Member-only story
Featured
Conquering ‘Dream-Slayers’ with a Smile (and a Little Bit of Trickery)
Sometimes, you have to play the game a little bit to get where you want to go
“Thank you for refusing to let us check out late. You have just saved my life.”
I was totally confused by this girl, Tamara, when she said this. I’d refused to let her and her friends check out late from our Bed and Breakfast, and she was basically thanking me for it?
Turns out, the young lady was in a bit of a pickle. She lived in a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business. She and these girls — her friends, I guess? — had come down to the city for a wild weekend, drinking and partying way too hard. Tamara wasn’t really into all that, but she went along because she didn’t want to be left out.
She had BIG dreams — like buying her own house. She told me she’d been working her butt off — extra shifts at work, even running a little market on Sundays. But she couldn’t tell her friends any of this. The last time she’d tried to share her goals, they’d laughed in her face, making her feel small and stupid.
Playing the Game
So, Tamara got creative. She’d pretend to be as wild as them, even though she wasn’t really enjoying it. And that morning, when I refused…