I'm already bombarded by decisions. All I want to do is go to the Lake District. I've entered my destination. I don't want to enter more information.

This is like being at the supermarket and not knowing what breakfast cereal to get because there's so many, so you go home empty-handed and die of starvation and your cats eat your body.

I'll choose "Lake District National Park, Windermere kids & families" because it has the words "kids" and "families" in it.

The next page says "Find an entire home with 5-star reviews from families and essentials like a kitchen and TV."

I don't think a TV is essential, especially if I'm only staying somewhere a few days. In fact, isn't the point of going to a place like the Lake District to experience nature and to get away from things like television for a few days?

The thing is, I'm not sure if Airbnb has already filtered out apartments without a TV from the results. I can't tell. Maybe I'll end up paying more than I need to just because Airbnb thinks I need a TV.

Second of all, I'm not sure if I want to rent an "entire home" when just one room would suffice. I'm not trying to find a place to live for the next twenty to thirty years. I just want someone to sleep for a few days. Even a bus stop or park bench will suffice if it's cheap.

Also, this message is at the top of the page as well:

No doubt this is meant to make me panic and book the first apartment I find, lest everything gets fully booked in the next five minutes and I'm left empty-handed. But I'm not going to do that. Because I know that if I do that, I book the shittest apartment in all of the Lake District, with no chance of a refund. And my girlfriend will be angry with me.

Next, Airbnb tells me I have to enter the dates of my trip before I can see any prices. The thing is, I don't know what the dates will be. I'm flexible about the dates. Fucking hell, I just want to die.

So I put some random dates in to see the prices. The results range from £100 to £300 per night. Jesus. I thought Airbnb was supposed to be good value for money? It's more expensive than an actual BnB. These fucking landlords must be swimming in cash if they're able to charge this much money. I'm going to beat the next landlord I see to death with my shoe.

One of the listings says "Self check-in. Check yourself in with the lockbox."

Hang on, so I'll never see a real human being throughout the entire process? Is that a good thing. I'm not even sure anymore. Welcome to the future I guess. What I do know is that automation is supposed to make things cheaper, not more expensive.

Do you know what? I can't fucking do this any more. I'm going to forget Airbnb for now and start looking at how to get to the Lake District instead.

Getting to the Lake District

Hang on, how do I actually get to the Lake District? We don't have a car so I guess we'll have to rent one. That means another task I have to do and more money to spend. I'm starting to feel like I should just never leave the house. I'll be a hermit who collects his toenails in a tin. It's the perfect plan.

I have the quaint but misguided idea of going to the Lake District by train. Watching fields roll by and sheep grazing outside - it sounds nice. But I suspect that won't be feasible because then we won't have a car to travel around the Lake District with. And I've heard that the Lake District is a big place. So we'll need a car. So I'll have to forget the train idea.

I've decided we'll need a rental car. But I'm not going to each rental car company's website one by one. Fuck that. Instead, I searched for "rent a car UK" and scrolled down until I found a website that aggregates all the car rentals from all the companies.

This website says I can borrow something called a "Fiat 500" for £40 (so £10 a day).

That sounds incredibly cheap so I'm sure there must be a catch. Probably a Fiat 500 is a tiny car that's only big enough for a mouse. Maybe the car in the photo is to 1:1 scale. I don't know. I don't know anything about cars. I just want to get from one place to another place, that's fucking all. Is that so much? Why is this all so COMPLICATED?

Aha. I found a catch. I have to go to the airport to pick it up. For fuck sake. So I have to travel to one place to pick up a car that I'll drive to another place. Jesus fucking wept. I'm never leaving the house ever again. Never. I'm already deciding on which tin I'll use to keep my toenails in.

And look at this fucking website. It's cluttered with notifications. It's like something like the internet in the 1990s. All it's missing is some marquee tags and a gif showing a pair of revolving eyes.

The first notification gives me a 'tip' that I should book the car now. That's not a fucking tip. That's just pushing me to buy something.

The next notification says "FREE cancellation up to 48 hours before your pick-up". Yeah, but how difficult with the cancellation be? Will I be able to cancel online with the click of a button? Or, more likely, will I have to call someone in India, and then get put on hold for an hour, and then get hung up on?

The third notification says "Good news, Full Protection is available. Cover any bumps or scrapes and have a hassle-free rental." Bumps or scrapes? Do they think I'm going to bash the car into every wall and lamp post I see? Who do these people think I am – Mr Bean?

I can't do any more of this either. Fuck it. I'm going to cry in the corner.