Life in a small town

Just a quick story about a funny small-town experience I had moments ago.

Several months ago, I called the Bear Lake Lodge in Garden City, Utah to make a reservation for Stace and me when we all go to Bear Lake. (We'll just let the kids sleep on the floor of the cabin. I'm too old and crotchety to sleep on the floor.) You have to realize that Garden City does not provide a potpourri of hotel choices. It's pretty much either the Bear Lake Lodge or your boat if you don't have a cabin to sleep in.

I've been meaning to call the Lodge to make sure that they still had me in their sophisticated reservation system, which, as far as I can tell, consists of a notebook hiding on a shelf somewhere. I didn't get around to calling them until today. My worst fears were validated when the woman on the phone (who couldn't have sounded more like a Utahn) said that she couldn't find me in the book. After a further search, though, she said she'd found my name but that someone else had "made a reservation over it." My reaction, predictably, was, "Huh?" She said that yes, my name had been written in the book but that someone had erased my name and put someone else's name in there.

Now, I'll swear on whatever stack of Bibles you want that I never called to cancel the reservation, so I'm not sure why another reservation got "made over" mine. The woman said that it probably came from having too many teenagers working there. A comforting thought, no? Anyway, she said that she'd check with her manager and see what they could do to straighten things out. I decided not to go ballistic at that point and to just let the process play itself out for a while.

Thankfully, she called me just a few minutes later to tell me that not only would we have a room, but that it would be an upgrade for the same price. At the Bear Lake Lodge, I think that "upgrade" might mean three separate beds instead of two separate beds, but I'll take it. I'll be sure to report back on what exactly an "upgrade" is at the Bear Lake Lodge.