Road Warrior Bride
My friend, Kets, fellow Road Warrior, team member, carpool rider and faithful MLWTCO reader, walked down the aisle this weekend. THE aisle —not the aisle of the Regional Jet that she flies twice a week.
In Jammahs’ estimation, Road Warrior Brides are a rare breed. Road Warrior girls are out on the road Monday through Thursday, making it a bit more challenging to see your Local Boyfriend for three nights and four days of each week. Every week. It’s difficult to see your man back home when you’re sitting in a hotel room in Idaho, Michigan, Ohio, Arizona, Illinois or, yeah, even Maryland.
The Road Warrior girl has a few choices in order to maintain any resemblance of a dating life. Back in my first week of traveling, a random Road Warrior girl slipped me this list of options under the bathroom stall at ORD:
1) Focus on work and practice self inflicted abstinence. This option is also referred to as living in the Hilton Nunnery; being a Sheratonun ; the Marriott lock-down; flying Virgin Atlantic to your client site on the Virgin Islands.
2) Find yourself a Road Boyfriend. This is a boy who you meet/casually date in the city that you are living from Monday-Thursday. You enjoy his company, but it’s nothing that will be long-term or very serious. He will inevitably think it’s serious—but, it’s not. And, you will inevitably start to really like him about two weeks before your roll-off date. You make plans during the week and maybe--if you have nothing better going on at home--stay for the weekend to hang out with him. But, generally, you go home on Thursday, he stays put on Thursdays. You don’t think about him over the weekend—especially when with Local Boyfriend (see #3). Ok, you may think a little bit about your Road Boyfriend on the weekends. Like when you’re packing on Sunday and think about what you want to wear for drinks on Tuesday night. You never want to like your Road Boyfriend more than your Local Boyfriend. Jammahs fails miserably at that last point. Remember my Miami Road Boyfriend? He didn’t play tennis, but he surfed. And, he had great hair.
3) Work it out with Local Boyfriend. When you meet someone you like in your hometown—who’s tall and wise and reads your blog and likes that you have 1m AA miles and 2m Hilton points—you will make it work. Oh, and he wears hooded sweatshirts. And, watches FNL. You will realize that three nights and four days isn’t such a long time. You’ll focus on work (#1) and he’ll focus on work. You’ll miss each other during the week. You’ll buy him magnets from each airport and bring home frozen pizza from Chicago. You’ll call each other during commercial breaks of 24 to tell each other how your day was. He’ll know every Team Members’ name and that they love to wear sweater sets. You’ll complain to him when you get a bad hotel room and share in the joy when the Avis Wizard upgrades you. You talk about how you’d like to stay with your friend at the fancy Le Sofitel, but he thinks you should stay at the Sheraton. “Why miss out on points?” he’ll ask you. You realize that you’ve made him a sick and twisted points addict. You love that. When you’re sitting on the runway, he’s the first person you text. When you’re drunk from Team Dinner, he’s the first person you dial. You’ll count the number of nights until you can travel on your hard earned points and miles to Las Vegas or Cabo or on your honeymoon to Hawaii. You make it work. Every Thursday-Sunday is a treat. A local project is the ultimate reward.
In Jammahs’ estimation, Road Warrior Brides are a rare breed. Road Warrior girls are out on the road Monday through Thursday, making it a bit more challenging to see your Local Boyfriend for three nights and four days of each week. Every week. It’s difficult to see your man back home when you’re sitting in a hotel room in Idaho, Michigan, Ohio, Arizona, Illinois or, yeah, even Maryland.
The Road Warrior girl has a few choices in order to maintain any resemblance of a dating life. Back in my first week of traveling, a random Road Warrior girl slipped me this list of options under the bathroom stall at ORD:
1) Focus on work and practice self inflicted abstinence. This option is also referred to as living in the Hilton Nunnery; being a Sheratonun ; the Marriott lock-down; flying Virgin Atlantic to your client site on the Virgin Islands.
2) Find yourself a Road Boyfriend. This is a boy who you meet/casually date in the city that you are living from Monday-Thursday. You enjoy his company, but it’s nothing that will be long-term or very serious. He will inevitably think it’s serious—but, it’s not. And, you will inevitably start to really like him about two weeks before your roll-off date. You make plans during the week and maybe--if you have nothing better going on at home--stay for the weekend to hang out with him. But, generally, you go home on Thursday, he stays put on Thursdays. You don’t think about him over the weekend—especially when with Local Boyfriend (see #3). Ok, you may think a little bit about your Road Boyfriend on the weekends. Like when you’re packing on Sunday and think about what you want to wear for drinks on Tuesday night. You never want to like your Road Boyfriend more than your Local Boyfriend. Jammahs fails miserably at that last point. Remember my Miami Road Boyfriend? He didn’t play tennis, but he surfed. And, he had great hair.
3) Work it out with Local Boyfriend. When you meet someone you like in your hometown—who’s tall and wise and reads your blog and likes that you have 1m AA miles and 2m Hilton points—you will make it work. Oh, and he wears hooded sweatshirts. And, watches FNL. You will realize that three nights and four days isn’t such a long time. You’ll focus on work (#1) and he’ll focus on work. You’ll miss each other during the week. You’ll buy him magnets from each airport and bring home frozen pizza from Chicago. You’ll call each other during commercial breaks of 24 to tell each other how your day was. He’ll know every Team Members’ name and that they love to wear sweater sets. You’ll complain to him when you get a bad hotel room and share in the joy when the Avis Wizard upgrades you. You talk about how you’d like to stay with your friend at the fancy Le Sofitel, but he thinks you should stay at the Sheraton. “Why miss out on points?” he’ll ask you. You realize that you’ve made him a sick and twisted points addict. You love that. When you’re sitting on the runway, he’s the first person you text. When you’re drunk from Team Dinner, he’s the first person you dial. You’ll count the number of nights until you can travel on your hard earned points and miles to Las Vegas or Cabo or on your honeymoon to Hawaii. You make it work. Every Thursday-Sunday is a treat. A local project is the ultimate reward.
posted by Jammahs at 6:45 PM
3 Comments:
Oh my god - you are IN LOVE!!! That is so sweet. :-)
You actually brought a tear to my eye; thank you...
MR.KETS, or should I say MR.KETK
so what happened to Miami road boyfriend? sounds like fun!
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