(With apologies to Paul Harvey…) The Rest of the Story
It appears that Alicia has gone to social media quicker than I’ve been able to respond to her request to tell the story. But, for what it’s worth…
Alicia had been feeling “under the weather”, as they say, for the last couple days, culminating in a (very expensive) visit to the emergency room in Jasper, Alberta. I know my wife has a tendency to allow her mental state to derail her attitude when she doesn’t physically feel well. She wasn’t eating, she wasn’t drinking, she had a killer headache. In short she wasn’t drinking downright miserable. Because we were in Lake Louise at an elevation she was not used to I figured she needed and altitude attitude adjustment, something to cheer her up.
While she was spending our entire “down day” (which had nothing at all to do with Canadian goose feathers) in bed, I wandered over to the Jasper National Park lodge and did some window shopping. When I spotted a flower shop downstairs I knew what needed to happen.
Karen, who, if she isn’t the shop owner should be…, had a variety of flower arrangements in a cooler to keep them fresh. I could have purchased flowers and delivered them to her in our cabin, but I needed it to be special, a grand surprise. Karen normally does flowers for weddings and special events at the lodge but quickly understand the importance of making this very special. She was open until 4:30, but wouldn’t be off work then because she had a wedding to tend to. The Rocky Mountaineer has an agent at the lodge in the mornings and late afternoon. He was gone at this time but would be back at 4 o’clock.
At 3:55 pm, I returned to the Rocky Mountaineer desk, just as their agent (and I must apologize here, I do not know his name) was “opening up” his office/desk. I asked if there was anyone, or anyplace, that I could have flowers delivered to, that could arrange for them to be delivered to Alicia on the train the next morning as we departed from Jasper. He said the flower shop could normally deliver within 48 hours but he didn’t know if they could do anything on this short notice. I told him I had talked to Karen and she wanted to make this happen. I told him she was open until 4:30.
The agent grabbed the sign on his desk and spun it so that the “be right back” side was facing out and asked me to follow him. We raced downstairs and found Karen. After a quick discussion they both agreed that one big obstacle was keeping the flowers fresh over night, another was getting them to the train on time.
Just then the gentleman that runs the kitchen in the restaurant walked by. Karen knew him well having coordinated several events with him. The three of them discussed, then came up with a solution.
Karen would take the selected arrangement to the kitchen when she closed shop at 4:30. The kitchen manager would place them in his cooler. When the Rocky Mountaineer desk closed at 8:30, the agent would go to the kitchen, retrieve the flowers from the cooler, personally drive the arrangement to the Rocky Mountaineer office at the train depot and place them in the cooler there for overnight storage. He would leave a note with Alicia’s name and pre-assigned seat and car number for the morning manager. The morning manager would notify the service director for our car that the flowers were to be placed on Alicia’s tray before any passengers boarded the train.
And, despite the last minute planning, it all happened without a hitch! Alicia was dumbfounded to find three white roses waiting for her when she boarded the train this morning. And, most importantly, she has been feeling better ever since.
Comments
Post a Comment