I had just landed my first entry level job in central Maryland at age 22, but I had no savings and no cash flow. I learned that a distant Aunt had a vacation home in the area which went unused for most of the year and negotiated a deal to stay in it in exchange for keeping the pipes from freezing and cutting the grass. Living there, I got to reconnect with a second cousin, my Aunt's youngest daughter Shannon. She was in her early 40s but drop-dead gorgeous: slim, athletic, adventurous, and fun-loving. She was married to this sad sack of a man who had given up on life and she was happy for my occasional company.
When that first winter began, we both learned of our mutual love of alpine skiing. The skiing in the mid-Atlantic is not the best, but it will do in a pinch. We made plans to go skiing after I got off work on a Friday at Ski Liberty in Southern PA where the trails were lighted for night skiing. I got my gear ready, filed the edges of my college-vintage skis and applied a fresh coat of wax. I bought a rack for my 1986 VW Sirocco and loaded it up, picked up my second cousin and headed for Fairfield, PA. We bought a pair of lift tickets and had a blast skiing well into the night.
By the time our lift tickets expired, it was snowing quite heavily, creating fairly treacherous driving conditions. While I was a bullet-proof and fearless and a 20-something, Shannon had a couple of kids and was more risk averse. She asked if we could ride out the storm at a local hotel and head home in the morning.
The hotel, as luck would have it, had only a few rooms left (because of the storm) and none with two beds. We shrugged and booked the room. While she went upstairs, I returned to my car to retrieve a bag from the trunk with some overnight essentials I always carried as a consequence of living a semi-homeless existence with no fixed address.
I got up to the room and Shannon was in the bathroom getting ready. I mentioned that I had some overnight supplies and she was free to avail herself of whatever she needed. I brushed my teeth, pulled on clean boxers and hopped into bed while Shannon completed her bedtime ablutions.