It's a Tough Job, But Somebody's Got To Do It

So the other day, the guys I share office space with asked me if I would be willing to represent them at the annual pre-ski season Chamber of Commerce lunch at the sun deck atop Aspen Mountain. Social butterfly that I am, I took them up on it.

The lunch started at noon, so I walked the three blocks to the base of the gondola shortly after 11:30. As I approached the loading station, it was only me and a mid-50ish woman waiting around for permission to hop on one of the brand new cars for the 12-minute ride to the top. (During the lunch, I would find out that each car cost over 32K to construct and the total price tag of the overhaul exceeded 7M. Nobody seemed to mind this.)

After a minute or two, the older woman and I boarded the first car heading to the lunch and sat down facing one another. She immediately asked me who I worked for, which led to a conversation about our move, about Lauren teaching at the elementary school, about, well, pretty much everything really. The conversation inevitably led to skiing, where. much to my surprise, this woman went story-for-story with me about every possible misadventure one could experience on a pair of skis: getting lost in the backcountry, falling in a tree well, breaking a board in half in the middle of the woods.... she could top anything I threw at her. If I told her I had a black cat, well, you could bet she had a blacker one. I must say, I was thorougly impressed.

Near the end of the ride, it had dawned on me that, self-centered bastard that I am, I had never even bothered to ask her what SHE did for a living. So I asked.

Her reply?

"I'm the mayor."

This is really, really a cool town.