Woes of the Innkeeper, No. 6
There are understatements and then there are understatements…Last post when I said “it’s going to be a long weekend!” oh if I could only have known…yes, it was a very long weekend, sort of like how the Hindenburg had a very rough landing or maybe like how Cameron Diaz is not a very good actress…
I’ll just brush on the more awkward moments (note how it builds towards a crescendo…not added for emphasis):
- Upon learning that breakfast is served from 8:00 to 10:00 a couple (here on referred to simply as Retards From Texas or RFT)asked what time coffee would be available. RFT says, “Yeah? Well you’ve got two Texans here who get up around 5:30 and need coffee!” “Yeah?” I said. ”I don’t get up before 7:00. Check out McDonald’s down the street.” I am about the customer service, you know…
- Saturday morning I dutifully dragged my very hung over ass out of bed (a bit after 7:00…) and layed out a lovely and extensive continental breakfast (which included hot homemade cinnamon rolls, fresh from the can). At 9:45 no one had darkened the door of the Dining Room. At last, the couple here for a bit of nasty sex romance (see Woes of the Innkeeper, No. 5 posted December 19) deigned to come down but were only interested in a glass of ice water. RFT later told me they had meant to inform me that they wouldn’t be needing breakfast but it had slipped his mind. Thanks.
- While “ackin’ a fool” in a bit of blue comedy at the Harry Shearer Holiday Sing-along (a very convoluted audience participation-heavy version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, a song that I ordinarily hate, where we were asked to act out the Six Geese a-Laying…use your imagination) my cell phone kept buzzing. After about the fourth buzz I feared something afoot so excused myself to the theatre lobby and answered the call. Turns out a couple was on the front porch, luggage in hand, thinking they had a reservation. They did not…I was able to talk them inside for a landing but, in the meantime, Jeff, the leader of our little group of libidinous geese had been called to the stage to win a prize. Dammit!
- Three cocktails into the evening the cursed call button I was foolish to install buzzed because a heavy flow of water was pouring from the chandelier in the foyer. Apparently the guests above were being inappropriately and irresponsibly amorous in the tub and were not paying attention to the overflow! Very! Nice!
Had enough?
I know I have!
It just occured to me that an innkeeper plays an important roll in the traditional Christmas story. I bet he was worn slap out by the time Joseph and his pregnant child bride, Mary, sloped up on some old mule, considering that “the whole world was to be taxed.” Unexpected guests can be such a pain (just ask Mary…). Late at night. Probably in the middle of some show of dancing harem girls (remember Yvonne de Carlo in “The Ten Commandments”?). No doubt he’d been pounding the mead pretty hard. Up since dawn serving the unwashed. Beginning to panic because he still had lots of shopping to do and there is always just too much going on around the Holidays that it just wears one down! Then that goddamned doorbell!
Yeah, they’d have gotten the stable on my watch, too…
