Why the Banned Should Stay Banned

For those of you that have kept up with this blog over the past few years, you know that I have run into my fair share of crazy situations, especially when I have worked at hotels. Well last night I found myself in the midst of a situation that I feel may have topped all of my past crazy-hotel-stories -- it even tops that time a couple was having sex on the break-wall by my Mackinac hotel.

For the past two days, an ex-employee of the Elk Inn has been staying at the hotel. Before I go any further, let me tell you about this individual. His nickname is RT*. If I were to list his real name and you were to type it into Google, you would find an arrest record in which RT was banned from Colorado State University's campus for sending his ex-girlfriend over 200 text messages in one day. Here's a little snippet from the article: "according to police, [RT] said he was planning to take money out of the bank, buy a gun at a pawnshop, and then kill her if she didn't call him back. 'Either you call me right now or I'm ending your life,' reads one message included in police arrest report. 'If you're at the library I'm going to find you, what do you think is gonna happen, someone there gonna protect you.'"

When I first heard RT was coming to stay at the hotel, all of the other front desk agents groaned and rolled their eyes. They showed me the article about his arrest, recounted stories of his quick temper and blatant sexism towards women, how he threatened "to put a woman in a body bag" while working at the Elk Inn's front desk, and how he was fired shortly after that. RT has also sent my roommate, who he has never met before and randomly found on Facebook, text messages asking to see naked photos and continually asks if she'd like to come to his cabin. After being fired from the Elk Inn, RT was hired by another hotel, attempted to woo a female guest and when she declined his advances he "kicked down her door" (this was relayed to me by someone who worked at that hotel with him at the time). After kicking down this woman's door, RT was kicked out of that hotel, came to the bar at the Elk Inn, started a fight with someone, and was thrown out of the Elk Inn and told he was no longer allowed on the property.

Why then, you may ask, was he staying at the Elk Inn the past two nights? Because the Rooms Manager of the hotel, Hans, thinks RT is awesome and made a "secret" reservation for him.

And thus brings us to what happened yesterday:

After already staying in the hotel/visiting Estes for an unknown reason the day before, Hans gave RT another super discounted room last night. Around 4pm, RT checked-in with a very petite girl, who Apple and I could immediately tell was drugged out. We had RT's credit card information for incidentals from the previous stay (he paid cash on the room) and he had the obviously twitching girl put her debit card down to pay for this new room. They then went off and weren't seen again except for a brief moment when I walked by them during my break.

Around 9:30pm a guest on the fourth floor called the front desk asking for new batteries for his TV remote. I called our maintenance department and asked Doug to bring up some batteries. About ten minutes later Doug radioed the front desk and said that the Manager on Duty, Cookie, needed to come to the fourth floor right away. Before he even made it up there, Doug told Cookie that they needed to call 911. Apple and I stayed at the front desk wondering what was happening. We hypothesized that the man who wanted the new batteries was either throwing a fit or he was having a heart attack. A few minutes later, Doug came down to the front desk and asked who was in Room 410. I pulled up the record in the computer: RT.

"RT?!" Doug said (he was the one who worked with RT when he kicked down the door), "what the fuck is he doing here?"

"Hans let him in," Apple said.

"He's not allowed in this hotel," Doug said. Elk Inn's bartender was walking through the lobby and asked what the commotion was about. "RT is in the hotel and he and his friend our tripping on acid and just beat the shit out of each other," Doug explained. The bartender also exclaimed his disgust and shock that RT was in the hotel. Apple told him that Hans had been letting RT stay at the hotel for a super discounted rate.

"So what's going on?" the bartender asked.

"They've destroyed that room," Doug said, "there's blood everywhere, there's a hole in the wall, the other guy's face is all bashed in."

"Where's RT?"

"He ran."

"Probably because he knows he's going to get arrested," Apple chimed in.

Doug said Cookie had already called the cops. He and the bartender went back up to the fourth floor to see what they should do before the cops arrived.

Apple and I knew that this was not only Hans's fault for letting RT into the hotel, but we also knew that Hans was currently living in the hotel because he recently sold his house and doesn't have a new one yet. Apple texted Hans to let him know what was going on. I answered the desk phone and found a very annoyed Room 408 saying that someone was banging on their door, trying to get inside. I told him that there was a fight in Rm 410, we were aware of the situation, and that the cops were on the way. As soon as I hung up the phone, three cops strolled into the lobby. I showed them how to get to the fourth floor and they went separate directions to try to head off anyone who may try to flee the scene.

Radio-less, Apple and I stood at the front desk and waited for some news. An ambulance arrived and I told the EMTs how to get to the fourth floor. Following the protocol of the Front Desk Test Apple and I recently had to take, we decided to call the General Manager and let him know what was going on. While Apple called him, I took another front desk call, this time from Room 419. The woman sounded panicked and asked if the people that were causing the disturbance were going to stay in the hotel. She said that she and her husband had a baby with them and were worried about their safety. I told them that I was fairly sure that the people in 410 were all going to be escorted off the property, but that I would call them back once I knew for sure. No sooner had I hung up the phone than it rang again and this time it was one of the servers from our restaurant. She was in the employee housing behind the hotel and said that RT was there and was trying to hide in one of the rooms. "He's covered in blood," she said. Apple called Cookie and told him to send the cops to our dorms ASAP.

Guests continued to come to the front desk and ask if everything was okay. One couple said that there was blood on the outside of 410's door and said they hoped everyone was well. "They sort of brought this on themselves," Apple said.

By 10:30pm, RT's "friend" had been loaded into an ambulance and the twitchy girl had been sent to the police station to detox. Apple walked one of the officers back up to the room so that he could take photos of the damage. While she was gone, I watched another officer walk RT to the front of the building and sit him down on a bench right outside our automatic doors. I tried to see he if he was handcuffed, but couldn't tell. Doug came back to the front desk and said that RT was getting off with a warning. The cops were making him wait outside for a friend to pick him up.

Let's just take a moment to point out that RT, although a psychotic, messed-up individual with an arrest record, is an attractive white man. He drops acid, beats a guy with a hotel lamp (yes - he did not just hit his "friend" with his fists, but actually took a lamp to the guy's face), destroys a hotel room, trespasses on private property (he's not allowed in the employee housing), and walks off with just a warning. Do you think a Black or Hispanic man would have walked off sans handcuffs? Doubtful. 

Also, Hans never responded to Apple's text message. Cookie called Hans from the fourth floor before the cops arrived and Hans said, "I'm not dealing with this." Hans, the only person out of 20+ employees to let an ex-felon/ex-fired employee - a man with a history of violent acts - back into the hotel, did not want to deal with the mess he had created...

Right before 11pm, the Night Auditor arrived and we filled her in and everything that had happened. Cookie encouraged her and I, the only two people who had not seen 410's damage, to go up to the room to see what had happened.

Maybe I should have worked for the hotel that inspired The Shining. Evil spirits and REDRUM aren't looking half bad right now.

*Name is changed because this boy is psychotic.

Where's Norman Bates When I Need Him?

The Elk Inn is a drug-free workplace. Before I could start my first day of work I had to be tested and was told that I couldn't work until the results came back. Right before I arrived in Colorado, three housekeepers were let-go for testing positive for marijuana. Now, I get that companies do not want their employees showing up stoned to work, but I think testing positive for pot in a state where weed is legal is just ridiculous. First off, weed is different than alcohol in that you do not have to be actively high to test positive. You don't even need to have smoked in the past 24 hours! In order to test positive for marijuana on a drug test you have to have smoked sometime in the past week or two (depending on the type of test they administer). As someone who does not smoke (because every time I do I think I'm going to die -- yep, I'm one of those people), I think this is grossly unfair to the workers here because they are not breaking any laws by smoking and they are not necessarily smoking before coming into work. Maybe they have a joint before bed! What's the harm in that? Hell, weed is safer than alcohol and yet I could drink 3 bottles of wine today and be tested next week and nothing would happen. If I smoke one joint today, however, and am tested next week then I am out of a job.

I get that this company is trying to maintain a professional workplace and that this is a corporate policy, but this is also Colorado. This is a summer seasonal workplace in Colorado. Pot is legal here. I pass a dispensary every time I drive up and down the mountain! This company needs to make some accommodations or else they are going to be hiring and firing staff every single week. (Also, pot isn't legal in Michigan and yet more than half of my Mackinac hotel's staff smoked daily. Did the management drug test everyone? No, because then they would have lost their entire restaurant staff.)

So this little tirade brings me to yesterday: the Elk Inn is hosting a three-day Letter Carriers conference (yes -- postal workers) and had 100+ check-outs and 100+ check-ins...and four housekeepers...Needless to say, it was mass chaos. Most of the letter carriers arrived between 1 and 4pm. Everyone who has ever stayed at a hotel knows that your room will not technically be ready until check-in time, but more often than not it is ready earlier than that. However, the rooms at the Elk Inn were not finished until 5pm. 5 P.M. Even I will admit that this is unacceptable. I get that there were only four housekeepers and I am not blaming them. Those poor people were completely overworked yesterday! However, had the drug test policy not been in place, the Elk Inn would have had 7 housekeepers, plus one manager helping out, and that would have doubled the speed.

I got to work at 2:30pm and was met with a crowded lobby and grumpy guests. It was my second day on the job. Thankfully I am already familiar with the hotel's reservation system, but I am two-years out of practice so there is still a learning curve. For example, my Mackinac hotel preassigned every room. The Elk Inn does that for certain rooms, but not others ( I have no idea why). When a room would finally be marked as 'clean' I would try to put a guest in there, but the system would tell me it was reserved for someone else. Another new guy was working with me and not only was this his second day on the job as well, but it was his second day working for any hotel in general. My roommate, who we will call Apple, was also checking people in, but basically all the three of us could do was apologize to guests, get their cellphone number, and tell them we would call as soon as their room was ready.

Now, these Letter Carriers were here for a conference. The conference starts today, but there was a little reception for everyone who checked in yesterday. We had a conference room full of goodies and a hotel room reserved for everyone to relax in, leave their stuff, and eat and drink. I understood that everyone checking in was unhappy not to have a room ready, but it also wasn't like they had no where to go. There were also certain reservations that were being held under one name and paid for by a company credit card. This was a tad confusing because Group A was being held under the name Batman (not really) and Batman's card was paying for everything, but we still needed a credit card from each guest for incidentals. Group B was being held under Superman, but Superman was not paying for the rooms so we needed to swipe each person's card and charge it.

This brings us to Mrs. Bitch (I know I usually make up a more clever name, but this is more accurate). Mrs. Bitch was with Group A. Mrs. Bitch showed up sometime around 2:30pm and was told we did not have a room ready for her. At 4:45pm I was FINALLY able to get Mrs. Bitch and her husband into a room. Mrs. Bitch was clearly unhappy and I understood her frustration. I asked for a credit card for incidentals. She was a bit taken aback and I explained that the card would not be charged (I wasn't even swiping it into the computer for god's sake -- I was simply copying the numbers into her reservation) unless she and her husband ordered something, put something on their room bill, etc etc. I gave them their keys and sent them on their way. I forgot to click "check-in" until they were gone and when I did, Batman's credit card (the card that was paying for the room) declined. Oh shit. I told my supervisor, Cookie, and we found that Batman's card was only authorizing on 3 of his 10 reservations. The other 7 were declining. Cookie told me to go ahead and authorize Mrs. Bitch's card until Batman arrived and could provide a new form of payment. I went back into the reservation and found, to my horror, that, when the card declined, I had closed out the screen without saving my changes. Thus, Mrs. Bitch's credit card was not saved in her reservation and there was no payment for the room. Cookie told me we would deal with it whenever Batman arrived.

The rest of the afternoon remained this chaotic. People tried to check-in, we tried to get them into rooms, and it was just all very sloppy and made me miss the efficiency of my old hotel. Around 6pm Mrs. Bitch came up to the front desk, making a beeline for me. Her eyebrows were pinched together, her mouth was tight, and you could feel the hatred pouring out of her.

She motioned to a group of Letter Carriers sitting in the lobby. "That woman says you didn't take her card at check-in and I want to know why you took mine."

"That was just for incidentals," I said, "your card will not actually be charged unless you put something on the room."

"But why was mine taken and hers wasn't?"

"Every reservation is different. I promise that your card is not going to be charged. I didn't even swipe it into the computer."

"But I want to know WHY YOU TOOK MY CARD AND NOT HERS."

Now, I'm just going to take a moment and say that my tolerance for being bullied is at an all time low. The shit I have gone through at graduate school this past year has made me very sensitive and a bit bitter at feeling like I'm being jerked around or walked on and, let's face it, I don't need this summer job. Thus, I was a bit more casual (and in the end: snippy) with Mrs. Bitch than I ever would have been at my Mackinac hotel (Cindy, if you're reading this, I'm sorry).

I leaned over the counter to look at the group of Letter Carriers. "What woman are you talking about?" I asked.

"That woman." She pointed to a lady with red hair.

"Honestly," I said, feeling a bit fed-up, "I did not check her in. Out of the people under Batman's name I only checked you in so no, I did not take her card because I did not check her in. We are supposed to take a credit card for incidentals and I cannot help it if whoever checked her in did not do that."

"Well that's just really bad management. You should all be doing the same thing!"

"I absolutely agree. We should all be doing the same thing and I am really sorry that we aren't. Two of us are brand new -- it's our second day -- and we're still learning. I am really sorry that it's all been so chaotic."

"I just want to let you know how angry I am," No shit, Sherlock. "I have never seen a place so disorganized."

"I agree with you. This has been really awful."

"You shouldn't take my card unless you're taking EVERYONE'S card."

I leaned towards her. "Look," I said, "I am going to be honest with you. I messed up. Batman's card declined while I was trying to check you in and when it did that, I should have hit 'save,' but I didn't, and your card was wiped from our system. You card is not in our computer at all."

"And yet you took MY card and not her's?!"

"Again, I did not check her in. And your card is not in our computer whatsoever."

"I am really angry about this. ALL OF THIS."

"I totally get that and I think you should be because the way everything was handled today just sucks. I can offer you a voucher for two free drinks in our restaurant -- actual alcohol, not just like a coke or something. I am really sorry, but this is literally all I can give you and we're actually not even supposed to give these out."

The woman took the drink ticket and stared at me. It was clear she was calculating something behind her beady little eyes, but I couldn't figure out what. I had just told her that her card information wasn't saved so there was no way she was getting charged for the room. Even if she was charged (which she couldn't be without handing over a credit card again), her company would obviously pay her back so it wasn't like she was losing any money on this. I was giving her coveted free drink tickets and sincerely agreeing with her in her anger. What more did she want??

She studied the drink tickets. "If it were up to me," she said, "I wouldn't stay here."

"I don't blame you," I replied.

"I am going to recommend that we never stay here again."

"As you should."

"The check-in process was awful."

"I agree with you 120%."

"If it were up to me, I would leave tonight."

At this point, my tolerance meter exploded and I just wanted her gone before my anger began to match hers. "I get that," I said, "and again, I am really sorry, but I have done everything in my power to make you happy. Obviously nothing is going to work so I have nothing else to say to you." And then I turned away from her and waited on another guest.

I was shaking at this point. This woman's anger had gotten under my skin so much that all I could think was Screw this. I don't need this job. I can just leave and have an actual summer break. I don't need this. I don't need to be treated like this. I'm unhappy at grad school, so why be unhappy even when I'm not there? Screw these people.

Luckily, I didn't exactly abandon ship immediately and felt a bit better as I hung out with my coworkers and met some nicer guests (although, I won't lie, the ratio was about 70:30 for cranky vs nice). Cookie told me that the craziness of today -- being short staffed in housekeeping, not having rooms ready on time, and having disgruntled guests -- is not unusual for this property or for Estes Park in general. So that's...not encouraging.

Later that night, Cookie took me on a tour of the property. We walked through the kitchen, the storage area, accounting, the conference center, etc. The Elk Inn is made up of three buildings: two buildings of rooms and the conference center. Cookie and I entered on the first floor of Building 2 and started to walk down the hallway towards a group of people when suddenly I heard, "And she took MY card for incidentals, but not anyone else's." I froze and whispered to Cookie, "That's the bitch." We both stood there for a moment, unseen by Mrs. Bitch as she repeated, "She took MY card, but no one else's!" I struggled between wanting to turn around and run or walk up and say, "Hey! That's a lie, just FYI, and you know it. Also, it was your husband's credit card, not your own, because you're one of those women whose only identity is through their husband, which I know because when I asked for your name at check-in you said 'Mrs. Kenneth Rotolo*,' which is clearly not your name. So, if you have a problem, let's do this RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. SO HELP ME I WILL PUSH YOU INTO A HERD OF ELK."

Instead, Cookie and I turned around and went out the back door. We went to Building 3 and entered on the basement level. He showed me the hotel rooms where a few employees had to live last summer when the dorms became too crowded. We started to go up a set of stairs when we heard voices. It was Mrs. Bitch again. She was still complaining about me, about the hotel, and just about life in general because she is clearly a sorry, bitter woman who has nothing better to do. I know that may make me sound bitter, but it's just true. Any sane human being knows that the person behind a desk is usually not the one with the power, or the one who is making your day harder than it should be. Instead, that person behind the desk is doing their job, they are trying to appease you as much as possible, and, basically, they are a face for you to yell at. Also, this woman was easily 50 years old. Grow up and find something else to talk about.

Cookie and I stayed at the bottom of the stairs and listened to Mrs. Bitch say how we gave her the "round around," how we had "manipulated" her, and then she said she was going to break something inside the hotel room and "just say that I found it that way. How would they know?" The person who was with her said, "Yeah, but they have your credit card on file so I wouldn't risk it," and Mrs. Bitch responded sadly, "Damn. I know. I forgot about that." Yeah -- and you also forgot that I told you I didn't save your card information. MAYBE IF YOU WOULD LISTEN TO OTHER PEOPLE INSTEAD OF ONLY LISTENING TO YOURSELF YOU WOULD REMEMBER THAT.

After listening to this woman for about five minutes, my anger subsided slightly. Hearing that woman fabricate my conversation with her (she claims that she asked to check into her room and I said, "Absolutely not!") and bitch over and over about the hotel and the front desk staff -- I began to feel sorry for her. What a horrible and lonely life she must have to get so angry about a sloppy check-in process. No one got hurt. Her bank account wasn't drained. She wasn't sent outside to wait in the cold for hours. In fact, she was offered a room with her "friends" and given free booze and a fruit parfait. She was even given two vouchers for free drinks AND she wasn't even paying for her hotel room (also, she's from Colorado Springs, so it's not like she flew here or traveled a great distance). And yet, a sloppy check-in process ruined her entire day and I am going to go ahead and assume her entire week. In fact, I bet she will talk about this for the next year or any time someone mentions Estes Park. What a truly sad and angry life she must lead. On top of all of that, her face looks like an angry emu. 

Sorry. I couldn't resist! 

By the end of the night, everyone had felt Mrs. Bitch's wrath. Before Cookie and I ran into her in the hallway/stairwell, Mrs. Bitch had been in the lobby yelling to her friends, "Fuck this hotel! This hotel is the worst! I will never stay here again!" Batman, who had finally showed up, told her to calm down and that everything would be fixed in the morning. He explained that he had forgotten to up the credit limit on their company card and that that was why his card declined. According to Apple, Batman said, "You won't be charged for the room. I will fix it all in the morning and the front desk staff has been helping me out." Mrs. Bitch responded, "Fuck. This. Hotel. We will never stay here again!" That's fine with us, Mrs. Bitch. Your presence will not be missed!

*People who are super mean and ugly do not get the liberty of having their name changed in this blog.

Summer 2015: Pigs, Balls, and Elk

Hello dear readers! After an almost a six month hiatus I am back! Back on the road, back in a National Park, and back to blogging. I'm sorry I took such a long break. I won't go into too much detail, but basically grad school threw a few unexpected roadblocks my way (which have yet to be unblocked) and I found myself stretched very thin between that unexpected problem, keeping up with schoolwork, and trying to stay on-task with my freelance writing. That being said -- now it is summertime and the living is easy! Or, rather, easy-ish since I still have to deal with that damn roadblock, but oh well. Now is no time to think about that! Instead, let's jump right into the new trials and tribulations of this nomadic twentysomething year old.

I left the state of Georgia two days ago with my father, a packed Odysseus (my car), and two Garmin GPS systems. Did you know that most GPS systems only contain maps for half of the country? My dad's had the eastern United States in it and mine had the western. My dad's GPS could not fathom anything past the Mississippi River and mine just floated in space while I drove through Atlanta, trying to make sure I made the correct turns. Dad and I went north of GA a little ways and then headed straight west to Estes Park, Colorado, where I will be working as a Front Desk Clerk at a hotel we will call the Elk Inn (and just to throw this out there now -- that is not a code name for the famous Stanley Hotel).

Our drive went pretty well until we hit Kansas and, while beautiful, I found myself missing the cornfields and random mosque sightings of Indiana. Kansas was sunny and warm -- about seventy degrees. By the time we reached Colorado the temperature had dropped a bit and I felt silly in my flip flops and running shorts, but not totally insane. The next morning it was almost forty degrees...and sleeting...

Colorado has not quite been what I was expecting. For starters, there is snow -- everywhere. Estes park is a little over 7,500 ft high. I hear it "snows all summer" at 8,000 ft, but that Estes can get a sprinkling here and there. My leg sank calf-deep in a snow bank today and word on the elk-lined street is that we are supposed to get a foot of snow tonight. This is a sprinkling?! I feel like the two kids from that YouTube video: It's raining. No, it's sprinkling. No, it is actually snowing.

When dad and I arrived at the Elk Inn I checked-in with my new boss and was given a very brief rundown of the next few days: I will be sleeping in a room in the hotel until I clear my drug test on Monday. My boss pointed to numbered squares on a map of the hotel. "You're going to be in this building," he said, drawing a blue highlighter circle around a rectangular building that was adjacent to the rest. "It's empty right now so it'll just be you in that building." I wanted to look at him and ask, "Have you learned nothing from The Shining??" Nevertheless, I accepted the key and went to check it out.

After this brief check-in, Dad and I drove around the corner to the employee housing. The housing is a long, narrow, rectangular building. There is a small sitting room and afterthought kitchen by the entrance and then rows of doors leading to bedrooms. I found my bedroom, knocked (because I have a roommate who has already been here for a month), and let myself in. The only word I can think to describe the room is "ramshackle." First off, the doorknob just hangs from its hole in the door. It's not actually functional. There were two double beds, but it was hard to tell which one was currently being used and which was not. The room was dark except for a small, dim lamp on a tiny table between the two beds. The bathroom fan was on even though no switch was thrown and the whole place was just dark, dingy, and looked like the kind of hotel room where drug rings are busted. My heart immediately sank and I started to think, This may not work out. On my way out of Drug Ring Central I ran into three other seasonal employees, two of which will be working at the front desk with me.

 

My housing! Just kidding. This is the condemned building behind the hotel that I thought was my housing and even tried to get into one of the rooms. Luckily, my actual housing is behind this building, but I am not sure which looks shabbier. 

Not wanting to waste our day, Dad and I grabbed some lunch and then headed into Rocky Mountain National Park. It started to snow as we pulled up outside the Visitor Center. Dad laughed and said, "Isn't this great?" I scowled and mentally calculated how long I would have to stay in Colorado in order to tell people, "See? I tried! It just didn't work out. Darn."

Although snow-covered and feeling like the middle of winter, the Rockies are beautiful. We saw some elk, drove to about 9,000 ft, and felt the impact of the altitude after climbing up a small hill.

Some photos from Rocky Mountains Trip #1

After driving around winding roads for a few hours, Dad and I headed back to the hotel to rest a while before dinner. I decided to explore the hotel a bit and began following signs to the Fitness Center, but somehow missed it and ended up in the front lobby. This was fortuitous because two of the three people I had met earlier were working and I was able to chat with them. The guy asked me what I thought about the housing. I hesitated, trying to think of something nice to say, and the girl finally spoke for me: "It sucks, doesn't it?" I breathed a sigh of relief, happy that if I am going to be miserable, at least I can commiserate this misery with others. 

Also, brief side note -- while talking to my boyfriend on the phone, I stood at the end of the hotel's second floor hallway and watched people walking in and out of the hotel. The Elk Inn accepts pets and I watched this walk inside:

 Apparently this is a therapy animal: Ziggy the Piggy.

Dad and I ate at the Elk Inn's restaurant for dinner. I am allowed one meal during every shift that I work this summer so I was anxious to see what my options would be. Turns out they are fairly limited, but the food wasn't bad. Our waitress, also a new employee, was from Minnesota and asked if we would like the fried Rocky Mountain oyster appetizer that was on special. Islanders who are not known to pass up seafood, Dad and I said yes, but regretted this decision as the oysters tasted horrendous. Each bite was chewy and bitter and had an odd burnt flavour to it. Obviously, being over 900 miles away from the nearest ocean, we didn't expect much, but these were just plain weird. Still, they didn't taste like they had gone bad and we were compelled to finish the ten between us because a) who wastes oysters? and b) we didn't want to be rude (although I'll admit the islander in me was going, How did you mess these up so egregiously?). When the waitress asked how they were my dad responded, "Were those actually oysters?" The girl look confused. "I think so," she said. "Did they not taste like oysters?"

"They were a little strange," I admitted.

"And they were flat," Dad said, "oysters are normally thicker."

The girl nodded. "I've never actually had oysters before so I wouldn't know."

"Are they supposed to be fresh?" I asked, genuinely curious as to whether there were salt water refineries in Colorado. I remembered a couple sitting behind us at the restaurant from the previous night (our first night in Colorado) eating oysters on the half-shell. Maybe Colorado was trying to reap the benefits of expensive seafood.

The girl said she found the concept of Rocky Mountain oysters strange, too, but assumed they came out of the ocean and were frozen.

Dad and I then headed over to a grocery store to pick up some things for breakfast. We ran into the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine and by the time we headed back to the hotel it was snowing...again. The predication was a foot of snow by 4 a.m.

Before bed, I called my boyfriend again and told him about the rest of the day. I started to tell him about the Rocky Mountain oysters and he stopped me: "You didn't eat those, did you?"

"I know, I know," I said, knowing he's as much of a seafood snob as I am (basically meaning, if you're not within an hour of the ocean then you can't call it "fresh"), "we thought we'd give it a shot."

"Those aren't oysters."

"Not fresh oysters. They were probably frozen beforehand --"

"No. Those are not oysters."

"...what are they?"

"Testicles."

After much "what? no they're not!" I looked it up on Google and found the horrendous truth: Rocky Mountain oysters are fried bull, goat, or cow testicles, depending on what's on hand.

OH. MY. GOD. First, let's talk about how strange it is to eat something so disgusting, and be aware as you are eating it that it is disgusting, and yet you still eat it because you don't realize what it actually is (sort of like a placebo effect, but much more nauseating). Also, WHY were the testicles served with a traditional horseradish cocktail sauce? The kind you always see served with shrimp? That was clearly put there to fake out Colorado tourists and newbies into thinking that these are actual from-the-ocean, out-of-a-hard-shell, pearl-producing oysters.

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. My first day in Estes Park and I have learned that I will be living in a crack house, there's snow on the ground and I am still wearing flip flops, there are pigs in my hotel, and I have had more balls in my mouth than I ever preferred to. Do I hear the faint sounds of Blue Ridge banjo plucking?

Feeling super unsure and super cold outside of Estes.

Let's Talk About Weather

One night during my senior year at Kalamazoo College in Michigan I drove a few friends home after Half-Off Long Island Night at a bar. Most of the people lived within walking distance of the bar, but it started to pour so I snaked my way up and down one-way streets to get my passengers home safely. The last person I needed to drop off was Mark, a guy who I was semi-dating at the time. As I pulled away from campus and onto Main Street the rain became a monsoon. I could hardly see in front of me and was grateful there were no other vehicles on the road so that I could drive at 5 mph. A siren started to sound from behind me, but the rain was too dense to see where the ambulance or fire truck was coming from. Luckily I was near Mark's street so I kept driving.

Parked in Mark's driveway, we sat and listened to the rain and sirens for a while. I'm not sure what Mark was waiting for, but I was biding my time hoping he would invite me inside. Mark was not the most "physical" guy I had ever dated, but he was a sweet man and just what I needed after my boyfriend of three years had stomped on my heart the previous summer. Any action I got from Mark was initiated by me, but I had never been ballsy enough to invite myself inside Mark's home.

We started to comment on the weather, the lightning illuminating the sky, and we gradually approached the subject of "us". Somewhere in this conversation I received a text from one of my housemates: Where are you? I replied: In my car with Mark. What's up? Immediately my phone rang. "What do you mean you're in your car?" Laura snapped.

"Uhh I was driving people home after drinking at Roadhouse and now Mark and I are in my car?" I tried to send Laura telepathic messages saying, I am trying to make a move here and you're cramping my style. Unfortunately, our telepathic language is normally relayed in wide eyes and eyebrow movements so she wasn't picking up on my message.

"Don't you hear the siren?"

"You hear it too?" I said, looking back to the road. Mark lived one street over from my house so it was possible that I could hear the ambulance if it was near my roommates. "It's moving really slowly. Oh my god!" Suddenly I wondered if the ambulance wasn't moving. What if it was stopped because it was tending to whoever was hurt? What if it was stopped at my house? "Is everyone okay?"

"That is a tornado siren," Laura said, "there is a tornado in the area."

The brief panic I felt that one of my housemates may be injured deflated. "Oh," I said, turning to look at Mark. I'm from the coast of Georgia. I wasn't sure if I had ever heard an active there's a tornado seek shelter now tornado siren. I had heard the ones they tested in Kalamazoo from time to time, but the unending siren I was hearing that night hadn't registered as the same sort of siren. Mark was from Michigan, however. What was his excuse? "Should we get out of the car?" I asked more hesitantly than I should have.

"YES GET OUT OF THE CAR. We're all in the laundry room."   

I relayed all of this information to Mark. We went inside his house. The tornado never came to our street or our college, but I was grateful for the sudden temperamental weather because it got me what I wanted -- and invitation inside. 

I was reminded of this night in my car with Mark when I woke up this morning to tornado sirens in Milledgeville, Georgia. Having grown up on a small island off the coast of Georgia, I forget that there are areas of the state where tornadoes can actually form and cause some damage. It was 9:30am when the sound of the siren woke me up. After a fever-and-sore-throat fueled night kept me from getting much sleep I felt delirious and thought, "I don't remember hearing them test the sirens before. Oh well. Maybe they test them once a month and I never paid attention." I pulled my comforter over my head to go back to sleep. On a typical Monday, I would have already been at my assistantship for an hour and a half at this time, but when 1:30am rolled around and I was still tossing and turning I emailed my advisor telling her I was too sick to come in. Before I shut my eyes I instinctively checked my phone. My daily TimeHop app was waiting for me to view it, I had a few texts from some MFA friends, and a weather alert: Tornado Warning in effect until 10:15 a.m. Seek shelter now.

I sat up and took out my earplugs. The siren was still blaring and it was pouring. My cat, Belmont, stretched on the body pillow on the floor and looked at me sleepily. I couldn't remember the difference between a warning and a watch so I called one of my old housemates, Christine, from Kalamazoo. When she didn't pick up I checked my texts from my classmates. They were from Penny and Kera asking if we were all going to meet at the local coffee shop at noon for our Monday writing date. I responded to the group text: I'm not going to make it out today because I am super sick and it hurts to swallow. I had to call in sick :( Btw, is there a tornado warning?

Kera responded: Yes - we're all downstairs taking cover! Stay away from windows. She asked if I needed any medicine and offered to pick some up later. Then she added: Also, tornado is actually heading in our direction from Macon, so this is no joke!

I stood up and reached for Belmont. My cat gets scared if I move too quickly and she darted from my grasp. I chased her into the second bedroom, picked her up, and dropped her when she dug her claws into my chest. Instead I grabbed my laptop, told Belmont she was on her own, and went into the bathroom. 

This seemed humourous to me -- four years out of college, living on my own, having dealt with a few harrowing storms during my time in Chicago and yet I was still relying on friends to tell me what to do during a tornado. Tornadoes are one of  two natural disasters I just don't think about because they're never been huge threats in places where I lived (the other is earthquakes). On the southeastern coast we get tornadoes with hurricanes, but usually you're more worried about the hurricane as a whole rather than the tornadoes that come with it. And truth be told, hurricanes in coastal Georgia were awesome because we would always have the threat of the storm, schools would be closed, and sometimes we had to evacuate, but the hurricanes never actually hit the Golden Isles. They would get close enough to make businesses board-up and then suddenly they would catch the Gulf Stream and ride it straight into the Carolinas. My memories of Hurricane Season include eating at Chic-fil-a with friends after school was closed in the middle of the day, driving through flooded areas in golf carts, and sitting on the beach watching the Atlantic ocean waves battle each other. My family and I wouldn't even evacuate until it was mandatory. When it came to hurricanes, I did the minimal amount of preparation required. Tornadoes, however, are so unfamiliar that I will do whatever people tell me to do. Seek shelter? Done. Sit in a door frame? Got it. Pull my mattress into the bathroom and create a bunker out of my bathtub? I'm already there.

I did not bring my mattress into the bathroom, but I did spend the next hour sitting on the floor with my back against the tub texting storm updates with Kera. She was being fed information by the people at the college and I was telling her what I was hearing outside -- rain, the siren, and possibly hail at one point when suddenly the rain was so loud that I thought a window may have flown open. Penny reported that everyone in the library was also taken to a basement area. Jeanette began texting me and told me how to duck-and-cover should a tornado actually pass over my apartment. A tornado entered south Baldwin County, the rain became so deafening that I could no longer hear the siren and then suddenly it all seemed to stop. A voice replaced the siren, but I couldn't understand it. By the time I left the bathroom the voice had stopped and there was a series of low honks, a sound that I learned during a snow emergency in Chicago meant "all clear." I started to text Kera when the voice spoke again and said, "All clear. The emergency is over."

As I left the bathroom I noticed blood on my hand. I looked down and saw a bright red streak where Belmont had sunk her claws into my chest. "You little bitch," I said to Belmont, who I knew was still hiding under my bed, "I was just trying to save your life." I had to use the last bandaid in my apartment to cover the small hole. I guess if Belmont and I are going to go through this for the next three years I'll have to get more bandaids.

A Milledgeville Update

Hello, dear readers! You would think being in an MFA writing program would mean I would write blog posts more often. Sadly, that seems to not be the case. Since coming to Milledgeville I have been writing a lot, but not for this blog. Part of it is because I am trying to perfect my writing for class, another part is that I am writing for freelance gigs, and the last part is that I just have not had much to write about.

It has now been almost two months since I left Chicago and I am desperately homesick. The smallest thing can remind me of the Windy City and God help me if I am even slightly inebriated when this happens because it is instant beer-tears. I am trying to "make do" here. I am inviting people over to my apartment to hangout or watch a movie, I accept EVERY invitation that I get, I am going to the gym whenever I feel sad (thank god because I also can't stop eating comfort food), and I got a cat. The cat's name is Belmont (named after a Chicago L stop -- big help when trying not to have anything remind me of Chitown) and while she is still a bit skittish around me I think we are becoming friends. She has now learned that there is not a horrible monster atop my bed and that if she jumps up there then she will be scratched and pet. It's a slow learning process, but I think we'll make some significant progress by December -- just in time for me to take her to St. Simons for the month-long Christmas break, thus freaking her out again. Hooray!

Good Things About Milledgeville 

(because listing thing always makes me feel more positive)

1. Food and drink is cheap. Two mixed drinks will cost you less than $8 (together, not each) and when the Braces play, the one "happening" bar in town marks everything half-off. I never thought I would care about when the Braves played until now!
2. There is just one panhandler in Milledgeville, which is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you aren't passing a minimum of ten people asking you for money everyday, but on the other hand you get a bit tired of the same man approaching you over and over. My boyfriend gave this man money once, but didn't a second time. After this second time, the panhandler stomped off and overturned a trash can lid because he was so angry. Surprisingly, that has never happened to me in Chicago. At least I know who to avoid on the street!
3. Being surrounded by other writers has influenced me to write more and seek-out freelance jobs. I am fortunate to have scored a few paying gigs and even wrote an article that ended up being published on the Huffington Post! That definitely would not have happened if I was still in Chicago.
4. "Free" gym membership at my college's Wellness Center. I realize that my Student Fees technically pay for me to use the gym, but that money was taken out of my financial aid before I ever saw it so it feels like it is free.

Okay that's all I've got for now. Maybe I'll become gradually more appreciative of this town as time goes on. When people ask me, "How are you liking Milledgeville?" I answer, "The school is nice and my classmates are nice, but I hate the town." That pretty much sums up my current sentiments.

Fun fact: Flannery O'Connor, Milledgeville and Georgia College's claim to fame, hated Milledgeville too. What a smart lady!

Toto, We're Not in Chicago Anymore

On Thursday, July 31st I officially moved out of my apartment in the Rogers Park neighbourhood of Chicago and headed south to my graduate program at Georgia College and State University. During the move my favourite purse broke, my dad lost his wallet, and a man in a red car was kind enough to leave some of his paint on my silver car. Needless to say, I felt the travel gods were telling me not to leave Chicago.

The drive to Milledgeville, GA was long. Google Maps says the route should only take twelve hours to drive, but with construction and traffic jams nearly every twenty miles it felt closer to eighteen. At one point I wondered if we would ever get out of the state of Indiana in two days. We did, thankfully, and arrived in Milledgeville about thirty-six hours after we left the beautiful Windy City.

The closer we got to Milledgeville (Milly) the more the reality of this move began to sink in. The small country roads, farm after farm, and 90+% humidity kept reminding me how far I was from the Midwest. Twenty-four miles outside of Milly my mother pointed out the Rock Eagle camp that I went to when I was in middle school. I was never a big fan of going to camp as a child (my mother will never let me forget the time she had to come and pick me up early because I was "sick") and I started to feel the familiar butterflies in my stomach that I would get when rolling up to a cabin with my blanket and duffel bag.

We continued along the small two-lane road. We passed spray-painted signs for "VIDALIA ONIONS" and "FRESH PECANS" and then came "PECHES". I took my eyes off the road to stare at the sign. "Peches"? Georgia is The Peach State. Someone can't spell "peaches" in The Peach State?! I looked at my mum and pouted. "What am I doing here??" She gave me her normal It's Going to be Great speech. We passed a few more farms, an abandoned plant, crossed over a large lake and entered Milledgeville.

My apartment in Milledgeville has recently changed management companies. The previous management company let the complex become a student ghetto, but the new guys are trying to spruce it up. You can both see where the new guys have done a lot of work and where some improvements still need to be made (for example, an AC vent in my kitchen likes to drip a significant amount of water during the night and three of my four windows are broken). It's not too bad though and with some real TLC I think the apartment will become pretty nice. This is the first time I have ever lived alone so that is going to take some getting used to, especially since I know no one in Milledgeville. Needless to say, this next month or two is going to be a hard adjustment (I like being surrounded by people), but I'll just have to hope that it will all get better.

After moving all of my stuff into the apartment and going out for a birthday lunch (I moved to Milly on my 26th birthday!), my parents headed back to their home on St. Simons Island. My boyfriend, who lives three hours from Milly, stayed with me to help me set up and settle in. Unpacking was a bit hard because that's when I finally realized that this was it -- the point of no return. It didn't help that the street next to me was called Hancock or that there was a sign for Water Tower Place. Every little thing reminded me of Chicago or the friends I had left and I became more and more depressed and worried that this was all a horrible mistake. I mean, I'm only twenty-six. Did I really need an MFA now? Couldn't I have waited until Columbia College could finally offer me some money? Or maybe I should have just gone to Columbia and dealt with the crippling student debt later. All of that would be better than living in Milledgeville, GA, right? Right? What if I die in my apartment and no one knows because I don't have a roommate or any friends in town?!?

Ross decided it was time to leave my apartment for a little while. I was clearly losing my mind and freaking out and I wasn't even alone in the apartment yet! Milledgeville doesn't exactly have a lot to do (aaggghh!) so we drove to Walmart to pick up some things for the apartment. For those who know me you know that this is a big deal -- I hate Walmart. I am from the Bible Belt and, for me, the website PeopleOfWalmart.com just hits a little too close to home. Walmart is scary, redneck, rude, and the people there will either run you down with a shopping cart or just shoot you if you are in their way.

So there we were -- in Walmart because the closest Target is forty-four miles away. We grabbed a few things for my kitchen, some coffee creamer, a new mirror, and a few other random odds and ends. We went through the Self-Checkout and a pair of tongs I had grabbed didn't have a bar-code. A man behind me was wearing a Walmart-blue polo shirt and a nametag so I started to ask him what I should do, but then I realized his nametag said "Kroger". The man sighed, "That's been happening all day." I wanted to pointed out that he was dressed exactly like a Walmart person and should maybe remove the nametag, but doing so would have kept me in Walmart that much longer. I found an actual Walmart clerk, asked her how I could key-in the tongs and she snapped, "I am NOT leaving my post." I remembered why I hate Walmart, put the tongs down and left.

Later in the evening Ross and I found ourselves back at Walmart. That's right -- once was not enough! This time it was to get cleaning supplies, a tire pump, and a cake with candles so we could celebrate what was feeling like a very depressing birthday. The store was mobbed. Walmart is the happening place in Milledgeville and is apparently becoming my equivalent of walking up and down Michigan Avenue. This time I started to therapy shop and impulsively grabbed a purple owl-shaped fly swatter from a bin of colourful fly swatters. When we were ready to checkout, I realized that we had forgotten to get hand soap. The toiletries section was on the opposite end of Walmart and you could barely see the aisles through the throng of people. Devising a battle plan, Ross weaved his way to Self-Checkout while I pushed and pulled my way towards the toiletries. A steady stream of "screw this, I hate this place, what am I doing here, this is actual Hell" rolled through my head.

Finally, I broke through all of the people, but was blocked by a mother and her three children. They were ambling as slow as possible with their empty shopping cart and I rolled my eyes as I trudge behind them. The Walmart crowd was oddly dense around these women, but I thought nothing of it until I passed two young girls who were whispering into a phone, "Honey Boo Boo's whole family is here!" I looked around aghast. In Chicago, I had joked to everyone, "You don't know where Milledgeville is? Well do you know Honey Boo Boo? She lives right outside of the city. Yep -- I can't wait to see her all of the time." Clearly I was kidding and never thought that I would actually see Honey Boo Boo. (I watched my first episode of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo during the trip from Chicago to Milly. It didn't exactly make me feel any better about the move...)

Now I was on the lookout. Honey Boo Boo is actually here? Am I actually going to see her? The woman in front of me turned around to look at something. She was short and plump and had laser yellow hair on the top of her head with a layer of chocolate brown underneath. Her face almost turned to look at me and I suddenly realized -- that was Mama June, Honey Boo Boo's mother. I looked at the girls walking in front of her cart and finally recognized them from the one episode I had watched. A shorter, younger girl was leading the pack. She wore gray shorts and a lime-green hoodie that was pulled over her head. She also turned towards me and I recognized her blond curls immediately: Honey Boo Boo. I stopped short and the crowd of Walmart people quickly filed passed me to get to the Boo Boo clan. I ducked into a shampoo aisle and watched everyone walk away. One woman approached Mama June and threw her arm over June's shoulder. June laughed, but shrugged the woman off and made a gesture that said, "We just want to shop. Please leave us alone." I quickly called my mother and texted my close college friends: "...Honey fucking Boo Boo just passed me in Walmart."

I met Ross back at Self-Checkout and tried to explain why I was so frazzled about seeing Honey Boo Boo. It wasn't that I was excited to see her. Honestly, had I not heard those girls whispering on the phone, I probably wouldn't have noticed the Boo Boo clan at all. I was more flabbergasted by the fact that here I was in my new "home", Hickville, USA, and I was in a Walmart and I had just seen Honey Boo Boo. I am from the state of Georgia, but I am from the coast. Coastal and inland Georgia are worlds apart and, after living in the Midwest for almost eight years and Chicago for almost three, everything was beginning to feel like culture shock overload. I needed to get out of Walmart and I needed to get out of Milledgeville. Unfortunately, only one of those things could be accomplished immediately.

Ross and I split up to pay for our separate items (I was not buying my own birthday cake). My items didn't want to scan and the machine kept acting like I wasn't bagging anything. I pulled out my fly swatter and found an empty plastic ring stuck between the owl's eyes, where the price tag should have been. I didn't know how to key-in the fly swatter and after the rude clerk from earlier I didn't want to ask for help. I put the swatter to the side and figured I'd leave the money on the conveyer belt when I was done (a whopping $1). The woman waiting for my spot grew impatient and called a clerk over to hurry me along. The man came, scanned the rest of my items for me and left. Ross finally reappeared and started placing the bags into the shopping cart. The woman behind me pushed her cart towards us, forcing Ross to move my shopping basket. She began unloading all of her crap onto the conveyer belt, even though I hadn't completed my transaction. I turned towards the woman. I wanted to yell at her and unload all of my frustration on her. I wanted to tell her to "BACK THE FUCK OFF" and that her cowboy hat was stupid and that she looked like a hick. I wanted to tell her that I hated this town and lament that I hadn't even been in Milledgeville for twenty-four hours and yet I had already run into Honey Boo Boo. My friends were far away, I had left my theatre family, I was about to live by myself for the first time ever, I had moved from a major metropolis to a town that didn't even have a Target, I had returned to the Bible Belt, which I swore I would never do, and to top it all off I was in Walmart for a second time that day. I thought about throwing my birthday cake in the woman's face. Instead, I swiped my debit card and entered my PIN. The fly swatter was still on the conveyer belt. I knew if I left a dollar then this woman would take it so I grabbed the purple owl, through it into a bag and thought, "Fuck it. I'll deal with the karma later."

Ross and I left Walmart and headed to Mellow Mushroom for pizza. As we unloaded the bags into my car I confessed my theft of the fly swatter. I pointed to the bag containing the offending object and stopped. At the bottom of the purple handle, where I had been holding the swatter, was a bar-code. The purple owl had a price tag the whole time and I hadn't even noticed it. I thought about returning to the store and paying for the swatter, but decided against it. Returning to Walmart would possibly make me breakdown in tears and I imagined myself weeping at the Self-Checkout. I had already seen Honey Boo Boo. The last thing I needed was to end up on PeopleofWalmart.com.

The offending owl fly swatter.

The Homestretch

I have entered the "homestretch" of my time in Chicago. Two weeks from today I will be officially moved into my new apartment in Milledgeville, GA. I would be lying if I said I wasn't terrified. This next week is my last week at both of my jobs and all I can think is, "This is the last time I will set up the Actor Dinner. This is the last time I will work a two-show Saturday. This is the last Monday morning train I will have to catch." (Just as an FYI, I am leaving Chicago to go to grad school in Georgia. I will be getting an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing and working with the Nonprofit Department -- they're paying me to go to grad school. Yay!)

When I first knew that I would be leaving Chicago, I started a Chicago Bucket List. This list mostly consisted of places to eat and drink since I have already done most of the touristy things in Chicago. So far I have not done a great job at crossing things off my Bucket List. It's hard to complete a list of "Best Eats and Drinks of Chicago" when you know you will stop receiving a paycheck soon (my graduate program will give me a small stipend, but it won't quite cover rent). I was able to cross-off "drinks at the top of the Hancock" though, which was very exciting. The Hancock is my favourite building in all of Chicago and I have always wanted to go up there for drinks. The view was amazing, the drinks were strong (but expensive), and the crème brûlée was TO DIE FOR. Seriously, to anyone thinking of going to the top of the Hancock for drinks, get the crème brûlée.

View from the Signature Room

Besides crossing off my own personal Bucket List, I have done a few other "firsts" in Chicago this month. One "first" was going to a Korean spa. A friend of mine emailed a Groupon deal to me and said that we should go to the spa one evening after work. I purchased the Groupon, we set a date and that was that. It wasn't until a few hours before Katie and I were to meet that I thought to look up information about the spa. I had never been to a spa before to I was unsure if I should wear a bathing suit or if we had to walk around in robes. The website said that uniforms were provided and guests were asked to leave their clothes and belongings in assigned lockers. When you went into one of the pool-spa rooms you had to check your uniform at the door. Then what are you wearing?  I ask myself. I kept reading these directions over and over. When Katie arrived at my apartment I asked her if I should bring a bathing suit. "Yeah," she said, hesitantly, "it's nude?"

So Katie and I went to a semi-nude spa. I say "semi" because clothing was only prohibited in the bath area. It felt strange at first, stripping down in front of a bunch of strangers and then walking around without a way to cover myself. The towels that were provided were washcloths so there was no hope of building a cocoon. You had to shower before going into the baths. Shower heads lined the walls and small five-inch barriers separated each "shower." Katie and I lathered up and giggled nervously. There were a few Asian women in the baths and one small child. I did not have my glasses on and thus could not actually see anything other than blurred figures. I began to feel oddly comfortable. Sure, I was naked and practically showering with my friend, but everyone else was naked too. It even felt a bit empowering -- all of these women walking around completely nude and making no attempts to cover themselves. I wanted to raise my fists and shout, "Yeah! Female bodies are beautiful! Everyone flaunt what you've got!" Katie even commented, "Your tattoo looks great in here." I turned, displaying my back tattoo to the women in the baths, "It was made for this precise moment!"

After the spa.

Another "first" this month was driving a boat down the Chicago River. Obviously, being from St. Simons Island, I am not a stranger to boats and I have driven a few, but there has always been an actual boater with me. Usually, I am on someone's boat and they offer to let me steer for a bit. This time, however, I was the experienced boater. 

My roommate and I purchased a Groupon (are you seeing a pattern in what I do with my time?) for a two-hour electric boat rental. The boats are docked right in the loop and you are allowed to bring food and drink and have up to ten people on board. Emily and I each invited four friends. Everyone met at the harbour in time to sign paperwork that basically said, "If we crash, we are held responsible." I was the only one in the group with any boating experience (and my credit card was authorized for any damages) so I got to be Captain for the evening. We watched a video that stated it is illegal to drive a boat and drink alcohol. One friend and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes. "It's an electric boat," we agreed, "how hard can it be?"

The answer -- very hard. The boat had both sensitive and delayed steering. This meant that if I turned the wheel slightly left we would veer sharply, but not for  few minutes. The river was also crowded with water taxis and architecture tours. I had a half glass of wine and stopped. The possibility of damaging the boat was suddenly too real. It took a lot of concentration to keep a straight course, but I think I did a decent job. In fact, the most harrowing part of the night was when one of my friends said she had to pee. We had just made it down the Navy Pier and were heading west again, hoping to do the north branch before we had to return the boat. We passed the boat docks and my friend pleaded to pull over. Everyone on the boat agreed that to pull over would mean the boat trip was over. Finally, someone convinced my friend, who was fortunately wearing a skirt, to kneel over an empty strawberry container and pee there. My friend did not want to do this, but as we passed the boat docks she realized she had no other choice. Everyone on the boat turned away from her (except me because I had to keep looking straight ahead) and she peed into the container. The things you do to not return something before you have to!

Boating photos.

My last "first" is an Independent Bookstore Crawl. On July 11th, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel officially declared July 12th Independent Bookstore Day in Chicago. A close friend of mine was driving down from Wisconsin to spend the weekend with me and, being writers and book-lovers, we decided to spend Saturday afternoon "crawling" the participating independent bookstores. A theatre friend of mine joined us (she is the one who actually told me about the crawl) and we made it to three of nine bookstores. That does not sound like a lot, but remember that the bookstores were in different neighbourhoods and that we had to take public transportation everywhere. Each store had sales, raffles, and treats. By the end of the day the three of us had almost twenty books each and we each won a raffle prize! It was very exciting. I highly recommend participating in Independent Bookstore Days.

 We got the goods!

 My pile of books (minus the bag I won in the raffle).

So there are some of my Chicago "firsts"! They weren't on my Bucket List, but they should have been.