The bored looking college kid who has been sitting at the desk this whole time found me a sheet pan. I assume it came from their sorry excuse for a kitchen, which they use to heat up their sorry excuse for a breakfast every day.

I put on the warmest clothes I brought - pink yoga pants and a grey hoodie - and put socks over my hands since I have no gloves. I was packed for Spring Break in SoCal. My flight of course was canceled and now I am stuck in this dumpy hotel until the plows come through. I have been teaching middle school for three years now and this was going to be my first vacation in that whole time. I spent two hours trying to dig my car out of the snow using nothing more than my sock covered hands and the flimsy cookie sheet. Needless to say I failed. So now I am soaking in the most likely not-very-sanitary hotel hot tub while the feeling slowly returns to my extremities.

There is a family of six staying down the hall from me. The four kids have been in the pool basically non stop since the freak blizzard hit three days ago. Those kids are having the time of their lives. College Desk Kid has been letting them eat whatever they want from the snack pantry for free and I have heard them saying they hope the snow lasts until the end of the school year so they never have to go back. Mom Of Four has been spending most of her time sitting by the pool with her nose buried in a romance novel. Dad Of Four has been pacing the lobby a lot, watching the weather channel and yelling at someone on his cell phone.

The only other guests are a group of middle aged church ladies who have taken up basically the entire second floor. When they come down for meals there is a lot of praying and singing, and a lot of loud talk about Linda’s daughter and her new “Universalist” church, which they have all decided is basically Satanism, and Brenda’s niece who she is supposed to be picking up from the airport this weekend, since she found herself “in a family way” and her parents want her to disappear for a while until the baby has been born and spirited away to some acceptable Jesus loving adoptive family.

From my seat in the hot tub I can see Dad Of Four sitting in the lobby. One of the church ladies, probably the youngest of the group, has been making eyes at him for the last two days. She is out there too, standing at the desk. I raise an eyebrow when Dad Of Four makes his way down the hallway that leads only to the first floor bedrooms and she follows him, just a few seconds later like she is trying to be inconspicuous.

Getting out of the hot tub and wrapping myself in one of the scratchy, much too small pool towels, I look down at my beet red hands and feet. Too much of a harsh shift from cold to hot I suppose.

I walk down to my room, ignoring the scandalous sounds coming from across the hall. I consider trying to clue Mom Of Four in on what is happening, but then realize she probably already knows. I throw on some dry clothes and look out the window just in time to see the snow plow make a pass down the road in front of the hotel. My excitement is quickly dashed when I realize that all the snow that used to be in the road is now piled in a four foot mound blocking the parking lot.

I crawl into the not-very-sanitary bed and pull the covers over my head.