One of the first things I learned about Vail when I moved there is that it is best to take the Colorado Mountain Express from the Denver International Airport rather than the Greyhound bus. My boss informed me of this with of an air of disgust upon even mentioning the Greyhound. Since Vail is a resort town with a hefty price tag, I pictured the CME as a luxury vehicle that catered to the wealthy and beautiful. As it turns out, it is nothing more than a glorified taxi.
The CME is a large white van driven by a foreigner and packed to the gills with ski bums and rich housewives. As long as it gets me from point A to point B, I really have no problem with it, but the two hours of silence while being squished between a cashmere covered woman and a grizzly looking man is not ideal.
When I arrived from Orange County into Denver, I hopped on the CME and happily secured a window seat. Everyone else in the van seemed typical enough, but it seemed we were missing one passenger. Donna stumbled towards the white van, her loose fitting top falling off, her drawn-on eyebrows melting in the mile-high city heat. She had bleach-blonde hair and lips filled with collagen to the point of bursting. I could tell right away that she would be disappointed by her travel arrangements. As soon as she got to the door, she announced that she got terrible car sickness and needed to sit in the front. An elderly man named Norman was already sitting in the front seat and barely paid this woman attention. Donna proceeded to get graphic with her insistence that she would vomit on everyone in the van if she were not allowed to sit up front. The only available seat left was next to me, so it was more probable that most of her predicted projectile vomit would end up on me, so this didn’t really seem to bother the other passengers. The van full of Vail-goers stared at this frantic and drunk woman as she tried to get us on her team. “This man won’t give me his seat!” she whined, pouting her inflated lips to the point of making her look cartoonish. “I get really car sick and I will probably vomit, so I’m sorry if I puke all over you, but because of this dickhead up front, that’s just going to happen. I’ll pay for your dry cleaning bill.” I was starting to get nervous because no one seemed to care about this forecasted vomit storm and I really hate barf. No amount of free dry cleaning could make up for 2 hours of sitting next to a carsick stranger. Fortunately, when Donna saw that no one was budging (and when the van driver realized just how hammered she was), she decided to stay the night in Denver. “I have a really hot guy in Denver. He’s really hot. Look how cute he is.” Donna provided everyone a glimpse at her good man fortune by showing a cell phone picture of her Denver hottie. I guess she thought this would make us jealous that we weren’t staying in Denver with a hot guy, but it would take more than that to make Norman budge from his seat.
Before she left, a woman in the van asked her if she had a blue piece of luggage. Apparently this woman had seen Donna earlier when Donna had asked a stranger to watch her luggage and then disappeared. Tired of waiting for Donna to return from the bar, the stranger turned the piece of abandoned luggage into the Hertz counter. The woman in the van kindly informed Donna of this, and Donna explained that she “just got a divorce.” I’m not sure how that justifies leaving luggage with strangers, but then again, I have never been divorced, so who am I to judge?
After Donna’s remaining luggage was pulled of the van, the CME hit the road for an awkward 2 hours of silence, save for the Queen CD that was tepidly playing on the van’s stereo. About an hour in, I decided to make some light conversation with the woman whose liver-spotted arm was squashed against mine. This woman turned out to be the worst conversationalist in history. I happily listened to her talk about her recent trip to Dublin, her 9-month old terrier, and her second home in Vail. She failed to ask one question about me. I don’t need conversations to be all about me, but asking simple questions about the other person’s background is conversation 101. If I were this woman, I would want to know at least a little bit about the person I was describing my business trips, education, and extended family to. I gave her plenty of jumping off points. I connectedly threw in how I spent a semester in Rome, that I was from Ohio, and that I was only living in Vail for the summer. She seemed disinterested at best in these personal factoids. Even when I would respond to her stories with the occasional “That’s great!” and “How lovely!” she gave me a side glare that seemed to suggest that I best stop interrupting her with the formalities of human interaction. This conversation was all take and no give on her part. My last futile attempt to change her monologue to dialogue was when she said “This coffee is great.” I responded casually with “Yeah, I should have gotten a grande. This tall just isn’t cutting it.” She looked at me as if I had rained on her latte parade. I was quiet from then on and she found a new, less vocally responsive audience.
I arrived back in Vail, glad to get off the CME, but not so glad to be back in the valley. My vacation was officially over and in less than 12 hours, it was back to work. But I was happy to get back to the Vail Transportation Center vomit free.
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