What Does This Cartoon Have to Do With Our Current Vacation?

Years ago I went to an Al-Anon assembly with my sponsor Barbara. When we checked into our hotel, we discovered they’d given us a smoking room. That wouldn’t do, so she and I went back to the front desk. Our new room turned out to be miles away from our friends and musty-smelling besides.

I figured, “Okay, we’ll have to live with it.” But Barbara marched us right back and demanded a room near our friends.

There followed one of the most embarrassing twenty minutes of my life. The clerk kept saying, “Sorry, we have no other rooms,” and Barbara kept insisting he look harder.

BUT after much pestering on her part, they magically found us a non-smoking room that connected to our friends'room.
Barbara turned to me and said, “You’ve got to ask for what you want.”

I was horrified. I could never, never do that.

Fast forward to last Wednesday.
JR and I board our train for New Orleans and find that Amtrak has put us in a bedroom downstairs . This is terrible. We always get an upstairs room with beautiful views. Now we’re stuck with views of the railroad cut.

Something makes me seek out Julie the car attendant. I ask, “Is there any way we can get an upstairs room?”
“Only if somebody doesn’t show up.”

As soon as we leave, I find her and point out three empty upstairs rooms.

She says, “We have to make certain the missing passengers don’t show up at the next stop.” (This means waiting an hour.)

As soon as we depart the next stop, I’m back, gently pestering Julie.
She says, “I have to call and get approval for the room change.”
“Okay, we’ll wait.”

There was a time when the most important thing was to not bother anybody, to not make a fuss.
But nowadays I feel like Ginger in The Far Side cartoon, doggedly ignoring all those discouraging words.

The moral: As I write this, we’re happily enjoying the view from our upper level room. Thank you, Barbara. Thank you God. Thank you Ginger.


Of course the next day I think,
“Gee. I kinda like the downstairs view better.”