For decades I’ve thought of myself as reasonably sharp and shrewd when it comes to booking flights and car rentals. I’m now reconsidering this assessment. The truth is that I’m fairly clumsy and even, from time to time, stupid at it. At times I amaze myself at how lacking in common sense I can be. I lack the knack.

If you want to slap the side of your head, consider the saga of my initially ludicrous Telluride travel arrangements. I’m not proud of having done this, but I’ve no choice but to own it.

Early on I decided against flying to Montrose and then taking the Telluride van shuttle. Most of the tragically hip arrive this way, and I hated it when I flew to Montrose last year. (Plus it’s moderately expensive.)

The thing is that I hate riding in minivans with strangers. I like to drive my own car and stop whenever I feel like it. I love breathing mountain air, stretching my legs at will, taking snaps, doing transcendental meditation on the side of the road, stopping at stores for whatever.

So three or four months ago I decided to fly American from LaGuardia to Santa Fe, which only set me back $430, and then — here’s the really brilliant part — rented a Budget KIA for six days (Wednesday, 8.30 to Tuesday, 9.5) for $692.86. That’s right — the car would’ve cost $262 more than the round-trip air fare. (COVID sent car rental rates through the roof about two years ago.) That’s an overall outlay (including gas) of roughly $1250, give or take. But at least I would have my own wheels, and I could enjoy the colorful drive to Telluride, which takes around six hours but is good for the soul and often a feast for the eyes.

Since making these arrangements I was invited to a friend’s Telluride birthday party, starting early Wednesday evening (8.30), so I wanted to be in town by sometime in the late afternoon. It suddenly hit me yesterday — here’s another brilliant part — that my LGA-to-Santa Fe flight arrives just after 4 pm, meaning that I couldn’t hope to arrive in Telluride until 11:30 pm or more likely midnight.

I should have originally arranged to fly in on Tuesday and flop somewhere and drive to Telluride the next morning. Why didn’t I do this? Because I didn’t know about the birthday party, for one thing. Plus I’m not a master travel strategist, to put it mildly. I don’t think this stuff through.

So I called American and asked if I could change the flight to Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Nope, they said — I’d purchased an El Cheapo fare that didn’t allow any changes. Okay, I replied — can I just shell out $200 for a brand new one-way flight (LGA to Santa Fe) and hold on to my return fight? No and fuck you, they replied — your El Cheapo flight means that if you fail to board the outgoing flight (leaving from LGA on Wednesday morning, 8.30) we will cancel your return flight.

“Why would you do that?” I asked, feeling a tiny bit rattled. “I’m willing to buy a whole new one-way ticket, giving you guys an extra $200 on top of the $430 I’ve already paid for my original RT, and thereby vacating my outgoing seat and not asking for any special consideration of any kind, and you’re going to cancel my return flight as some kind of punishment? No offense but what kind of airline would enforce such a policy? Are you trying to be dicks?”

So in order to arrive on Tuesday I would have to buy a brand-new RT American fare (LGA to Santa Fe) for close to $600. Plus the $692 car rental plus gas expense. A total cost of $1450 or $1500. Not to mention the original $450 fare I bought in March or April.

The American phone rep was a Millennial. How did I know this? Because he yelped and whined like a little cocker spaniel and went “waaahh…you’re hurting my feelings by expressing your resentment over our ridiculously punitive air-fare policies…I think I need to pour myself a cup of herbal tea and talk to HR or a therapist so I can process your completely normal and unsurprising disdain over our eat-shit-and-die policies….it isn’t fair to me…you’re being mean…waaaah.”

Determined to sever myself from these American dingleberries at almost any cost, I bought a brand new RT fare from LGA to Albuquerque (Jet Blue) for, believe it or not, only $300 and change, and then, through Priceline, found an Avis weekly-rate car rental at Albuquerque for just under $500. A grand total of $800-something plus gas. I should have made these arrangements to begin with. Alas, I’m not smart or shrewd enough.

The drive from Albuquerque to Telluride is a half-hour shorter than Santa Fe to Telluride — five hours and 32 minutes (Albuquerque) vs. six hours (Santa Fe).