Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer
John Glynn's Out East, reminds me of the annual gay getaway my wife and I take with our friends. Our trip, affectionately called the LWP Ski Trip, is always a ton of fun—a good old-fashioned lesbian party weekend. Since we initiated the trip in 2013, my wife and I did most of the behind-the-scenes work in preparation for it. Most importantly, we spent a lot of time researching potential rental properties, finally finding one that fit into everyone’s budget, but would also accommodate all of our friends—our Lesbian Wolf Pack.
We had an understanding in our group from past vacations together that the person or couple that planned the trip and assumed ultimate responsibility just in case anything went wrong would naturally get first choice of bedroom. That’s pretty much the only perk to putting our names on the lease agreement.
My wife and I try to be as fair and considerate as possible. We have to collect and handle everyone’s money, so we are very transparent in how it all gets spent. We always have a flat rate fee for the weekend—doesn’t matter if you decide to leave early or come late, you still pay the same price. The cost includes lodging, basic drinks like bottles of water, milk, coffee, and orange juice, along with food for breakfast and dinner each day and plenty of snacks to fill up on in between meals or late at night. During years where we had more guests than originally expected, we made sure to put the extra money to good use. We gave money back to everyone who drove to help compensate for the additional money they spent on gas and tolls, paid the cab fare and admission for the group to go to the local gay nightclub (and sometimes a round or two of drinks), and paid back thoughtful people for ingredients and materials they purchased on their own to surprise the group with additional homemade treats or fun gifts. In recent years, we’ve even had enough leftover money for everyone’s favorite extra purchase—surprise annual prizes (aka personalized LWP souvenirs).
In addition to planning, there’s a lot of everyday tasks that we need to do while we’re away. The owner always leaves us a list of her own rules about the noise level, parking, recycling, cleaning, etc. My wife and I are responsible for making sure everyone follows the rules or we have to answer for it. Nobody likes to be the bearer or receiver of bad news, but sometimes that’s the job of the people that book the trip. One cracked mirror, a leaky roof, a broken oven, and two clogged tubs later, we’ve had to negotiate with the owner over the years to make sure we all got what we paid for in the lease agreement, but also offered to pay for what was our fault.
My wife and I have never had a problem organizing the trip or doing any of the other tasks such as shopping for, transporting, and unpacking all the groceries for the weekend. We’ve even brought back bags of recycling home with us to discard after weekends when our friends were particularly thirsty and caused the recycling containers at the house to reach their capacity. Before the first trip, we sent out an email with basic information about the property, activities in the surrounding area, and the responsibilities we would have as renters. We didn’t assign jobs or anything like that, but we did ask everyone to pitch in to make sure we followed the house rules, recycling and garbage rules, and shared cooking and cleaning responsibilities. As is human nature, some people were more helpful than others. Now that we have a core group of friends that attend the trip each year, we can pretty much count on everyone to do their fair share without being asked. I think we’ve all gotten to the point where no one wants to have to be asked to help out or have to be the one to ask others to put their drink down for a moment and contribute—or at least hold their drink in one hand while lending the other hand in the kitchen.
It’s nice to have friends who offer to handle some of the responsibilities so that we can all have more time to relax and enjoy ourselves. Lucky for us, despite the she-nanigans, we’re all pretty responsible people. I take that back—there was the one year where a friend dropped her toothbrush on the floor, picked it up, and reused it as if nothing happened. Even if it was within the time limit of the famous “five second rule,” it was a little surprising—no, a lot surprising. I can’t begin to tell you how many muddy snow boots and suitcase wheels rolled over that area all weekend. Who knew that should have been a house rule.
We knew going into our first trip that we had to have a fair way to determine sleeping arrangements. The last thing we wanted was an argument about the size of a room or a bed, where it was located, or how hot or cold it felt at night. While most of our friends followed through each year on their verbal commitment to attend the trip, not everyone was as quick to pay as we would have preferred. That meant that my wife and I would have to lay out the money for everyone’s deposit, decide on the cost per person according to how many people said they would go, and then have to be the potential bad guys when it came to asking for more money because some people backed out who had originally been counted in but never paid. So we came up with a rule that we thought was fair to everyone—put your money where your mouth is so you can lay your head at night where you want to. In other words, we configured the cost based on how many people were willing to put down a measly $25 nonrefundable deposit. If you paid in full, you had the first choice of the available beds. It was a simple solution that worked for everyone and we maintained it every year. Since everything has been pretty consistent for the past few years, now most people just bring enough extra money with them so they can pay in full a year in advance—and, of course, guarantee that no one sneaks in a payment before them and steals their favorite bed.
After all these years, we still rent the same property—our home away from home. There have been years where we had a full house with some of our friends finding nooks and couches to rest their head on at night, while during other years, there have been a few available empty beds. Friends of friends, fiances, coworkers, and girlfriends have all been guests over the years as well. Some have even become fixed or honorary members of our Lesbian Wolf Pack—and yes, some of them are actually straight. The more, the merrier!
I admit that at many points throughout the weekend, our second home may look like a lesbian frat house, but it’s our lesbian frat house. We treat it and take care of it like it's our own and always leave the place cleaner than we found it. We’ve come a long way and, believe it or not, someone usually has an extra toothbrush on hand—we wouldn’t want anyone to be tempted to reuse theirs if it just happens to fall on the floor.