After several hours enhancing my career knowledge, I sent a text to Sleepless suggesting we take a hike – literally. The conference was over for the day, the weather was beautiful, and fall had tagged multiple trees – creating a beautiful landscape. Sleepless quipped, “Sure. Where to? Our room? That is a hike in itself.” She was right. I didn’t have a pedometer or any other gadget for tracking treks, but our room was definitely far from the main building.
We started making our way and ran into some other conference attendees, with a much closer room, who invited us to join them for drinks, in their room. It was clear, right away, that we might have some catching up to do. Drink Whisperer was full of liquor and stories. As he was sharing both with everyone, his renditions were often disputed or silenced by The Responsible One. When this would happen, he would loudly whisper the information to others in the room.
We decided to do karaoke and we were contemplating the best location when I received a call from My Pops. He was at the cabin, about three miles from the conference center, was soon to be leaving, and agreed to let us borrow the cabin for our karaoke experience. Sleepless, Passed The Sniff Test and I headed to the cabin while the others got their things together. My Pops warmly welcomed us, provided us an overview of the cabin protocol, shared extensive details about a recent vacation and then stated, “I’m not sure if we’ve got MTV.” This news was clearly devastating to Sleepless and Passed The Sniff Test – they love Downtown Julie Brown. My Pops made his way to his Cadillac and proudly announced, “Well I’m getting in the pimpmobile and going home. Don’t worry if you hear something that sounds like a train going by.” A few seconds later, My Pops was in the pimpmobile and honking on the horn – which sounded very much like a train horn.
We had only just begun (yes, we sang this song) when The Responsible One called to tell us they found a great place within the conference center where we could play pool and karaoke. We grudgingly agreed to return and found them in the open air space just above the front desk throwing back nachos, rum and whiskey.
After singing a few songs and being asked to ‘shut it down’ by the front desk staff, Sleepless and I started ‘playing’ pool. A few scratches and miscues later, Sleepless posed a rhetorical question, “I wonder if they have pool in the Special Olympics.” MissInformation quipped, “Yes, they do and this is it.”