Not so fast, my friend … Or, evidence the world has it out for me
I never took my wife on a honeymoon. We planned our wedding for Aug. 26, 2016, which was a perfectly good date for any number of reasons, but it just so happened that a couple weeks after we had locked in the date, I got a job at PFF, and they gave a (very understandable) flat no to me taking a week or two off for the last week of NFL preseason/first week of the NFL season.
No biggie, right? We could go on a honeymoon the next summer. Except by the time summer rolled around, Laurie was pregnant (with twins!), and while she’s not an alcoholic or anything, she would not be a happy lady if I took her on a honeymoon while she was (a) getting larger all the time and (b) couldn’t have any wine.
The next two summers, we were saddled with two tiny children, including one who had significant medical problems as a result of Lucas’ myriad of heart problems at birth. Maybe 2020, though! They’d be older, we could take a trip then!
Spoiler: We did not take a vacation in 2020. Especially since our original plan for a honeymoon was an Alaskan cruise. Not a lot of cruising in 2020!
The pandemic knocked out our real options for a honeymoon in 2020 and 2021. By then, we’d been married five years and only vacationed with children in tow — to the beach house of a family friend, to a wedding in South Carolina, to a family reunion in D.C. We love our kids. They’re very cute. People enjoy meeting them. We also would, you know, like some time not with them at some point.
So as we headed into 2023, I was determined. Originally, I was going big — a week-plus out west, partly at an event in Colorado Laurie had always wanted to experience, plus a few days in Vegas and a stopover at the Grand Canyon. We loved this idea! We also realized that it would end up totaling approximately 47 bajillion dollars and we couldn’t justify it. We might do the event someday, but it will be a “stash money away for a while so we’re getting prepped,” not “oh hey, let’s go.”
That idea scrapped, we decided to think smaller. Central Kentucky is fine, but it’s main virtue is that you can get to a whole lot of places within 6-8 hours or so. If you wanted to, you could hop in a car and get to Atlanta, Asheville, Charlotte, Charleston, Washington, Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis or Nashville in a not-too-awful day’s drive. Not bad!
I wanted to go to Charleston. Laurie wanted to go to Asheville. So we decided to go to Asheville (lol, gender roles jokes).
But other stuff was going on!
So while we haven’t taken vacations, Laurie and I do engage in smaller activities. We’ve been to several concerts and shows over the course of our marriage. From Backstreet Boys to They Might Be Giants to Masked Singer Live (true story), going to shows together is one of our favorite activities. And as luck would have it, my favorite band was going on tour! First time in nine years! Nickel Creek announced a couple of shows in the UK, an appearance at a festival in Lexington, and then a few dates at the Ryman in Nashville.
Here's where it gets really silly.
(First note: I hate festivals. I want concert halls. Maybe I’m dumb. But I won’t choose a festival for a concert unless I have no other choice.)
I love Nickel Creek. I’ve seen them … I want to say six times? Could be off on that, but in that range. But they had given a farewell tour in 2006-2007 (which I saw), then had a reunion tour in 2014 (which I saw), and that was it. So when they said they were going out again, I jumped. Bought tickets to the first Ryman show. And since we were going to have to go to Nashville for that, we figured we’d just make that our trip instead of Asheville. Booked a hotel. Planned restaurants. Whole nine.
(The concert I got tickets for happened to be the night of the first round of the NFL Draft, and if you know what I do for a living, you know that is an insane week to be taking a vacation, let alone your first real vacation in a decade. But praise to my bosses, they let me go with no fuss.)
Not long after I had bought the Nashville tickets, though, they announced their entire tour. And that tour opened … in Cincinnati, about 90 minutes from my house. Had I known they were going to be there — and that that would be the first stop on the tour — I’d have wrestled a drifter for those tickets. But I already had tickets for Nashville, so I didn’t buy the Cincinnati tickets, because I can’t be too indulgent. After all, we’d be seeing them at the freaking Ryman of all places.
So their concert opened, and I saw Cincinnati pictures, and I was sad I had missed it, but I knew I’d be seeing them soon. The week of our trip came. Then the bad news: Chris Thile, one of the Nickel Creek members, was sick, and they had canceled their Birmingham concert a few days before Nashville.
That set off a couple of alarms in my brain. On the other hand, surely the threshold for cancelling at [generic concert venue] in Birmingham is much lower than cancelling at the freaking Ryman. (No offense to any venue in Birmingham, I’d say the same about 95% of cities, because come on, it’s the Ryman.) So we proceeded as normal, but with our ears perked up for news. We went to Nashville. We had a good time. Ate at a couple restaurants we had been wanting to try (go eat the tandoori chicken poutine at Chauhan Ale and Masala House, trust me), went to the Disney Immersive Exhibit, saw one of Laurie’s best friends who she never gets to see anymore. Good trip.
Then, early Thursday morning (the day of the concert), the hammer: They were cancelling. Chris was still sick. They had three days of concerts scheduled for that weekend, and now they had zero days of concerts scheduled for that weekend. Moreover, they had already rescheduled the Ryman dates, for Labor Day and the two days after.
Well, there’s a problem there: I already had plans for Labor Day weekend, a potential work trip to Las Vegas. On top of that, Laurie’s at a new job, and another worker had already asked off for the day after Labor Day. So going to Nickel Creek would have required (a) skipping a work trip, and (b) driving back from Nashville in the middle of the night Monday and/or my wife missing the trip.
I could get a refund on my tickets! I considered doing that and then finding another date on the tour. But with Cincinnati in the past and Lexington a festival that I don’t like (and super sold out), there was nothing available within six-plus hours of where I lived, and I had already burned my vacation.
I learned all of this while we were still in Nashville. We could decide our plans when we got home, we were still on vacation for another day. We had to be back in Lexington Friday for the boys’ T-ball game, so we spent Thursday seeing her friend again instead of at our concert.
On the way back to our hotel that night, I saw the post: Nickel Creek felt bad about cancelling! Sean and Sara Watkins would be doing a special edition of their radio show, the Watkins Family Hour, at the Ryman. It would be free for all ticketholders for any of the nights they were in town.
That’s cool! That’s very nice!
It was also Friday, well after we had to be back in Lexington.
We didn’t have a hotel for Friday night. We didn’t have childcare back in Lexington. I was a coach on the boys’ team. We just plain couldn’t stay.
So, to sum up!
Didn’t buy tickets to Cincinnati because already had Nashville tickets, now in the past
Didn’t buy tickets to Lexington because already had Nashville tickets and don’t like festivals, now very sold out
Concert canceled
Couldn’t stay for free apology concert
Couldn’t justify any other stop on the tour
Couldn’t justify going to the makeup date (yes, in the end, we got the refund on the tickets)
My favorite band is on tour for the first time in nine years, and because I am the unluckiest person on earth (non-things-that-actually-matter department), I won’t be seeing them. (Chris appears to be healthy now, so that’s excellent news.)
I want you to feel bad for me reading this, because I feel bad for me. But really, I want you to read that bulleted list and marvel. Because it would have taken a lot for me to miss my favorite band on tour. A whole whole lot. And the world has a sense of humor, because it threw every single one of that “lot” at me, and it won this round. Barring a big ol’ surprise somewhere along the line, I won’t be seeing Nickel Creek in 2023.
Stupid conniving world.