blocked from the block-going big, good call?

so maybe the woman responded like a hag
 to me, because I unwittingly
made up a disease called
 the 'cwkiac' disease.  Duh. 
Was supposed to be celiac. Her
 response is in gray below.  She is
NOT nice, but Irish dancing is a universe
 of recourse-less-ness, so I just grit my
 teeth and imagine a day when Curly will hang
 up her dance shoes.  Of course my name was
on my FB message to her, but she is able to hide
 behind the anonymity of  the 'National
 Irish Dance Championships' FB page. 

College drop off story shared:  back to the Vancouver chornicles . . . The day that I needed to book a hotel room for the Vancouver National dancing championships had arrived.  A few minutes before 1:00 I gathered Curly and Reggie.  The stars had aligned and they had a half day from school (this was back in February- like everything else in my life I am just getting around to describing this nightmare adventure), so they were home.  Warm bodies who could dial telephones - just what I needed.  

Whether they liked leaving their friends to hang out in the basement for a few minutes mattered little to me.  Throw your pals an Xbox controller and let's DO THIS!  

I assigned each warm body a land line or a cell phone and a script.  I positioned myself at the desktop with my two partners in crime an arm's reach away.  At the strike of 1:00 we began calling the Sutton.  Curly got thru first.  I heard her stumble thru the script:  ‘Hi.  Um, I want the 2 bedroom apartment for July 1st thru the 7th in the Irish dancing block.’  

I did not share my entire rebuttal with you,
because she never responded.  Can you
 imagine the snarky bitch that wrote this?
 Someone is not loving her volunteer involvement
 with the dancing association.  You people put the
wrong info in the room descriptions, own
 it and apologize - don't act like I peed
 on your Irish soda bread.  RUDE!

I grabbed the phone from her.  The woman took her time clicking away on her computer.  Finally she told me that the 2 bedroom apartment was not included in the block of rooms.  It would cost $800 a night or maybe it was $1,200 a night.  No matter - not feasible.  I tried to argue with her ‘Then why was it listed in the description that our group gave us?’, but recognized that as pure silliness.  This Canadian woman did not control what info the dancing group put together.  I was wasting minutes.  Minutes when other hotels were filling up faster than you can say:  ‘this sucks.’  

I quickly dialed the number of favorite hotel number 2.  The sales agent was as chatty as a granny at a baby shower.  Dear God.  Just plug my credit card in and secure a room at your hotel.  

Me:  ‘You say I will have both a microwave and a refrigerator, correct?’   

'Yes,' Chatty Kathy assured me before asking me more about our involvement in Irish dancing.  Oh, how nice it would have been to just say:  ‘Oh, my book covering all these riveting details will be out next month.  Look for a copy!’  Dare to dream. 

Glad as I was to have secured an approved room in the block, I figured we would check out of the hotel as soon as Maeve's dancing was complete.  I assumed we would want to get out of the city and stay in an airbnb with a kitchen or something.  For weeks, every day I woke up and wrote at the top of my to-do list:  ‘Vancouver - other hotel’.  I could whittle down the current reservations at the hotel where Chatty Kathy worked once we figured out the rest of our family itinerary, or girls-only itinerary. 

This was a very nice hotel - without a
2 bedroom apartment, but still very nice.

Eventually we opted to go big (take everyone to Vancouver) and then go home (and face the bills).  The reasoning was such:  we already planned to buy tickets for 3 of the 8 of us.  I hated limiting our fancy travel plans to the girls.  I was raised with loads of favoritism and no pretense of ‘even Steven’ so I didn’t want to open that can of unpleasant worms (more than it already is, hello Scotland girls-only '18).  

Also, how many more years will we travel with the whole gang?  Plus, Vancouver was not a destination that would likely crop up again sometime soon.  We decided to go for it.  

The question is:  would we be glad we did?