Another weekend, piles of fresh snow, and along with it, thousands of vacationers and weekenders. No chance of getting out and doing any turns these days. Even I'm not that stupid. This weekend was the Thirty Six Hours of Keystone. I ran around the last few days trying to prepare units for a wave of guests, and now I am asking myself, why? Most of the groups probably would not have noticed if we had done nothing. Poor B. did not get much sleep last night, answering the phone to find irate building managers screaming about parties taking place, guests locking their gear in the wrong ski lockers, groups wanting more keys for everyone coming and going from their condos at all hours of the night. Thank goodness, we are in the last twelve hours that the lifts are running continuously. The most troublesome guests have been successfully evicted, ending that barrage of calls, and B. is home at the moment, taking a quick break before everyone checks in and gets back from the slopes and the calls start coming in. Rumors are that this will be the last year Keystone hosts this particular event, and I must say, I hope so. Snowboarding all night long sounds like a fun, crazy thing to do in theory, but in reality, it is a recipe for major tragedy. Mixing booze, energy drinks, sub zero temperatures, poor visibility, and a sport that is already inherently dangerous cannot be good.

But in the middle of the constant, out of control spiral that is our life, all the guests that damage things, that have grandma make a reservation for twenty screaming college freshmen, that lock themselves out at three a.m., that dispute the charges on their credit card after we charge them for damages, sometimes the powers that be take pity on us, and when they does, they deliver bigtime.

Last night, we rented a small condo to a group we were a tiny bit suspicious were from a college in Denver. This morning, we got a livid phone call from the building manager- her brand new carpet was pulled apart, trash and cigarette butts were everywhere, exit signs were broken and dangling, fire extinguisher glass was broken, saliva and urine frozen to her windows, firewood thrown from the unit's third floor deck to the yard below, not to mention the deck had obviously been used more often than the toilets. Obviously there had been a bit of debauchery that had taken place between one and six a.m., and she was not happy about it. She called us, then the police, to fill out a damage report in order to be able to charge the responsible, or should we say irresponsible, party. When the deputy showed up, we pushed open the door that was left unlatched, and found ourselves looking over a sea of bodies, clothes, belongings, and blankets. About thirty unresponsive teenagers, draped over each other, rolled into corners, filling every inch of space not taken up with the evidence of the party the night before. We waded through the mess of bodies, shook enough comatose kids awake until we found the one whose credit card was on file, and told him to pack up his friends and get out. Same song, umpteenth verse for the in-county staff. Usually the story ends with us attempting to charge the credit card of the person who made the reservation, the offending party calling their credit card company and calling the charges fraudulent, and nobody has the energy to deal with it. We end up eating it because it's easier than actually trying to get money out of them. But this time, oh, yes, this time. As it turned out, most of the kids attend a private school in Denver. And as their perverse luck would have it, the owner of our company, who made the reservation thinking that the young man on the phone sounded exceptionally mature, just happens to be the next door neighbor to the dean of said school. Upon being made aware of this small bit of trivia, the kids assured us quite hastily that all damages would be promptly paid for, anything at all, no problem, so sorry. In return, the dean will not need to be any the wiser. Our faith in karma, what goes around comes around, ya win some, ya lose some, call it what you may, has been renewed.

Of course, similar things happened to us when we were little mennonite kids trying to get by with things we knew we aught not to. Friends of our parents working behind the counter when we tried to buy contraband- admittedly, our contraband was a Bryan Adams tape, not underage consumption of alcohol and ownership of a rainbow colored bong, the only thing still standing upright by this morning. I reallise what good kids we were, even though those around us were so convinced otherwise. We tried on makeup, these kids make out. In "love chambers" set up in closets, cushioned with the futons we so thoughtfully provide, lined with couch cushions and dozens of tea light candles. We bought disposable cameras, and even posed for pictures. Sometimes we wore jeans, and took our hair down. But that was about as far as it went. The stakes were just too high to gamble with our reputations any more than that. It might harm our chances of, you know, gettin' married. An expelled girl's chances go way down, especially when she is surrounded by so many innocent, untarnished ones. No boy minds having an expelled girlfriend, as long as nobody finds out about it. But they always ask the sweet, tame ones to marry them. The prospect of being really old, like twenty six, before someone proposed to us was enough to make one toe the line.

Says me, who was almost nineteen when she said "I do, I do, I will" before God and these witnesses. What a waste, to be so good all of those (one) years when she could have really been cutting loose. Now she's expelled anyway. And Mr.B. still even claims her.

But now it's getting dark, the phone hasn't rung for an hour, and I really should go create something to feed my family. Who needs kids when they have roomies? I cook for them, but only when I feel like it, because otherwise someone else will do it, I clean up their messes, but only so I can create a path to my own piles, I yell at them to turn their music down, but only because it is creating terrible discords with my own. I race to be home before they are, but only so I can claim my parking spot, and break up squables only because I can out-shreik everyone else and get my point across in the brief moment while everyone else is cringing from my banshee yell. Well, actually, I'm not the only one that employs that tactic. It's used by whoever's voice is the strongest during any given arguement. We live in a bustling house, and not a one of use could still be called a child- not as biological age is concerned anyway. Ok, till later.