I had a message on my answering machine Monday that my business card had been pulled at the Hyatt Starbucks in St. Louis, and I could come in for two free drinks and pastries at my convenience. To say I was surprised is an understatement. I put my card in that drawing at the conference in September! As it turned out, Vicky and I were planning to go to the art museum yesterday to see Monet’s Waterlillies (on exhibit at the St Louis Art Museum in until Jan 22), so we stopped at the Hyatt to collect our plunder.
First, parking in St. Louis is never my friend. Rather than driving around and around looking for a spot on the street near the Hyatt in the rain, I pulled into the parking garage. I knew it wasn’t free, and maybe it was silly to pay for parking when we would be there less than an hour, but between the one-way streets, traffic, and rain, it seemed worth the trouble. I didn’t pay attention to how much parking was.
Turns out, it was $8.00. I would have paid about that for our drinks and pastries, I think! But that was just the beginning. Getting from the freeway to the Hyatt wasn’t so bad, but getting back to the freeway wasn’t as easy as going back the way we came. It took over half an hour and the GPS on my phone to get back to I-64. Crazy! So figure in the gas I burned being lost into the cost of my free caffeine fix. That’s why I make Eric drive when we go into the city. He has a knack of finding places, even if he’s never been somewhere before. He found the right exit to the Alamo in San Antonio the first time, and if you’ve ever driven the beltway around San Antonio you know how tricky it can be.
The moral of the story, my friends, is if you’re going to throw your business card into a drawing, do it in a place that’s easy to get to, in an area that you can get around easily.
