Misc

When we arrived at the lodge on Friday night the air was crisp and the “deng deng deng deng” guitar riff on every song on the new Interpol album was ringing in our ears from having blasted it the entire way to Park City. We stood at the check-in desk, drunk on pretzels and Pringles, only to find out that the modest room we had reserved had been mysteriously down-graded to a less than modest room, one without the hot tub. EGAD.

Perhaps it was the pretzels, perhaps it was just the thought of a weekend away from infant management, but neither Jon nor I made a huge fuss; we stood there patiently waiting for the guy at the desk to figure out what went wrong. He apologized for the misunderstanding and I said, “No problem, I used to work for Delta Airlines and people are crazy. I understand.” He sighed, relaxed a bit and said, “I wish every customer were like you.” And then he upgraded us to the MASTER SUITE, a series of rooms bigger than our house with a kitchen and bathroom decked out with granite countertops and travertine tiles. And there was a hot tub, for skinny-dipping.

Being nice! Its pays off! You heard it here first.

We spent the weekend driving through the mountains and hiking in the rain and sleeping for hours and hours in the mid-afternoon. My God, the sleeping. Jon took a nap with me, for hours. Jon doesn’t ever take a nap, and there he was lying next to me, still and lovely and irresistible. We indulged in room service and then got sushi and then ordered champagne at 1 p.m. in the afternoon for brunch. We ran naked to the hot tub and sat in front of the fire place to dry off. And then the fire alarm went off.

There’s a whole story about the fire alarm and the entire suite being filled with smoke, and I would totally tell it to you but all you need to know is that there was this one moment when I turned to Jon and said, “I’m a little worried about ALL THAT SMOKE POURING OUT OF THE FIREPLACE.” And he was all, it’s the wood! The wood is green and very smoky! And then the fire alarm goes off and the phone rings and the hotel management is all, “MR. ARMSTRONG!”

I can only imagine what the hotel management was thinking, like, that couple is smoking some serious pot for the fucking FIRE ALARM to go off. But the entire suite was FILLED WITH SMOKE, and these guys run in to figure out what is going on, and I’m hiding in the bathroom, and they find out that the flue in the fireplace had been shut the ENTIRE TIME. For the rest of the weekend I would turn to Jon and casually say, “It was the wood. The wood was green.”

The only other incident worth mentioning was the little bathroom break we took on a hiking trail after driving for an hour in the mountains. Both of our bladders were about to pop, and there were no bathroom facilities within a 30 mile radius. The trail was clearly marked with a sign that read, “This area is a protected watershed. No animals allowed.” Which meant, You cannot use the bathroom here, you Imbecile.

But who was going to know? I had to go pee, people, and so Jon and I hiked a little ways up the trail to a place we thought was out of the way where no one would notice. So I squat down in the midst of some bushes and trees, and Jon stands nearby because men can do that, just stand there and go pee whereas I HAD TO SQUAT. And I’m going pee, my bare white ass hanging out in nature, and in the middle of my stream a BOY AND HIS FATHER WALK BY. And when I say walk by, I mean that they pass within THREE FEET of my bare white ass. Jon heard someone talking, and he thought it was me, so he says, “What’s up?”

WHAT’S UP?? WHAT’S UP?? HEY BOY AND YOUR FATHER: HERE’S MY BARE WHITE ASS.

I was caught up in the moment of the peeing, and the only thing I could think to do was squat down further, my bare white ass now touching the forest floor. Oh my God, I have just shown some boy and his father my ass. In the woods. Where I’m not supposed to pee. After they passed by I stood up to pull up my pants only to discover that my bare white ass was covered in pine needles. Jon and I spent the next five minutes picking pine needles out of my panties.

I eventually overcame the embarrassing horror of that moment to enjoy the rest of Our Weekend Away. I spent Sunday morning in bed sleeping and sleeping some more until Jon had to push my body out of bed. My reasoning was that I might not ever get to sleep that much again. After we checked out and ate a year’s worth of chocolate at the brunch buffet, we headed back out of the mountains, Interpol in the CD player, all of our clothes smelling like smoke from the wood, that was green.