For those of you who know me, you know that every year I take one big ski trip out West, and this year we hit Breckenridge, Colorado. The skiing was awesome, and - for the record, I'm pleased to report that a good time was had by all… but only because those involved are good sports who know that God hates me and plan accordingly. Thankfully though, these same people occasionally forget that God practices guilt-by-association and smites them as well. No wonder TB once said, “I don’t buy into your bad ideas because I have hope they’ll work out. They never do. I buy in because I’m convinced that I have a medical condition which produces amnesia and deja vu at the same time.”
In her defense, the argument has merit.
However, in my defense, if you have EVER read mkromd, then you know that ANYONE who lets me plan ANYTHING should expect it to go poorly, and ANYONE who lets me handle EVERYTHING is simply looking for trouble. So while the involved parties claim to be “victims” of my bad luck (who have said more than once that they would sooner see hell freeze over than let me organize another vacation), they let me do this one, so they have no one to blame but themselves.
You see, I’m all about a bargain. No really, it’s true. I will spend $125 every five weeks to highlight my hair, but I cannot stomach paying more than $200 for airfare. I simply can’t. So when I found tickets for $150 each, I jumped. Perhaps I should have looked before I leaped… because the airport was almost HALF way to Colorado… which I found out the night before… as I was confirming our departure and arrival times. Yes, I drove six hours to Gary, Indiana to catch a four hour flight to Denver.
We are now - officially - the only thing other than the Jackson Five to come out of that city.
Anyway, once we landed at DIA, we had to pick up our rental car - a Ford Explorer for the low-low cost of $450 a week. Do you know how much most SUVs cost to rent during peak ski season in the Rockies? About $850. Turns out, you get what you pay for. I won’t tell you the vendor I used, but I will say that they only have three shuttles from the airport to their very remote facility: one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening – ergo the cost savings. And, since we arrived at dusk, we waited for two hours in ten below weather to catch the shuttle to get our car. And the worst was yet to come…
We had to group sleep.
No, you read that right. We had to GROUP SLEEP… with people we did not know. What started out as a great deal ended up like a Kafka novel. In the spirit of full disclosure, the hotel ad went something like this: buy three nights – get the fourth night free. Unfortunately, the fine print ALSO said, “This suite has a shared living space.” I have three words for you – WTF! Seriously:
• No one ever reads the documentation, EVER.
• Two, even if you DO read the documentation, who knows to watch out for that?
• And three… W.T.F!
That’s all I can say. In fact, it was so far out of my scope of reality as an option that when we got to our room and opened the door and people were in there, I apologized because I thought there had been a misunderstanding. Nope, that non-negotiable, non-refundable package was all ours. But we made it work. That said, in the future, if I ever get to organize another trip, hell really might freeze over. And that's OK, because I'd ski that, too!
Talk to you next week.
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