Travel can force us to have sudden realizations. Five writers share one thing they discovered on a trip.

 Junot Diaz found out how it feels to stand out in “a very American place.” Amanda Foreman proved that a car can smell too bad to steal. Kevin D. Williamson realized there are no good bears. Andrew Rannells found the limit to “me” time. And Joanne Lipman saw a vacation change her son’s life.

The twins’ fourth birthday was marked by the retirement of the diaper pail. Five children born in quick succession had kept it in continuous service. It had been my friend and savior during the circle-of-poo years but also an unyielding and tyrannical master. I wasn’t sorry to say goodbye. Giddy from our hard-won freedom, my husband and I threw caution to the wind that summer and took the family to Italy, a country we had last visited as newlyweds.

Illustrations by Ben Kirchner

Driving to our Umbrian B&B, we spotted the same restaurant we had passed 10 years earlier, the T and V of “TAVERNA” still flickering. Fate was surely calling out to us.

We needn’t have listened, and after visiting the bathroom, I wished we hadn’t. The ground-level squatting nonplussed the children. They could squat easily enough; it was not stepping or falling into the basin afterward that was the tricky part.

“Why are the kids naked?” My husband asked when we returned. I handed him a bulky garbage bag. “Just like old times,” he commented, and tossed it in the back of the van. We drove the rest of the way with the windows down and the air conditioning on high.

“I feel sick” said one of the twins, and vomited into my Kate Spade bag right as we pulled into the driveway. My husband grabbed my hand. “Don’t look,” he said, “it won’t help.” He zipped the bag shut and tossed it over his shoulder.

The village was tiny and we could forget about the car for two weeks. When it was time to set off for the airport, my husband opened the back and was almost overpowered by the force of escaping gases. We peered cautiously inside; the Kate Spade lay on its side, shrunken and inert. The clothes bag, on the other hand, seemed to be incubating new life.

I dared him to make first contact. “They’re your bags,” he said. We trapped them under the suitcases, hoping the smell would dissipate once we got going. The AC was turned up, the windows rolled down, and yet the stench grew worse. What else lurked in our van of horrors?

We stopped at a gas station and clambered out, gasping for air. Googling “strong sulfur smell” suggested that the odor might be coming from a broken catalytic converter. “I’ll trade you two flat tires instead,” I told the car. Our pantomime with the Italian garage mechanic was interrupted by the children jumping and pointing, as two men got into our van. Seconds later it was gone.

Illustrations by Ben Kirchner

The mechanic sweetly summoned a taxi to take us to the police station. We had been driving for 10 minutes when I caught sight of our luggage. The thieves had chucked them out of the van in ones and twos, turning the road into a giant slalom. The driver took the course at speed but clipped the Kate Spade and flattened the clothes bag.

He came to a hard stop next to our abandoned car. The doors were open and the engine still running.

Grim-faced and silent, we rescued what we could of our belongings and bundled everyone back in. Two excruciating hours later, the flickering “AERNA” sign appeared. We had come full circle. I caught my husband’s eye and felt the car speed up.