When Your Vacation Cancels On You

This week is one of anticipation. We are making a little mini-vacation trip to the Black Hills next weekend. I'm very much looking forward to this little getaway that we up and planned a couple of weeks ago.

This afternoon I'm sitting in my office, working away like I would any on any given Monday. Then my phone rings and the number comes up as "Spearfish, SD" and I'm thinking it's the cabin calling to confirm our arrival.

"Hello?"

"Hi is this Andrew?" the man's voice says.

"Yes."

"Say," he starts because that's something we South Dakotans say when we are delivering uncomfortable news. "I was calling to let you know, we had a clerical error and we double booked the cabin you had reserved for this weekend and I'm afraid we don't have that for you," he says with no lack of sympathy.

"Okay?" I say with no lack of obvious irritation.

"But we did call around and find you another cabin just down the road that can accommodate you and your family and it's real nice," the disembodied voice assures me.

Then he blabbered on about the mistake and I wasn't paying attention while my mind goes from "we aren't going at all anymore" to "are we going to stay in a hotel that doesn't have a pool because of 'Rona?"

"I already let them know you'd be calling and I'm really sorry about this," he said.

I really wanted to be pissed, but I have made the exact same mistake with my side hustle, double booking clients because I have the organizational skills of rabid howler monkey on meth.

So I called the new place, got the lowdown, called my wife, chatted about other options, finally settling on the slightly more expensive, but likely equal place to stay.

But if I find a dead body in or outside our cabin, that guy from the other place is going to get a strongly worded email from me.