Couch Surfing
Yeah, it’s a thing. If you are under 30, you’re already aware. If you’re my age and a parent, you know it’s a deranged sociopath’s dream come true and someone is going to end up buried in the backyard.
And this is the story of how I was talked into doing it.
For those of you, who live blissfully unaware of couch surfing, let me explain. You go to couchsurfing.org and you find people in places all over the world, who will let you stay in their house…for free…..while they are also there. It’s considered a “cultural exchange” program and one would get to see a place through the eyes of its host. The summer my daughter graduated from college, she and her BFF went all over the USA on Amtrak, couch surfing their way through some of the most fabulous cities across America. Yes, I had my neurotic Mama Bear hissy fit. (Pointless, since she used her own money.) So, I took her itinerary, told her if she didn’t call me every single day, I would notify the police to hunt down her hosts and I would have been relentless. I think she believed me because she called me every day. It went something like this.
Me: Hello
Laura: Hi Mom. I’m alive. Gotta run. Love you. Click.
Now let’s fast forward a year.
I recently drove from Wilmington, NC to a little town, deep in Pinot Noir country in Oregon. Google Maps says that’s a total of 3,053 miles. As a result of my daughter’s cross country couch surfing experience, she decided to move there to work for a year before graduate school and I have no one to blame but myself because I passed my wanderlust gene to both her and her brother.
I have to own up that I can be a bit neurotic sometimes. Case in point: I cannot stand to ride with my children. I have to drive, as in HAVE TO drive!! I am pretty sure that I drove 3,000 of the 3,053 miles in Laura’s pickup truck that was old enough to have radio antennae. The bed was loaded down, Clampett style, with all of her worldly goods packed in plastic crates and held in place by an intricate web of bungee cords. She was in charge of music and taking pictures when I would scream, “Oooo …ooo…get that! Now! Shoot! NOW!!!! Did you get it?” as we drove past it at 80 miles an hour. Poor thing.
Laura Rockin’ her DJ/Photography gig
When planning this trip, I decided how far we would try to get each day and the approximate location that we would pull into a cheap interstate motel for the night. My 23 year old daughter didn’t understand at all why I was vehemently opposed to couch surfing the whole way and save tons of money. She is absolutely determined that I need to couch surf, because it is so much fun, you meet the coolest people, blah, blah, blah.
That conversation went something like this:
Me: Have you lost you ever loving mind??? I am not staying on a couch in some random 25 year old dude’s apartment!
Laura: Mom, seriously, you should broaden your horizons.
Me: Are you kidding me?? If my horizons get any broader, I am going to fall off the edge of the planet!!
Laura: I can’t believe you won’t be open-minded about meeting really cool people this way.
Me: I love to meet really cool people and when it’s time to go to bed, I don’t want to still be in the house of the really cool people that I just met!
And it went on and on and as these things usually go, I agreed to give it SOME consideration. And I got to make the rules, because we had to have rules!!
So, here were my rules:
1) We would do it ONLY one night.
2) The hosts had to be a married couple.
3) They had to be over 40.
4) We would have our own bedroom/bathroom.
5) It had to be in Park City, Utah, because the coolest of the cool people must live there.
I was so impressed by my cleverness with the rules that would rule out any potential for couch surfing, when son of a gun, Laura found the perfect couple with the perfect house in Park Effing City, Utah!!!
Turns out, couchsurfing.org is a lot like Match.com, only you’re turned on by their house.
Driving into Park City, we passed the barn with the huge American flag and the Olympic ski jump. I was headed into Sundance Territory, the land of the free, the home of Robert Redford. This was a huge bucket lister for me, and now I had to be worried about a date…with a house…with owners….who are letting us stay there. Who does this??
We arranged to meet our host couple at Wasatch Brewery on Main Street, right down from The Egyptian Theater where the Sundance Film Festival happens. Pinch self, now back to what the hell was I thinking?? I strategized that if they were awful people, I could feign a deathly contagious illness and that would be the end of that, just like a Match.com date/ditch scenario.
All My Friends Know the Lowrider!!!
I figured it would be better to piss off a sociopath in public, than behind that secret door they had built just for us.
It didn’t help that we had our one and only argument of the trip, right in front of the outdoor dining section at the brewery. I don’t even remember what it was about, but it probably had something to do with my mood. I wondered if any of the outdoor diners watching this exchange, were our sociopathic house date people, who now sensed our weakness and knew just how easy it was going to be to divide and conquer. Serial killer piece of cake!!! In my mind, we would be dead by morning. At least, I could scratch Park City off the list before they kicked my bucket and poured lyme all over my body.
Laura and I decided to end our heated conversation the old fashioned way, just shut up and drink a beer. Nothing says “Welcome to Utah” like a round of Polygamy Porters!! Why have just one!
The host couple turned out to be really cool, just like Laura promised. We had a delightful evening that continued on the deck of their gorgeous home. I loved their stories about rafting the Grand Canyon and spending months on wild rivers all over the world. The house was fabulous and the bed was to die for. I still covet that thick memory foam mattress. I have to admit that overall, it was not a horrible experience, although, probably not the best way for a neurotic Mom to see the world.
When it was all said and done, the only one who had behaved like a crazy lunatic was me.
Laura with our lovely host, Pam, admiring our bungee skills.