Dreamland

Unwelcome Guests

I’m visiting my brother in Denver. I sign up with a tour group to spend a weekend at a resort hotel in the mountains. I check in, and put my bags in my room. Then I decide to stop in the hotel bar for a beer, along with some of the other guys in our group. I’m surprised when the bartender asks us for ID, we’re obviously all well over 21.

The bartender looks at my license, and refuses to serve me. “We don’t serve people from out of state, especially from California!”

I try to argue, telling him that I used to live in Colorado Springs, but it’s no use. “Go back to LA where you belong, city-boy!” one of the locals yells as I leave the bar.

I decide to go out to the pool to get away from the local yahoos. Some of the people from our group are already out there, and they’re acting crazy. They are ruining the landscaping around the pool, smashing the plants and shrubbery, laughing and reveling in their vandalism. The hotel manager approaches me: “You’d better tell them to stop it right now! And put everything back the way it was, or I’ll have to ask you all to leave.”

I don’t know why I’m supposed to be in charge, but I talk to the people. They promise to straighten things up. I go back to my room to change. When I walk back out to the pool, I see that the people from my group have ripped out all of the plants, even the grass. They’ve poured pool water on the ground, and turned it into a big red clay mud pit. They’ve made adobe sculptures of people and plants with the clay, and even built a big mud brick wall. The sculptures are very artistic, but there is mud everywhere, even in the pool, a real mess.

The manager walks out, takes a look at what they have done. He is not impressed. He asks us all to leave immediately. I go back to my room to pack my bags.