Failure to Launch

This last weekend in honor of my pending departure from AZ, my friends scheduled a big party. Girls only, no kids, no husbands, no sleep, it was going to be the time of our not quite young anymore, but not yet middle aged lives!

My friend, Debbie, got us the ultimate hook-up on the venue for our little shindig. We were able to rent an ultra swanky houseboat at Antelope Point Marina on gorgeous Lake Powell. Since this was a one night only hoopla, we planned to party like it was 1999 on the dock, drinking our virgin pina coladas, soaking in the hot tub, and eating junk food galore.

A group of us arrived in the late afternoon to get set up and the gang filtered in until the sun set. One of my gals thought we would get some enjoyment out of perusing our old high school yearbooks. Some of us are from Page way back in the day, and our non-Page-native friends got some good laughs mocking our Stiff-Stuff encrusted hair-wings and tacky cardigan sweaters. Hey, it was the early 90s. Everybody was doin it!

Later we enjoyed a delicious gourmet pizza dinner from the marina's restaurant, and then made our way up top to simmer in the hot tub. What luxury! We were living the good life as though we had moved into a whole new tax bracket. Then we came back downstairs....

Now I should tell you that I have a somewhat sensitive sense of smell (how do you like that alliteration?). During dinner a bit earlier, I thought I was detecting a less than pleasant odor generally associated with the restroom. I tried to ignore it as a polite ladylike person ought to. However, when we came down from our rooftop hot tubbing, the odor had increased. A LOT! Several of my friends were exclaiming and hollering and one of them was even gagging a little bit. In between Shandiin's laughing and coughing and gagging, I really thought she might lose her dinner right there in the swanky kitchen. It was a close call! We closed the bathroom doors and turned on the fans in hopes that we could ignore it. It seemed we would be able to make it through after this minor hitch....

The evening rocked on, and we triumphantly forged into the wee hours. At about one in the morning, our fabulous hook-up provider, Debbie, decided to call it a night and headed off to one of the cushy cabins. Not 15 minutes later as many of us were winding down, the carbon monoxide alarm started to sound! If you are familiar with houseboats at all, you know this can be a very serious and even deadly problem. After opening all of the windows and doors on the boat, we trooped out to the dock in our jammies. After milling around for about 10 minutes, a neighboring houseboater came over to see if he could help. He fiddled around with some switches and controls and the like, and ultimately we turned off the generator. Debbie attempted to contact the appropriate co-workers to respond to our mechanical meltdown in hopes of saving the floundering evening...

The general milling continued while we were visited multiple times by a bewildered security guard and a host of dock neighbors. We did manage to get the alarms to stop, but to our chagrin, we noticed another disturbing smell, this time heavy in the night air out on the dock. It was gasoline this time! Had we inadvertently spilled gas when shutting off our generator? Was it coming from our boat? Was it stronger near us, or further away? Would we ever get to bed?! (Remember, I mentioned, though not yet middle-aged, we are not the go-all-nighters we once were in days gone by.) Several people on other boats were growing very concerned as we congragated. One group actually opted to drag their sleepy children from their beds to leave for the night....

Once it became apparent that the smell was only growing worse, and help was not immediately on the way, we made the decision to throw in the proverbial towel. I know, it seems somewhat anti-climactic, but the fumes were ironically a real buzz-kill! We packed up the remainder of our food and the trappings of our ladies night on the dock. I fell into my own bed just after 4am.

The next day, I felt like I had either been drugged, or maybe Nicole C. had forgotten the virgin in the pina colada! We never did find out what all of the issues were with our boat, but apparently a houseboat on the same dock had leaked more than 100 gallons of gas! Yikes! Good thing none of us are smokers! Although, I guess we know something about caution with flammable fumes. We lived through the 90s.

To any of my fabulous friends who were there, Jill, Jodi, Brenda, Jen, Shandiin, Nicole C., Debbie, Penni, Eve, and Nicole L., THANK YOU SO MUCH! Even though it didn't end the way we expected, it was AWESOME! I love spending hours immersed in girl talk (I don't get a lot of that around my house!). I love reliving fun experiences, the good, bad, and embarrassing with the women I enjoy. They are all so sassy and sweet and hilarious! This is just one more page to add to our story. I can't wait to laugh about it one day down the road.