Opinion : It\'s Valentine\'s Day, let\'s go away, he says...

We spent Valentine's Day, well, as we always do, not over a romantic dinner in front of a fireplace.

It all starts with a dream. “Let's go away on a trip! What could possibly go wrong?” he says.

“Just everything!” she says.

“You need to relax and just enjoy life!” he says.

“I can do that when I'm dead.” she says.

For the last almost 5 years, we have taken I think it's less than a week off from “working.” The quotes around that word still mean that this “job” has been so fun that it almost seems funny to use them to describe what we do.

This last week, we thought since it was Valentine's Day weekend, (and since we'd have reception if we went to the big city, we thought we'd Better Call Saul)... and since there was no pressing news to cover, we'd sneak out of town for 3 days, and just spend it relaxing, and not be on the computers nonstop.

It was a good plan.

It was a sweet idea.

It was almost a plan without a flaw.

What we forgot momentarily, was that there was not only one holiday in our weekend away, but TWO.

Now to those that know us, know that we have a thing about holidays and those stinking “curses” that seem to find us on those days. To read more about that...

It started before we left. We watched the weather report and saw that we could get anywhere from 2-6 inches of snow. Since we are getting to that “old” stage where the thought of messing with it, we thought, “We'll go a day earlier and stay an extra night, and miss it all."

Saturday, Valentine's Day Eve we left town.

We checked into the hotel, more on that later.

We unpacked, and went out to a movie -- “13 Hours” and I was glad that we did.

Sunday arrives, it's Valentine's Day.

I wake up before Dean, go to the lobby and bring back breakfast...that's odd, I'm never awake before Dean...

I return, Dean's still asleep...that's really odd. He's still snoring, so we're good.

He finally awakes, looks at the breakfast and says, "Thanks, but umm, no thanks."

Everyone knows what happened next, Dean went to take his shower.

“I can't get the shower to work” he says. The two of us turn knobs, flip levers, turn nozzles, and finally decide it's a bath today.

This SHOULD have been a warning not to leave the building.

Off we go to church, as is customary in our house.

We visit a church that we both just loved. Left the service and thought, “We should call our daughter who is in town and take her out to lunch.”

We call our daughter who says, “I think something is wrong with my car.”

We head across town to meet her, she tells us, “I slid into one of those storm drain things...and now the car isn't driving right.”

Dean gets out of the car, does the dad thing, rolls his eyes and says, “Well, duh, your tire is flat.”

Dad changes the tire, after chipping the spare out of the ice in the daughter's car trunk...( I don't know and don't care WHY there is ice in the trunk at this point, but we will investigate this later.)

Spare is now on, I am now driving our car as the daughter follows.
I notice that it appears that she's having trouble steering.

“It's just the alignment,” she assures me because that's what a 22-year-old should do.

I watch her carefully in the mirror thinking it looks like more than that.

I have dad call her a mile or so later, “Ask her if the steering is working okay.” I say. Dad relays the message.

Finally I get on the phone and ask the question again. “Well, when I turn left it's really hard, but if I turn right it's okay, but I have to turn the wheel like all the way left to turn left...”

“Ok, we will go slow and if you need to, just stop.”

We crawl across town at 15 miles an hour, finally arriving at the repair shop.

We drop off the car for them to inspect.

We go to lunch.

Lunch was good; we even got a free dessert as part of a promotion deal.

We walk out to the parking lot, basking in the wonderful meal, only to see that we now have a low tire on OUR car.

We drive back to the SAME repair shop, take it in to have the tire fixed.

“I'm sorry, your tire is so bald we can't fix it.”

“Sure", I'm thinking, "I saw THIS coming.”

“No”, Dean says, “they really are bad.”

As the current bill payer in the family, I sigh, and reply, “How much is THIS going to cost?” “$126” the man replies, and that's about what I thought it would be.

“Oh, go for it.” I say resigned to the fact that it's only a hundred bucks and hey, I had been able to set a little aside for our day off, we can swing that.

We sit down to wait.

A sign on the wall says, “Buy 3 tires get one free.”

We do the math, after Dean says, “Really, all of the tires are in bad shape.”

This is the first I'm hearing of it.

The tires are on sale, supposedly, and if we bought 3 the sign says...

I juggle the bank account in my head thinking, “Ok, if we're careful...alright let's do it.”

We do it.

In the meantime, we get an update on the daughter's car, “We had to use the welder to take it apart to repair it, the tie rod is unrecognizable...” so how they know what it is is what I want to know...

They finally repair it, take for a test drive, it checks out okay...

Both cars are done.

We start to pay, and remember that there is a limit on our card just in case it gets stolen.

Now usually as a precaution, I take some cash along in case of a situation like this, but of course this time I did NOT.

Fortunately, I did have the checkbook.

After taking care of our bill...it was time for the daughter to settle her bill.

Same deal.

Only we had no idea what her limit was. So out comes the checkbook again.

Bills all settled.

We head back to the motel, daughter heads home to where she's staying.

We get back to the motel, slide through the parking lot and mention the the gal at the desk that, “Oh by the way, the shower isn't working.”

She comes to the room to show us the ONE thing we didn't try...and tada water falls, like it was meant to do.

She leaves, Dean goes out to get his glasses from the car comes back and...the motel key doesn't work in the door.

Now we booked the room for more than one night, so we are perplexed.

Checking both keys, we find neither work.

Exasperated, we shut the door, change clothes and the phone rings.

“You haven't paid your bill” the nice lady from the lobby explains.

“We HAVE paid the bill, online, and for the extra night when we checked in”

“The computer says...”

Dean grabs the checkbook again, and heads to the lobby, writes a check, and is instructed to talk to the manager the next morning.

He returns to the room with the now working keys.

As we sit on the bed, the bed jerks and makes a clunking sound...at this point again, I don't know and don't care, I'm tired.

We retire for the evening...

Monday rolls around. It's now Presidents Day. We note the holiday. Give it the salute it deserves and stay in the motel room feeling broke and afraid to step outside.

We talk to the person at the hotel desk the next moring, who explains that since we were a "no show" last night, we were charged a nights stay...

After deciding that we really were standing there...we went back to our room and locked ourselves in for the rest of the weekend...

We haven't done that for a long time.

We talked, we laughed, we snuggled, *hearing the kids saying, “Mommmm, TMI!” * we just reconnected, relaxed, and made a promise to do this again, then laughed about how we can't afford to!

We decided that we'd Better Call Saul, so we did that all day.

Other than a huge sound and the room shaking like someone ran into the building, it was a good day.

Tuesday, the last morning of our stay rolls around.

Dean begins the task of reloading the car, and returns to the room.

“Guess what...” he says.

“The tires are flat?” she says.

“No, he says, but close.” he says.

“The car won't start?” she says.

“Bingo!” he says.

We laugh.

She continues to pack.

He calls our daughter who is in town....