Tick Tick Boom

I recently went to Arkansas for a work trip.

When we arrived on a Monday evening (I was with four other girls), we found out that almost everyone else from our group was transferred from our overbooked hotel (The Peabody) to smoking rooms in the dumpy Hilton.  As we arrived so late, they sucked it up and gave our party two ginormous dual floor suites, and one regular room that two of us had to share (yes, I was in that one.)  We headed out to meet our coworkers in hoppin' downtown Little Rock with a warning from a coworker who was already out that she got scared by a midget on the street??  So on our way to the bar, we saw these guys, and low and behold, it wasn't not just one midget but a gang of them who looked like wrestlers (well, three to be precise along with some of their 6 ft tall friends.)  They had tattoos, one was wearing a sombrero, and frankly, I thought they were going to beat us up.  Not wanting to obviously look scared and cross the street, we walked past them remaining cool and collected, until one of them yelled and I caved with a slight jump (it could have been much worse if I was not forewarned.)  We made it to the bar in one piece where the dozens of drafts were on $3 special and they were actually playing The Libertines, so all in all Little Rock wasn't too terrible on a Monday night.

Lil' Rock

The next morning we had to be out of the hotel early, so unfortunately we missed The Peabody's "duck walk."  According to the concierge, every morning at 11 am, they roll out a red carpet and ducks march down it and up into the fountain in the lobby in a grand ceremony.  You can enjoy the rooftop view of mallards made of pebbles from my hotel room instead.

We headed to the North Little Rock plant to see how cosmetics are assembled (eye shadows, foundations, and mascaras, oh my!)  In all seriousness, it was pretty amazing to see the assembly lines.  What was uncool was my required outfit - steel-toe boots, lab coat, hairnet, and goggles.  I looked like Laverne and Shirley (I'm sad to report I did not take a photo.)

(Does anyone want to be this for Halloween by the way??  Email me if interested.)

The next stop on the itinerary was most critical, a trip to the liquor store.  To put this in perspective, the place we were heading to for the remainder of the week was in a DRY COUNTY.  As in, they do not sell liquor in the county.  None.  No alcohol.  Not available.  You can bring it in but you can't acquire it.  Did you even know those existed???  I digress.  So, as I was figuring out what drinks to buy with my coworkers, it suddenly dawned on someone that we could actually expense the drinks (well, I'll actually find out if this is the case next week, eek.)  That was goodbye Georgi, hello Grey Goose! We headed to Wal-Mart next to stock up on a shit-ton of junk food which I proceeded to eat all week.  I'd have to say that the best thing that emerged from this trip on a personal level is that I now like beef jerky (thanks AK!)

The trip truly began when we drove out to our dry county to get our team building exercises on.  Upon arrival, deep in the woods, we found our bunks and I was so happy to see that everything was clean and not buggy at all.  All of the women shared a bunk, and the bathrooms were really nice as well.  We had a patio area outside with a place for a bonfire, and the main lodge is where we had our indoor sessions.  It was basically like summer camp but you could drink and get paid for it.

The bunks and main lodge

The pond outside of our bunk

Ladies' bunk

The bathroom was actually great

The fridge was not fully stocked at this point

Nor was the cooler

As you could imagine, for most of the week we did activities that demonstrated how embarrassingly poor we were at communicating with each other, and that we couldn't build a bridge using X amount of boards to save our lives (seriously, if we were in a real flood situation, all 18 of us would have been dead.)  But we learned from it, and grew as people and all that good stuff and now I like my coworkers, etc etc the end.

One thing I should mention is that I knew there was going to be something heights-involved during the week, because really, how could there not be?  I made a promise to myself that I would do whatever it was no matter how scary it looked - when I was in Teen Council when I was 17, we went to Greenkill (guys, I found the website!!) in upstate NY and did this activity where we had to walk high above the ground across a rope from tree to tree and I was scared, cried, and then didn't do it while everyone else did.  I did NOT want to do that again, and more importantly, I did NOT want to embarrass myself in front of my new coworkers, so there was no way in hell I wasn't doing the activity.

So, on the first full day, before we even knew what was planned, the guide asked us if we'd commit to doing the upcoming task as a team, and we all agreed, so it was officially confirmed that I was up shit's creek (if we had to eat rats and their poop, I was going to do it purely out of principle.)  We headed a bit further through the woods in silence, as I contemplated my impending death, and arrived to find a skinny platform jutting out of a tree with a trapeze at the end...A FUCKING TRAPEZE!  I tried to calm down for a minute, thinking it's not a big deal, people here are actually excited to do this, plus, maybe it looks easier than the Teen Council thing?  Well, next, the guide walked us around the different areas where we'd be stationed for holding the ropes for our colleagues and explained exactly what each person had to do.  I really concentrated so hard to keep from panicking that apparently my composure was actually completely okay.  It was so okay that when the guide said that the most scared person should go first because of reasons xyandz (and my eyes started tearing and I was looking away from everyone so to not be called out), that another girl who was apparently more panicked was spotted immediately by the group. I was so worried about myself that I didn't even see the other girl crying and she was like 3 feet away from me!  Anyhoo, I really thought that I would go second and not delay my execution as long as I saw her go first, and after some hesitation she did go.  And by go, this is what we had to do -
- Have colleagues attach two ropes to you through a chest and a waist harness
- Climb a ladder that leaned against a tree about 8 ft high
- Proceed to climb staples up the tree to 40 ft total height (did I mention I'm scared of heights??)
- Step onto platform and unlatch one of the ropes, send it back down
- Turn around, walk out to the end of the 18 ft platform (platform is 1.5 ft wide)
- Make sure toes are over edge of platform
- Cry (optional)
- Jump off platform to trapeze that is 8 ft away and positioned higher than your head, so that unless you are Stretch Armstrong, you are basically going to miss the trapeze
- Trust that your colleagues will brake the rope properly?!

When the girl before me was up on the platform she was crying and panicking A LOT.  So much so, that when I was doing my helpful teammate thing below, I started crying out of fear (but again luckily no one noticed.)  She finally did the jump and yes, she survived (as has everyone who has done this activity for the past 17 years), and without hesitation I said I'd go next.  I raced to the top of the tree thinking I just wanted to get it over with and that I should really act like a big girl; I got to the top, sent down rope #1 (doing an excellent job at Plinko with the staples totally by accident), then turned around to set off down the platform.  That's when I started crying.  A LOT.  I think all in all it took me less than 5 minutes to go from the ground to the trapeze jump, but in the end, after quite a lot of "I'll jump in a minute"s, I closed my eyes and (think) I tried for the trapeze.  The drop took literally a second; it really seemed like so not a big deal when it was over.  And to be honest, I quite enjoyed it once I was hanging in mid-air because at least there was a breeze in the 97 degree heat. So, that was my big jump.

Speaking of the heat, I failed to mention my daytime ensemble. We'd been warned that there were ticks in this area, and that I was going to get quite friendly with my coworkers as we'd be checking each other all over for them.  I was not planning on having any creature on me - tick, coworker, or otherwise, so I made sure to dress accordingly.  In addition to spraying 100% Deet all over me and my bag, I wore a long-sleeved shirt tucked into long pants, with socks pulled over my pants, and Timberlands I found in the back of my old closet in my parents' house from high school (I knew I saved them for a reason.)  Needless to say, I looked like a classic 1994 wanna-be-cool looking idiot.  After jumping off the platform, I think that I actually lost my fear of ticks (although, my assignment on the last day kept me in the lodge in air conditioning drinking beer while 3/4 of the group went deeper into the woods which was the main tick day so don't go by my example.)  And I didn't even come home with a mosquito bite!  I was on the lookout all week though - the weekend before my trip, I had gone to Rachel's bachelorette party in Jamesport, Long Island, and on the fridge was a handy dandy tick chart.  Robyn kindly took a photo and sent it to me which I printed out on a large piece of paper for the trip.

Handy dandy tick chart

The home cooked food was pretty amazing - chocolate cake, ribs, biscuits with gravy, cinnamon buns, pink lemonade.  I could go on but this is making me hungry.

It really was a great trip (I'm not going to get into the hard core assignments of the week, except for the night where we had to watch Remember the Titans and dissect it the next day - tough stuff), plus I got out of going to the office for a week.  In summation, I would avoid Arkansas if you are afraid of ticks and midget gangs, but if you need convincing that you like beef jerky then I think it's the place for you.