Pooping where I eat?

I'm pretty sure one of the cleaning ladies is making eyes at me.

The problem started as it usually does, when I couldn't control how charming and adorable I was. One morning, an abnormally large number of people called down to the front desk requesting extra towels. So I ended up making a few trips down to the basement, to the cleaning lounge/cave (it really is very cavernous) where some of the housekeepers were relaxing before heading upstairs for a long day of keeping house.

On my third trip downstairs, one of the women called out good-naturedly, "Y'know, you can call, you don't have to keep coming down here."

She was a not unattractive Hispanic woman, light-skinned with auburn hair pulled back into a mid-length ponytail. She had a some acne, and hid a few of her curves under a thick coat, but she had a shy, understated smile that widened quite naturally when she laughed. She could have been anywhere from 19 to 26. How can I indicate my slightly-above-average level of interest? I'd do 'er?

Now the real reason I kept coming down there was because I can't for the life of me remember the number for the basement. But since I was just coming off an entire night of banter practice, I casually responded, "But then I wouldn't get to see you."

She blushed.

The next day, before I even understand what's going on, she's back behind the front desk on her way out, tussling my hair and glancing my direction as she talks to GWNTSLACD in Spanish. And, whether the curiosity/desperation is sexual or cybertronic, so help me, I'm smiling back.

I can just picture the scene a few months from now...

"Is that all I am to you??? Just a blog post??"

"No!...Well, in the beginning that was it, but....it's not about the blog anymore. I...I like you"

"Why should I believe you???"

"It's true, I promise! Just give me another chance, please!"

"Why?? So you can tell your buddies how many page views you got??!?"

"I deserved that"

It'd be a nice metaphor, if that weren't somebody's life inside there

Last night, as I'm coming out of the subway, I spot three Hispanic men gathered together in the corner of the stairwell. Two of them seem to be helping the other shimmy into a red dress with white polka dots. I only catch a glimpse of his face before it disappears under the dress; it is bone-tired and expressionless, a patchwork of rivulets. That's what strikes me first, just before I see the huge red bow, the rosy cheeks, the black knobby nose, the pancake ears, and that unchanging, shit-eating grin.

I've walked in on Minnie Mouse.

I'd seen her cavorting and posing for money with Mickey a few times earlier in the week. As far as I could tell, they weren't doing it for any charitable cause; there was just a vessel, a pot, maybe, at their feet for donations. I remember ruing their presence as a sign of the season. The holidays have brought some of the vapid bustle of Times Square over to the normally stomachable Sixth Avenue (these are the street legs of my two alternatives for getting to work). But I'll think further the next time my first reaction is to give Goofy a swift kick to the groin.

Potpourri

An assortment of thoughts and events that haven't merited their very own posts over the past few weeks:

~~~Woman with electric sky blue Metropolitan Museum of Art bag strides across the lobby to the front desk.
Me: "Did you enjoy the Met?"
Her, in a New York accent: "Oh, well I went to the Macy's one, but yeah, I enjoyed it"

______

~~~One question that obviously doesn't trouble me, but might be worth thinking about if I get really bored, is to what extent I'm manufacturing blog material by giving my guests all the rope they could possibly need and deliberately putting myself into ridiculous situations. Well I found out last weekend that there are things I won't do for the sake of this cyber-guesthouse.

Very late Saturday night, two young Irish girls stagger past me and up the stairs to their room. About 25 minutes elapse before they trudge back down to tell me that their friend, who has the key to their room, has passed out inside, and no amount of pounding or shouting will rouse her. After fifteen rings to the room at least circumstantially corroborates their story, I try, and fail, to find the spare key in the drawer where such backups are kept. I tell them to go wait outside their door while I get a key from the maids' lounge in the basement (calling it a lounge is kind).

I stop before the door to the stairs and turn back toward them. I recycle a line I came up with earlier that night: I sternly and emphatically whisper, "Don't. Touch. Anything." They dissolve into a fit of giggling and hiccups.

Ten minutes late I meet them outside their door with the key. They are sitting slumped against opposite walls of the hall, their legs and practically their torsos entwined. The one across from the door, one of her boobs is hanging out. Their tongues are lolling and their eyes are rolling up at me, and in general they are struggling to muster up the energy to make it a few more feet to the door. But one of them perks up when she she sees that I'm about to open their room.

"Oh, you should sneak into the room and scare our friend," she blurts out.
"Ooh, yeah, go on! We're gonna wake her up anyway, tha bitch, so you should just go in there and stand over 'er and scream real loud!"
"I don't think that's a good idea," I intone, like I'm a babysitter answering a child's request to play kickball in the dining room.

"I'll give you ten dollahs," says the first one conspiratorially.

I shook my head ruefully and turned the key. The gambler barged in, got very close to her sleeping friend's face, and yelled, "wwwwAKEUP!"

It did get me thinking about how much I would have done it for. I'd say 50$. And 100 page-views.

_____

~~~2 young ladies, wearing traditional black pea-coats, which is something of a rarity here at the hotel, drunkenly saunter into the hotel a few weeks back. There was an arrogant one who was sorta pretty, with dirty-blonde hair and sharp features, but the other one was vaguer, both in my memory and in the face, like Renee Zellwegger or Joey Lauren Adams.

They prattled on about stupid things that I don't care about until the blurry one became transfixed by the metal Christmas tree decoration that sits at the end of the front desk. It's basically the tree Charlie Brown would have picked out, only if Charlie Brown had also been cursed with the Golden Touch, thus completely negating the tree's message. There are also a bunch of miniature, metallic-colored ornamental balls hanging from its gilded branches. It's really quite hideous.

Anyway, the one with the pixelated face though it would hilarious to play at stealing one of the ornaments off the tree. I suppose this could have been endearing if she had vamped it up a little, or if she had just picked up the thing and bludgeoned herself with it, but instead she just stood there dully and occasionally moved her hand closer to the ball.

Eventually, though not as quickly as she should have, she got bored of this, and they headed toward the elevator. They started singing a song: 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas." They were trying to be sassy. On the third refrain, they stuck their hips out and snapped their fingers across their faces in the style of 'Oh no, you di'int!"

It baffles me, what's going through people's heads with these last minute displays of bravado. Is it possible that they're sort of making fun of themselves a little bit? What do they think, that I'm going to spend the rest of my night shaking my head in wonder at their performance? Oh, wait...

____

I did have one lady come in last weekend who was one of my favorite guests ever. She was from Texas, and she came in with her husband, of whom I have zero recollection, and her just preteen son, who had brown hair and was dopey but sweet. This woman was of medium height, and she had a tall, rectangular face with a dark gray, boxy haircut and thick glasses.

It was pretty cute how chastely excited the whole family was to be in New York, but the mother was just overcome with wonder. And then, in probably the most egregious example of NYC living down to stereotype that I've ever encountered, they came back in, not thirty minutes later, and the kid's jacket, which I can't imagine was that expensive, had been stolen.

They seemed a bit startled, but they were plucky about the whole thing, and when I grandly offered the kid my own coat, which is about as big as his entire body, the mom sort of jutted her jaw out and swiveled her head around, as if to say, 'Can you believe this guy? How funny he is?" except she obviously wasn't being sarcastic.

Later that night, she came down and she wanted to know if there's any place she can get some organic food for her husband to eat. First I made some sort of joke that implied I was fat, and then I explained that, in this neighborhood, the most organic place to eat was probably Starbucks (I was somewhat proud of that joke).

But then I offered to look it up on Google Maps for her, and once again she looked at me like she had just touched Christ's wounds for herself. Of course there's nothing healthy in Times Square, but I told her she might be able to V8 juice or something at Duane Reade. She seemed eternally grateful.

And then when she came back, with a can of beans somehow, more utter jubilation when we actually did have a can opener she could use.

What started to happen is that I enjoyed her devout appreciation so much that I started upping the ante as far as ways that I could help her, and she came right back with correspondingly gushing gratitude, and it sort of snowballed from there, until I was telling her about different neighborhoods ("Well, Williamsburg isn't the cool neighborhood anymore") and things they could see that aren't just tall buildings or campy musicals. Then I offered to buy organic food for her, because, well, they have lots of places like that in my neighborhood.

The only thing that seemed to deflate her the tiniest bit, and only for a moment, was when, while describing how to get to a famous church in Brooklyn, and suggesting a walk back across the the Brooklyn Bridge as a fun activity, I happened to mention that I myself was not at this time a churchgoing man. It made her eyes lose their spark for a second. But she quickly recovered and launched a full-scale thankfulness offensive.

And then, later that week, what should she have for me as they're checking out? A cd of last Sunday's sermon at the Brooklyn Tabernacle! It made me a little uncomfortable, even though it shouldn't have, but its certainly the most thoughtful thing a guest has ever done for me. I'm definitely going to listen to it.

Va-cay

I'm back at home for Christmas this weekend, and, frankly, re-enacting the 10-8 night shift at home really isn't working out well. So I hope everyone has a nice holiday, and things will start back up to normal again on Thursday.

Love,

The Concierge

Hooooooo

Last week, a woman came into the hotel who could only be described as a female Hacksaw Jim Duggan, if Hacksaw Jim Duggan were journeying to Rivendell past the forests of Mirthwood to become a member of the Fellowship of the Ring.

She wore a forest-green, floor-length, felt cape with maroon lining, and a large, copper pendant shaped like an upside-down metronome with an embedded turquoise stone. Her hair was long, stringy, and dirty-blonde. She had an over-sized face with rosy, expansive, slightly weathered cheeks. She spoke with a slight lisp, and she had a cartoonish facial tic where the left corner of her mouth curled up periodically as if she had just been struck dumb or flummoxed by something. I suspect that in the old West she might have been referred to as 'addled' or 'soft-brained.'

I have highly refined sense organs for good stories (an eye, an ear, a nose), so I went ahead and threw a line out there to see if I'd catch anything.

"Where'd ya get that cape?" I asked approvingly.
"Oh, in India," she said with goofy nonchalance.
Oop, there's a little tug. Time to reel it in a bit.

"Oh, where in India? I was there for a while."

Off she goes. "Oh, well, I was only there for a while, small town called Kalikut. I was on a freighter, went everywhere on that thing. Thailand, India, Tanzania. Started out in Yemen. Course the British called it Aden back then. Everything was so cheap there! Bought lots of electronics, clothes, spices. We were gonna resell it for a nice profit. But when I got to India, the people were so poor and I felt so bad, I just gave it all away."

There wasn't really much time to talk more because things were so busy at the time, but that's a pretty tantalizing morsel of a life, eh?

What happens if you say it backwards?

A man checked into the hotel last weekend. Rattanasangarh was his name.

He was a short, genial Thai man with a thin, abbreviated fu manchu. His drivers license showed him with shoulder-length hair. He, and his aviator (non-sun) glasses, seemed to have stepped straight out of a faded 70s polaroid, leaving behind his newly-emigrated wife and young children. He reminded a little bit of the somewhat affable Asian terrorist in Die Hard, if he hadn't been forced, as a young actor hard up for roles, into a life of playing only bumbling, namelss, eminently combustible villains.

After Rattanasangarh checked in and went up to his room, the spirited scamp came back down and went to survey the streets. He returned about an hour later following a plain-, sweet-, and bored-looking woman.

"'S Cold Outside!" he bursts out.

Yusuf, in fine form, exclaims excitedly, "You were freezing out there looking for the women, but now upstairs you get the heat!" I swear to God he said this.

It's unclear how much Rattanasangarh understands, but he flashes a wide, almost anime-esque grin, as if we are all the beneficiaries of his streetwalking.

I call out, "Good luck!" as he approaches the elevator, trying to get into the spirit of things, before I get the slightly sick feeling that the exhortations are just not the same coming from me. Luckily, Rattanasangarh doesn't seem to have processed my meaning, as he steps happily onto the elevator, dreaming of turning straw into gold.

(I feel like this is a very representative 100th post.)

FYI

According to the computer, there is a couple staying in the hotel under the moniker "Brandon and the Kelly." I dunno if this is a band name, or an inside reference from members of a 90210 fan club or what, but I thought you should know.

Oh, also, last night someone name Guiseppina checked into the hotel, which was cool.

The Tagline: Who Just Came into the Hotel?

A man came into the hotel last Saturday. He looked a little bit like one of the characters on Battlestar Galactica (Tom Zerek, for my BSG-fan reader--you know who you are). It's possible that I'm saying that because its 5 in the morning and I've just watched six straight episodes of Battlestar Galactica.

Anyway, he didn't really stop by for any reason, just sort of to reminisce about old times and how much the neighborhood has changed. He said he used to live around here, that you couldn't believe how seedy this place used to be. I tell him, like I do anyone who makes this comment, that I wish I coulda worked here then.

Then he tells me he's a filmmaker, and that he shot scenes for one of his movies in our little establishment. "You don't say," I say with interest. "What was the movie called?"

"Whore 2," he says. Yes.

After a pause, he adds, deflating my dreams, "It was a kind of a documentary. We interviewed prostitutes."

After a few more minutes of slightly uncomfortable conversation, he tells me that he's also something of a writer. "You know, " he says, "Sometimes I think about working at a place like this. just for the material."

Even though I kind of think he was trying to pick me up, I said something stupid, like 'tell me about it," and then said he should come back later and we could talk about it. Whore 3? Stay tuned.

Maybe the dumbest question I've ever been asked in my entire life

An older, impatient hick woman, who has been adamant the whole night about getting nine people to La Guardia airport for under 65$, calls down again and asks crabbily, " Are 221 numbers local calls? Will we get charged for 221 numbers?"

"I'm sorry, miss, do you mean 212? That's the area code for Manhattan. So that's a local call"

"No," she says, irritated. "It says right here. 7-1-8, 2-2-1..."

I defy anyone to tell me a purer expression of sheer ignorance in the comments section.

Update: Apparently, I didn't make this clear. (718) is a Brooklyn area code. The number was something like 718-221-5555. So the woman, who wasn't senile, just an old hag, was wondering whether the 221 in this phone number indicated some type of code, revealing a basic ignorance of the way phone numbers work. In my opinion, that's pretty damn stupid.

You win this round

Two weeks ago, first time working the day shift, got my shoes all shiny and my buttons all buttoned, handling the check-in/check-out rush like an utter professional, when the phone rings. My movements are economic yet graceful. I toss the phone off the receiver, a little too forcefully, but I seamlessly catch it left-handed and cradle it between my ear and my shoulder. Meanwhile, I'm flashing hand signals to our Mongolian handy-man and filling out receipts for travel agencies, while directing guests to the storage room with a single glance. I was born for this.

"Hotel Idiotica," I say with quiet, warm resolve.

"Well hi there!" says an older woman in a Southern accent I would have find obnoxious only a few months ago. I thought I had left that inflection behind with my love for Carolina basketball and my need to be ethically perfect at absolutely every instant, but now it seems almost insultingly familiar. What is it this time, same woman I speak to, essentially, ten times a day?

"Ah'd like a room fer six people," she drawls. "We're gonna have an orgy!"

Sooo many different emotions running through my brain. Sadly, the least of them is repulsion at the thought of a sextet lemon party (Is that right? Are there women at lemon parties? Also, anyone over 45, please don't google lemon parties. Seriously)

The first impulse I had, even more sadly, was to see how I could politely inform this person that unfortunately we just implemented a no orgy policy for senior-citizens, but still secure their booking. I actually started to say, out loud, I'm sorry, ma'am but we don't allow orgies here at the Idiotica.

My other problem, and this is a common dilemma for me at the hotel, was that, while I really didn't want to talk to this woman about the logistics of her orgy, I also had in my heart my obligation to you, readers, to ride this scenario out to the hinterlands, to the fuckin' boonies of the mind. And this situation was certainly--can I say this?--pregnant with possibility.

All this really added up to, though, was about ten seconds of ums and false starts. Who was this woman? It couldn't be a prank caller because there were the Jerky Boys (anybody remember the Jerky Boys?), not the Jerky Grandmas. And her voice, her voice, was there something else a little familiar about it.

Suddenly I was filled with that same feeling you get when you fail spectacularly at math in front of ten-year olds.

My own mother. Punk'd by my own mother.

I hope this goes without saying, but I strongly encourage prank calls to the Hotel Idiotica at any and all times. Just ask me for the number in my other life (swiftly becoming the less realized half), and I'll gladly provide it.

The Pot o' Gold

Good Lord, this is gonna take me two and a half hours to get straight, but we just had some frankly unbelievable behavior/drama/dialogue unfold here over the past half-hour. I'm trying to provide an amalgam of comparable literary ingredients, but honestly I'm stumped. I almost think this story ushers in a whole new genre of literature. I'm just gonna try to relate everything chronologically so you can experience the same narrative roller-coaster I just did.

c. 4:45 a.m.--Cute-as-a-button Irishwoman, in her early thirties with auburn hair in a longish bob, wanders in. She pauses at the desk for a second, seeming a little dazed, then moves on. I think to myself, "Is she wearing shoes?" I start to say something, but then imagine her yelling at me that its none of my business, so I don't say anything.

4:50--She comes back down. She's definitely not wearing shoes. I should mention that it is 25 degrees outside and that it's been snowing all day.

4:52--She starts talking. She seems to be in some kind of glazed panic. "Can you look behind the bar?" she asks. It's going to be important to remember over the next thirty minutes that there is no bar in the hotel.

4:53--"I can't find my brown bag," she is saying. "I left it behind the bar. Its got my passport. Couldya look for it, please?" I tell her that there is no bar in the hotel. "Yes, but couldya look for it?" she asks again. She's repeating herself and is fixated on this non-existent thing in a way that reminds me of someone on acid--um, at least that's what i heard--and I'm pretty excited because this would be my first hallucinogenic drug experience at the hotel.

4:55--I think maybe she just means behind the desk where I'm sitting, which would be the simplest explanation since people leave stuff to be stored behind the desk all the time, and the desk does bear a vague resemblance to a bar. Unfortunately, with drugs the simplest explanation is rarely the right one, and that proves to be true in this case, even though she tells me that yes, she meant behind the front desk. The first search proves fruitless.

4:58--Maybe she means the storage room, I suggest, where people often leave bags. Yeah, she echoes, the storage room. Were you in the storage room? No, she says hesitantly. But could you check anyway, behind the bar?
On the way back from the storage room, we see an actual bar. Its in the back room, through the lobby, where one of the bosses has put in some comfortable chairs and thrown some terrible thrillers onto the bookshelves. The only problem is that it hasn't been used since I started here, and probably since people used to do lines on it ten years ago. She didn't even to have to ask.
But she did. No bag, though.

4:53--Back to square one. I try to go over it again. So you left your bag and your passport somewhere in the hotel? Behind a bar? She nods. But there is no bar in the hotel. Yeah, but could you just look for it?

4:59--A flash of inspiration, swiftly diminished. Maybe you went out to a bar? She lights up. Oh, tha's right! Do you remember which bar? She frowns. Oh, no, sorry i di'know. But could you check anyway?

5:00--After I tell her that sadly this isn't possible, she takes a breath and then starts to cry. "My passport! My passport!" she whines.

5:07--After seven minutes that were preeeetty uncomfortable, I get one last idea. There is an Irish pub three doors down or so that is the preferred drinking spot of probably 75% or our adventurous clientèle. Maybe you left it at O' O-O's?, I offer.
Ooh, yes, she coos. Could you get it fer me?
Hmm, you know, its probably closed.

5:08--I am sliding through the slush to allay her tears and fears.

5:10--The bar is closed. I pound on the door until some Hispanic cleaner-uppers who don't really speak English come to the door, and we eventually settle on the fact that they have no idea what I'm talking about. Come back, 9:00.

5:20--I come back into the hotel. The lass is standing in the middle of the lobby. She has changed into her pajamas, which are electric light blue and look like they belong to a seven year-old, complete with footies. There is a shabby gentleman in a black coat standing near her, handing her a little frapuccino brown bag, along with two boots, some socks, a scarf, and one or two other articles of clothing.

This man seems to me to be in the wrong century. He looks like a villain from Dickens, albeit one out to save his own skin rather than driven by misguided ideology or pathological cruelty. He looks like a cross between Willem Dafoe and Nicholas Sarkozy. He looks like the devil, and I am a bit wary of what he is demanding in return for her belongings.

"I left them in the car," says the woman glassily. This seems to explain some things, even if it still leaves the whole situation with a coating of vacuous grime. The woman left some things in the car after a few too many Irish coffees. No crime there. And what a diligent, upstanding cab driver to come all the way back to return her things.

Except something is off. The driver is standing just a little too close to the woman. He almost seems to be nuzzling her.

The driver starts to talk to me. It becomes obvious that while he hasn't left this planet like his forgetful customer, he has certainly been imbibing. He has a French European accent. He tells me that he works in a French hotel a few blocks away. This doesn't really make sense to me, but I can't imagine you much care at this point, either. Anyway, he starts insisting that I give him some sort of validation that he actually brought all her stuff back. At first, I think he wants some kind of receipt, but finally it seems that all he wants is acknowledgment. Unfortunately, the acknowledgment that I am giving somehow isn't pure or redeeming enough for him, so we are at an impasse.

5:30--I decide its a good idea to walk the lady up to her room, so I do that. Her friends all jump up as soon as they hear the key in the door; it's obvious they've been worried sick. I drop her off, and tell her friends that they should probably check out her bag and make sure everything's there.

5:32--The driver finally starts to accept my assurances that I'll vouch for his bringing all the stuff back. He starts telling me how he could have taken all her stuff, no trouble at all, because his car is black and she didn't know his name. But she was such a sweet girl. Then he tells me a little more about the hotel where he (also?) works, how he's worked there for years, and how he also he frequents that bar just down the road, almost every night, y'know the one, O' O-O's?

Gears are starting to turn in my brain. Something is very wrong here. Something cataclysmic is about to happen.

"She was such a sweet girl," he says. "She hardly said anything at the bar. Had a beautiful smile, though." Scenes are replaying in my head, freshly, sinisterly colored with semi-ominous music. The girl entering the hotel, somehow without her shoes, and, now that I remember, much of any cold-weather clothing, despite the frigid temperature. That dazed look on her face, sated yet distraught. "She almost lost her coat and her bag in the bar, but I held on to them. I didn't want anything bad to happen to her. You know, if these European girls lose their passports, its big trouble."

Mephistopheles leans back in his chair. "You know, in the bar, with all her clothes, she was very quiet. But, in the car, with zero...well, I do not need to tell you what happened."

The music is swelling now, and there are blurry close-ups of faces that originally appeared one way, but can now be seen in a light that is starker, bluer, grainier, darker.

After he leaves, there is an uncanny and unsettling feeling in my stomach. What just happened?

Noise Issues

That's what somebody just called down to complain about. Room 311 is having noise issues. Not only does that mark the first time that anyone's called down to complain about cacophonous congresses, it has also got to be the most delicious sexual metaphor these old ears hath heard.
Any girls down to have noise issues later?

Experiment

Ok, so we're gonna try something a little bit different tonight. What happens when you come to work straight from a Christmas party where you had a few too many glasses of wine? My hypothesis is that the buzz will wear off after about an hour and then I'll be slightly and annoyingly hung over for the next nine hours. I can't wait to find out. I love science!

Really important news for everyone

Ok, so here's the big announcement, somewhat anti-climactic so you don't just lose your shit. It turns out that The Concierge has a large role to play in the future of the Hotel Idiotica. I've been promoted. In addition to the why-do-they-even-have-to-end weekend all-nighters, I'll now be pulling some day shifts towards the end of the week. It gets real busy and crowded during the week, and I can't have my coworkers like The White Witch and GWNTSLACD being too nosy, so during the week it won't be a live-blog per se. I'll have to write up the highlights at night. But get ready for 5/2 the excitement, 150% more...being at a hotel, and two and a half times the unrelenting examination of humanity's seething, abscessed underbelly. Please, people, try to contain yourselves, women and children first.

Preesh

Woman with a middle-aged, midwestern perm: "Have you been here all night?"
Me, with a smile that clearly says, 'What do you think, lady, you saw when you came in last night at 1, when you went out for coffee at 6:30, and now when you've come back in at 8:30?"
She: "You look wicked"

How am I supposed to respond to that?

Yusuf en fuego

I'm doing my best to just let this blog die of sheer lethargy, but Yusuf simply will not allow it. His behavior these past two weekends has been absolutely scintillating. I don't really know how to pull it all together, so I'm just gonna throw it all out there so you can be as baffled and smitten as I am. If you can make it to the end, there's a special treat!

Last week:

" When I am in the bed, it must be woman, man, woman," Yusuf says grandiloquently, miming a sandwich. "I cannot go to be with one woman. Only three, four, five!" I honestly can't say how her arrived at this proclamation.

~~~~~~~~~

In keeping with my postcolonially ambiguous attempts to teach Yusuf all the tones and chords of guitar history, I ask him if he knows about the blues.

"Oh, the blues??," he says loudly, like I'm talking about apples, or a car or a dog. "Of course!," He says emphatically, his French accent peeking its head out. "Of course!" It' s one of his favorite things to say.

Then, unexpectedly, he puts one hand up as if he's taking an oath, the other on his belly, closes his eyes and sways to and fro.

I raise my eyebrows at him just a little like he's crazy, which he is, but he's got an explanation.
"The blues, man, the blues!" He's saying it like "bloose"
"In French, the blues is like the close dancing with the women!"
He again mimes the beginnings of a dance, which this time grows progressively more sensual over time, full of rhythm and undulations.

"Belly to belly. Dick to dick," he says matter-of-factly. (1000% percent sic)

~~~~~~~~

For the past two weeks, he has been absolutely rocking a jean jacket unlike anything I've ever seen. Well, that's not exactly right. It's just like jackets I see every day. Basically, it's a pea-coat/petty-coat/New-York-coat, except it's jean. Last weekend, he paired it nicely with jeans, but he must not have wanted the look to get stale because he scaled back to more conservative slacks tonight. (Update: My younger, fashion-savvy brother informs me this jean-on bottom/jean-on-top look is called a Canadian Tuxedo)

----------------

Tonight: GWNTSLACD, whose partial redemption in my eyes has been a major development in recent weeks and is TBP, is leaving as I come on for my shift. Yusuf kisses her delicately on each cheek, then genially motions at his genitals that she should return the favor.

~~~~

Whenever he's been getting excited, he's been interrupting and interspersing his speech with this stream of animated gibberish. It sounds something like, "Halal alal alahal ahalala!" I'm not sure if its Muslim celebratory banter or a bad imitation of this man.

~~~~

His young daughter has called from home two or three times. Her name is Saran, pronounced more haughtily than "saran" wrap. We have been talking, and she honestly has the cutest voice that I have ever heard. The third time she called, she asked if she could speak to her dad, and I said, "Why don't you want to speak to me?" and she giggled. Oh. My. God. It was like the giggle of the first fairy or something. I said that we were friends, right?, and she confirmed that her dad had shown her my picture (Yusuf is into cameras), and that we were indeed friends. Hands down the most unadulterated moment of goodness I've had at this job.

~~~~

Last week, Yusuf, showing off the fancy new camera he had just gotten, casually mentioned that he had an older camera that was only missing a charger that he would give to me. I protested that that was crazy for about an hour, but he wouldn't take no for an answer.

To be quite honest, I kind of thought that his promises to give me the camera lay in the same vicinity as his tendency to agree with almost everything I say. To make me feel good, he'd pledge to bring me this camera, and then, every weekend, he'd leave it at home, or i wouldn't remind him, and he'd give it to me next weekend.

But he gave me the camera. He just pulled it out of his bag, just like that, no flash, no presentation, and handed it over. I thanked him, and thanked him profusely, and over the course of the evening I tried, a number of times, to pause for a moment and thank him again. But he stoically assured me, every time, that it was no big deal. At one point, I clapped him on the shoulder and waited for him to look me in the eye so I could really truly thank him, but he wouldn't look at me.

As he left for the day at three this morning, I called out to him. "Hey Yu," I said simply, "Thanks for the camera."

He smiled a little. "You my buddy," he shrugged.


YUSUF!

Swedes

About a month ago, when I didn't post one weekend because I couldn't bear the responsibilities and revelations bound up in creation, the 38th running of the New York City Marathon was held. We here at the Hotel Idiotica did our part by hosting a substantial portion of the the Swedish delegation. If the Swedish Chef was as integral to your childhood as he was to mine, then I don't need to tell you why this was very exciting.

But I was all ready to tell you how the Swedes weren't really all that impressive, that most of them weren't all that attractive, that the only genetic superiority i could detect was that perhaps they aged a bit more gracefully, that most of their kids were brunettes and that there were even a couple of pudgy little red-haired kids, and that while there were a few aggressively beautiful blondes mellifluously speaking perfect English, on the whole they hadn't lived up to their reputation as the Antonio Sabato, Jr., of nations.

And then as the whole contingent streamed out the door on their way to the airport, the tour director gave me a "Sweden" baseball cap, so, yeah, as far as I can remember the Swedes were breathtaking specimens of physical, mental, and emotional sublimity, the body of God made manifest. Mork, mork, mork!

Inappropriate

Really creepy man, channeling very much a molester/serial killer (physically non-threatening; eyes that protrude a bit too much/lack orbital cavities and also have a creepy, shiny intensity; saggy, pockmarked face), as he creeps up to the desk to get his key, asks in a soft, effete Southern accent,
"You're not lookin' at porn are you?"
I scoot back in my chair and do that "Whoa" look where I'm just like Jim from The Office (you know I do it just like him), except in my mind I'm totally freaking the hell out.
"Oh, its ok, I do," he chuckles, soothingly, knowingly, disturbingly.

On the one hand, I'm glad that my demeanor encourages people to relax and open up a little, but on the other hand, I'm wondering about the applicability of Megan's Law to hotels.

Lexington Steele

Just wanted to say that there was someone staying in the hotel last night by the name of Wellington Hung. He's taken the clubhouse lead for coolest name ever at the hotel, beating out last month's Euclides Vulcano, Jr., by a wide margin.

Quip List

This is a running list of all the nonthreatening banter I've used throughout the evening to endear myself to the guests in hopes of receiving tips. Be forewarned, I'm feeling particularly coy.

10:30--Young man walks across lobby bringing a pizza up to his room.
I call out, "Make sure you save some of that for us"
Then Yusuf thunderously decrees, "You will return to us seven slices!"
The young man stutters for a second by the elevator.
I look at him understandingly. "Don't worry, we're generous; one or two slices will be fine"

10:45--Man calls down asking for the location of the nearest liquor store. While I'm Google-mapping it for him, he remarks hopefully on the establishment of a bar in the back of the hotel. "That would be nice," he says.
"That would be nice for all of us," I say knowingly.

10:50--Young man comes down and wordlessly drops off two slices of pizza with pineapple and a variety of meats on a plate of cardboard torn from the box. The slices look wet. I try to protest that he is being too kind, but in vain.

10:55--Small, older man with glasses comes in, stops at the front desk, and grimaces at the pizza.
"Where did that come from?" he wonders.
"A....well-intentioned guest," I stammer graciously. (Update: it's 3:45 in the morning and I am now eating that pizza)

11:45--In an elevator with a Spanish couple. The husband does not speak any English, but the wife does.
Me, to the husband, using my 4th-grade Spanish, "Como estas? Allegre? Trieste?"
"Allegre,"says the husband with a puzzled half-grin, "Y tu?"
"Allegre," I nod vigorously.
Awkward pause. "Pocito espanol," I say dumbly.
We are nearing their floor. Woman tries helpfully to say something very simple in Spanish, but I don't have a clue. "Pocito pocito," I say.
"Where are you from?" she asks with a little exasperation as they exit the elevator.
"North Carolina," I say quickly, sheepishly.
The doors start to close. A flash of inspiration! I look up. "Carolina del Norte!" I exclaim triumphantly. But she is gone, and the doors have closed.

2:30--4 people stumble in, one of them, a small woman, absolutely flailing. "He looks like ANDY!" she screams, "my brother Andy!" She turns to me. "Is your name Andy?" She wonders, lolling, then wanders off to the other side of the lobby.
I decide to mess with her. "Yes," I say, just loud enough for her to hear, but indirect enough so that it takes about three seconds to register in her appletini-addled brain.
"WHAT?!?" she shrieks, and comes flying across the room and throwing her arms onto the desk.
Her husband/God, I don't care/brother is chuckling, but he's wondering just a little if it might be true. "Is it really?" he asks.
I pause for just a second, but I can tell that to them, especially Tipsy McStaggers, it is excruciating.
"No," I whisper, and bow my head with an evil grin as pandemonium ensues.

Seconds

This happened a while ago, but my laziness should not impede your entertainment. Some stories need to be told, like Vietnam massacres and the continuing sagas of churlish meatheads.

So do you remember these charming fellows (link success! Thanks, Beth!), as well as my comrade Yusuf's delightful defense of them? Well, there's plenty more where that came from.

My first encounter with these courtiers came shortly after I was first exposed to Yusuf's rendition of the "Guba-Guba" dance. Four, five, or six of them, I don't know exactly how many there were, just that they were occupying two rooms. They all had stubbly facial hair, and each carried just a little more heft than their respective frames called for. One of them nicely filled out the "short-crazy-ex-IRA-asshole-munitions expert," model, except he wasn't Irish, while the rest of them conformed to more general Jungian bitter-former-high-school-football-offensive-lineman archetypes.

I'll channel Voltaire here and say that though I hate you and you add nothing whatever to the commonweal, I will defend to the death your right to have prostitutes in your room if you so desire. But seriously, these weren't just jovial good ol' boys hammin' it up for their big-city weekend; these guys were genuinely awful.

Their full rap sheet against ethical and aesthetic decency:

--The first time I saw them, they came down about midnight, swept across the lobby spewing inane, brutally-phrased horse-shit about "hittin' da clubs." Then the last one, probably the most bland and nondescript of the bunch, as he's swaggering past the front desk, "Hey, buddy! Want my SLOPPIES? (emphasis mine, can't be helped)"

--About four hours later, one of them comes back in, reeking and reeling, and swearing a blue streak. He was of medium height and swarthy, and his swarthiness was increased by his drunkenness. He had lost a great deal of his voice, which I'm conjecturing was rather acute and scratchy to begin with. Mostly he just stumbled around the lobby in circles wailing, "Motherfucker! Motherfucker!" This was his story, as best I could gather it (rated PG-13).

He was just sitting in the fuckin' deli next door with that Chinese motherfucker, chilling the fuck out and minding his own damn business, when some damn plastic bag sticks itself on his damn foot and he's just having a little fuckin' fun with it, y'know, jumpin' around just trying to kick it off, like a fuckin' ninja, FACK, when HE KICKED THROUGH AND SHATTERED THE FRONT DOOR TO THE DELI. And then that Chinese motherfucker wouldn't let him leave until he had paid damn 250 bucks for the door. I mean, he didn't even give a fuck, because he's on vacation and, what the fuck, y'know, he's just trying to have a good fuggin time, so wha's 250 bucks, y'know what he's sayin'? Bu'still, what a goddamn asshole, right? Motherfuggin GOOK!

I know it's been absolutely beautiful so far, but it ain't always pretty, folks.

Ill-considered Consequences.

One thing that the Broadway stagehands who are currently on strike declined to think about when they decided that they hated freedom was the effect they would have on the hospitality industry, in particular hospitality bloggers. This place has been something of a ghost town over the past few weekends. But there were a few interesting things that happened, which I will examine more minutely than they really deserve.

--There is one Spanish girl, cute, with that great accent but also a little bit of a unibrow, who asked me where she could get a tattoo and then left with some girlfriends for apparently just that reason, so I'll keep you up to date on that.

--Two good-natured, cute middle-aged women were quite insistent on me painstakingly providing them with directions on how to get to Times Square from the hotel. The answer to this question is simply "Walk to the end of the block" with a point of the finger to indicate which direction. Our conversation went as follows:

Me, pointing the way: "So just go out the hotel and walk down the street"
Bigger lady: "So how will we know when we're there"
Me: "Oh, I think you'll know. It's a bit hard to miss"
Smaller lady: "So we do need to turn left or right when we get there?"
Me: "No, I mean, the whole area is Times Square...it's a whole stretch of Broadway that runs from like 41st St. to like 48th St."
Bigger lady: "So how do we know we're going the right way?"
Me: "Just...follow the lights"
Smaller lady, confused: "Which..which lights?"
Me: "The brighter, the better,"
Smaller lady, meekly: "And which way out of the hotel?"

--Man, calling down from his room, "What's the number for B-B-Q (sic)?"

UPDATE: The Senorita returns.

Me: Will you show me your tattoo?
'Cita: Ohh, no, I didn't get it. I am going to get it tomorrrrow.
Me: What are you going to get?
'Cita: A sun, on my lowerr back.

Me (Both my accent and my attitude are about 50% me and 50% Zorro): How big will it be?
'Cita: Small, I think. She makes a circle with her thumb and forefinger. This is sexierr, I think.
Me, smiling and nodding so demurely it's like I don't even exist anymore. Yes, I think this is sexier.

'Cita, shifting into flirty general conversation: The barrrs they close so earrly in Amerrica. This is at 4:30 in the morning.
Me, with my head tilted, trying to appear simultaneously languid, as if it wouldn't worry me in the least if a predator were to approach, and poised to strike, should one do so: Well, it's not that early.

'Cita: In Mexico, the barrs don't close until 6 a.m. In New Jers E (sic), the barrrs neverr close.
Me, thrown utterly by this strange New Jersey reference: New Jersey?
'Cita: Si, New Jers E. Big parrty then."
Me: Oh, New Years Eve!"
'Cita: Yes, Yes.

She heads off to bed. "Good luck with your tattoo," I call out, rolling the 'r' as much as I can (but not enough to deserve a second 'r')

She smiles radiantly, and at that moment I hope she and her beautiful unibrow will come back so we can make out.

And, as they always do, she comes back. And as they always do, she simply asks for her key.

The Benevolent Old Vulture: Not so benevolent?

So, the BOV has pretty much been haunting my dreams lately. A lot to catch up on in regard to him.

First of all, I came in a few weeks ago during the week to get a little practice/suck up to the owner, and I found the BOV looking less like a decrepit vulture who likes Pearl Jam and more like a fancy penguin. He had on some decent pants and a shirt that might have been washed and what hair he has was slicked back. It was odd. Also, I heard him speak for the first time. And surprisingly, when he gets going, he kinda gets going. He gets a little animated. I think it's because he has this deep, sad knowledge that no one can really understand him. Partially, it's his basic English and unwieldy Polish accent, to a small degree it's the onset of dementia, and in part it's his absolutely adorable, wispy, reedy, old-man voice. Although I've never been able to look at him to determine his dental health, he sounds just like you'd expect an old person with no teeth to sound--reedy, wispy, undone by sibilant consonants.

But the joke, as it always will be with Death...er, the BOV, is on me. Every night, just when the hour seems longest, when even those most willful and revelrous have departed, I can hear the elevator shudder to life and I know without a doubt that he is coming. I hear the elevator's chime, it's pitch so gay and mocking in a world, a hotel lobby, where he and I must exist together. And now those doors, those panels--if only they were doors that one could lock!--are sliding back with a jolt, and now they have closed with equal clamor, but where is he? He has not appeared. From my guarded perch, I can observe all but a sliver of the gray marble lying before the elevator. Could he really be there? Must he be?

And then, after the seconds and the minutes have oozed agonizingly by, until one is sure that no living thing could wait so long or come so slowly, always, the BOV emerges. In my short time behind this desk, I have developed an uneasy toleration of his presence. I have learned to keep my head down, figuratively, as he literally keeps his head hunched over and shuffles ever forward toward the completion of his singular task.

But two weeks ago, as he padded across the hallway, the Vulture and I locked eyes. He stared deeply into me as he made his way across the lobby, refusing to release me from his gaze in the ninety seconds it took him to walk the length of the desk (that's about fifteen feet). There was death in the look that the BOV was giving me. I don't just mean that it was a look of malice, or that the BOV's wish was for me to drop dead, although there is a Baba Yaga / that old woman who got possessed by a snake in the last Harry Potter facet to him.. I mean that the transmission between us contained all the final and unyielding contradictions and paradoxes that end in death's terrible mystery.

Plus, then, that night, after I had engaged in some late night real politik in fact, I stepped onto the elevator on the 12h floor, an elevator that is mirrored on the ceiling and all four walls., and who should be there, for no apparent reason other than to stalk me until he has harvested my uncorrupted soul. He surrounds me, and I cannot escape.

And if I cannot escape him, must I become him?

Grrr...

Some lady, not really a human being if you go by any number of philosophical definitions, as I'm being besieged by Midwestern grandmothers who want their boarding passes printed, Midwestern grandmothers demanding i stop hiding their tour bus from them, Midwestern mothers who can't make it from 45th and 6th to 43rd and 6th, retching, in a fetid, Rosemary's-premature-baby-voice, to her husband, who has waited about 45 seconds to drop off his key at the desk:

"He can talk on the phone and take keys at the same time!"

Who were just at da Front Desk...der

A taller woman with a large head, glasses, a slight overbite, and a silver-gray bobbish haircut.
She's standing at the front desk for a second, then she picks up a map brochure and says blankly, "A city of the map," and then sort of just sits there as her lower lip falls millimeter by millimeter.

Her friend looks over amusedly. "You mean a map of the city?" A smile slowly draws over the woman's face, like she was remembering her kid who'd been in Vietnam that she'd forgotten. She reminded me a lot of the Allison Janney character in American Beauty.

Probably the single purest expression of dotage since I started working here at the Hotel Idiotica.

Special Guests

Verbatim from the notes to the reservation for a group of meatheads staying on the 11th floor, written by a mystery clerk:

"There are 3 to 4 guys in this room that tried to have 3 prostitutes up to the room. I stopped one prostitute and she announced that her friend was already in the room. Both were asked to leave by writer and they did.

"Later another prostitute arrived for the same room and another guy (who I hadn't seen) came down to the desk and was somewhat belligerent. I sent her away. Later he left the hotel and returned with what was the most unattractive of all the pros of the night and I refused entry to her as well."

I spent about twenty minutes trying to figure out who had written this, which sadly is the most sustained literary analysis I've undertaken since college. I didn't think it was the White Witch or Girl With the Name That Sounds Like a Columbia Dorm because their grasp of English grammar isn't that solid. The prose fits K's (Meet the Idiots feature to come) terse, straightforward manner of speaking, but there's a moralistic streak that's out of place; all K cares about is gettin' paid. And Joey, God bless his little soul, would probably either wring his hands and mutter "Meshuganah" to no one in particular, or just employ his prostitute expertise to take care of the situation instead of impotently writing about it, even though every one of the jocks on the 11th floor could probably play basketball with Joey.

(Soooooo much more to come about Joey at some point, all amazing stuff that you couldn't really make up of course. Joey is pretty much the only other person besides the Porter who knows that this blog exists, so he is a small threat, even though he apparently doesn't actually know how to use the Internet {tutorial given by Porter: click "Firefox"--good job, Porter}. But you're not a snitch, are you Joey?)

Yusuf has had to go deliver a cot to the room in question. When he gets back, I ask him if he knows anything about this situation. He grumbles and shakes his head in disgust. "The man last night. He not gonna let the customers enjoy deir girls."

"You mean John Hernandez?" I ask.

"Yes," Yusuf nods, "They invite their friends over and he say, 'No fuckin' way, you canna come here at 2 in the morning,'

"Well, were there friends hookers?" I asked. I don't think he'd ever heard that term. "Prostitutes?"

"Psssh, no!" Yusuf said dismissively, "they just guys callin' they friends. They pay for they room, why we care who they take up there. Those guys was pissed! All they want they girls and John gotta be a asshole! This is not how treat the customer!"

Now here's where it gets good. "This all they want, " Yusuf says. He then extends his hands out as if to grip on to something firm and smooth, thrusts his hips rapidly back and forth and cries, "Guba guba guba guba guba guba guba!"

I ask him to do that again and he obliges.

Priceless

Ambiguously Asian messenger person comes in at about 10:30 to deliver some papers to the Boss Lady. They talk for a few minutes, even though I'm pretty sure neither of them could understand the other.

After the messenger leaves, the Boss turns to Yusuf and asks, "Mongolian?"
Yusuf shakes his head and says, "I don't think so, Mami"

"Mexican?" she wonders

Readers who got in on the ground floor will remember how I suspected that the Boss Lady referred to all Asians as Mongolians, because that's how she described the three Asian people who work here. But then it turned out that those three people were actually from Mongolia.

Needless to say, I'm more than a little pleased by this (re)development.

Not a Closet Banya Fan

There was a man at the hotel last weekend. He was fairly nondescript--shorter, brown hair, round head--and he wore a black cowboy hat. He wore that black cowboy hat all weekend. The other thing he did all weekend was make incredibly hackneyed, semantic ontological jokes. He reminded me a lot of that character in Airplane!, the assistant in the control tower who just prances around shouting completely inane things (according to IMDB, he's "Johnny," and in Airplane II he's "Controller Jacobs," so my hypothesis is that the character's name is Johnny Jacobs. Real life: the late Stephen Stucker). He actually looked a lot like him, too.

When he first came in on Saturday night, I complemented him on his hat. This was a mistake, because evidently it gave him license to say things that no one should ever say. Sometimes, being warm and kind to everyone really comes back to bite you in the ass.

Anyway, he comes in on Saturday, and asks for the key to room number, I dunno, 1313. He asks kind of gruffly, so tell him I like his hat, because I like it when people do things gruffly. Immediately, his face lights up like it's his first big number on Broadway. "Oh my God, wow!, are you like a fortune teller or something??" He's referring, obnoxiously, to the fact that I didn't check who he was before handing him his room key. I say, "nope," and grimace a little.

The next morning, after I've been standing behind a desk listening to Lucinda Williams for 11 hours, he comes downstairs. He seems shocked and frightened. "There was a stranger in my bed last night!" Pause. "It was me!" Then he giggled uncontrollably.

That night, I'm talking to a young lady circa one in the morning (I used the 'Let the terrorists win' gambit), when the cowpoke comes rollin' in. Sadly, he only manages to lamely recycle last night's non-sequitur: "There's some hot guy in my room!...Me," he yelps, wiggling his chest.

I expected better of you, Mr. Lame Semantic Ontological Joke Man.

Meet the Idiots: John Hernandez

John Hernandez is my doppelganger, my mummudrai, my secret sharer. He works the night shift during the week, Monday through Friday. He is a bald, white, egg-shaped gay man with a goatee. For all you politicos out there he bears (get it?) a striking resemblance to Andrew Sullivan.

I first met John Hernandez a few weeks ago, when I came in one night to talk business with the Boss Lady. She wasn't there, unfortunately, but John was, with Yusuf, who was overjoyed to see me. John thought that I was there to pick his brain about the fiendishly technical skills that you only pick up after a decade in The Game (just kidding, we don't actually call it "The Game")

So I asked him some question or another, refunding credit cards or something. This is how he answered: "My first rule for the hospitality industry is right there in the name: You have to be hospitable to the guests."

John then proceeded to just talk and talk and talk some more about all aspects of hospitality-industrial complex, and especially about the grave responsibilities of the night-watchman, the last line of defense between our fair-eyed virgin guests and the Visigoths who could overrun the lobby at anytime.

I quickly learned that John was very serious about his job, and that by "hospitality" he meant interrogating every guest who didn't check in with him about whether their intentions were noble, or did they not plan on raping the guests and stealing their money?

I stood with John for about 15 minutes on a weekday night around 11:00. During that time, he stopped every single person, maybe 50 people, and asked them to state their business.

The hotel has a policy of keeping all the keys, which are actual keys, at the front desk when guests go out. So anytime a guest would go out without dropping off the key, or come in without stopping to pick up their key at the desk (meaning that they didn't drop it off when they left), John would make them stop and tell them the following:

"Excuse me, sir/ma'am. They may not have told you about this when you checked in, and that's our fault, I apologize, but this is a European-style hotel, which means that there's only one key per room, so you absolutely have to leave the key with us when you go out. No exceptions, okay?" He gave this speech 11 different times in the 15 minutes I was there.

Three or four times he stopped people who came into the hotel as friends of the guests and wouldn't let them go up with the guests until they had given him their names to be put on the guest list, no matter how large the group. When I asked him whether this was necessary, he said, "Oh, yeah! You've got to know every single person that's in the hotel. What if there's a crime?' He paused for a moment. "Or what if there's a fire and the fireman just pull out a bunch of charred bodies?" He laughed a little to himself at this.

At some point, while he was telling a customer why she couldn't take her key outside even though she was just going to smoke a cigarette, the phone rang and I picked it up. It was a woman calling for her husband from India. After I looked up her husband's name to find out his room number I told the wife that, for future reference, her husband was in room 7--. After he finished dressing down the guest, John looked at me.

"You never give out a guest's room number, to anyone," he said soberly. "One time a woman came to a hotel I used to work at after she left her husband. The husband found out where she was staying, called the hotel and got her room number, and then came to the hotel and beat her to death."

I would like to personally thank John Hernandez for running the Hotel Idiotica so competently while I am gone during the week. But I just want to reassure all the criminals, vagabonds, and general vendetta artists that the Hotel Idiotica on the weekends is still a place where you be benignly ignored.

Diplomacy

We get a fair number of diplomats here at the hotel, mostly from the 3rd world, and particularly African countries. I've already told you about the Burkina Fasan smooves, but we also get a lot of business from Gabon, Angola, and Rwanda. We also host a sizable number of Mongolians, because a decent percentage of the population of Mongolia works at this hotel.

This week, some Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good, the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation, is sponsoring a conference to end global bad things, and they're putting up a number of the delegates right here in the cozy confines of the Hotel Idiotica. I'm really excited because it'll really give me a chance to show everyone that I should really be running State or Defense in this country, not stuck behind the desk of some roach motel for snaggletooth retards. And there's nothing I love more than an opportunity to prove myself.

Things started off well when a pair of Kenyans checked in early in the morning. One of them was a tall, thin, quiet man with a very small head, and the other was shorter with glasses and spoke seriously but with a glimmer in his eye. As I was helping them with their luggage, I asked them where they were from.
"Kenya, in East Africa," the shorter one said.
"I know where Kenya is," I responded, a little too smartly, and then I just sort of blurted out all the things I knew of Kenya. Mau Mau. Kikuyu. Great Rift Valley. Lake Victoria. Kenyatta. Mind you, I wasn't talking about these things, I was just listing the things I knew existed in Kenya. I closed by asking if they were from Nairobi.

This didn't exactly rub them the right way, but I made up for it by letting the short one use my cell-phone and asking them about the conference. It seemed to be about how the United Nations can be more effective in smaller, poorer countries, and how those countries can be more of an influence on the UN. That night, they seemed genuinely excited to see me again.

By midnight, only one delegate hadn't yet checked in. She finally arrives an hour later, with her mother, and she is beautiful. She's probably just this side of thirty, and the physical lines of adulthood are just starting to form on her face, but she carries herself easily and her eyes are full of humor. She seems really glad and relieved to be here, and she has a wide and relaxed smile and we banter a little bit, and, wow, is it just me or is she laughing a lot, and being reeeaally friendly? Also, she's Spanish, so she has the sexiest accent in the world.

I ask her about the conference. "You guys have a lot of work to do. The world has a lot of problems," I say ruefully, shaking my head with mock resign. I am using my pan-Hispanic accent.

She laughs, a wonderful laugh, then says something about the goodness of the wave of left-wing governments in Latin America (although Chavez is a bit much). I throw something out there about Bolivia (seriously, I just sort of waggle my head and say "Bolivia") and then play the only other plotline I've mined from the papers about South America: "How 'bout those lady Presidents?"

She finally goes up to her room (of course it hasn't really been very long), but only a few minutes pass before she comes back down. I don't think I'm exaggerating in describing her movement from the elevator to the front desk as a sort of "slinking."

"Hello, again," she says, laughing, "We are having some difficulties with our door."

The ride up in the elevator. How does one act widely read, wry, and sexy all at the same time?

When we arrive at her room the door is already open. The possible implications of this don't strike me at the time. And sure enough, her mother peeks out from behind the door.

"Will we have these problems with the door the whole time?" wonders the diplomatrix.

"Here let me show you some tips," I say. I insert the key into the lock and cup the knob (I know, I can't believe that sentence either). "You have to have that special touch." I look up at her and smile shyly as I jiggle the knob (look, that's what you do with doorknobs). "You have to be gentle with it, treat it like a work of art." ''

After I wish her a heartfelt good night, it's not until I'm halfway to the elevator that I realize what I wanted to say: "You have to treat it like a beautiful woman." I wonder if she would be glad I didn't say that. Probably so, since her old mother was standing just a few feet away.

So perhaps my diplomatic skills aren't best suited to the quotidian humdrum of policy analysis. I think a general ambassador for global good will might be more appropriate. Hopefully I'll be able to discuss it with the diplomat next weekend, when her stupid Mom will be gone!

We must all do our part

When I'm here by myself on Sunday nights, sometimes people will come down to the desk to request things like pillows, blankets, a plunger, etc. On Saturdays, Yusuf takes care of those kinds of things, but on Sundays I have to go down to the basement and get them myself. Since I'm the only person working at the hotel at that time, a lot of times there's this sort of unspoken question in the air around the guest, something like, "Is he really gonna leave me here alone beside this mysterious font of all the hotel's power, the front desk?"

So I usually try to alleviate the tension by calling something out to them as I'm loafing off to the basement. For a while, it was, "Try not to rob the place blind!" When I was real tired or if the supplicant was a bastard, it was just a gruff, "hold the fort down" Sometimes, I'd ask them to "take over or a few minutes, will ya?"

But the last few weekends, I've come up with a go-to routine. First I tell them something like, "Keep an eye out for bad guys, eh?" Then, after they tell me, "I'll try," or, "I'll do my best," I call out to them, echoing from the stairwell, "Don't let the terrorists win!"

I think maybe it works for me so well because, really, this is the only situation that the phrase hasn't been used for yet.

True or False?

It is healthier to guzzle a whole liter of Sunkist in under an hour because the sugar has less prolonged contact with your teeth. I say true.

Meet the Idiots: Yusuf

Yusuf is the man who works with me as a security guard/handy man on the Saturday night shift. He is about 50 years old, although he could pass for anytime in his 40s. He came over here 17 years ago from Guinea, a country in West Africa (there are like 4 different Guineas; if you look on the map, his is the one that isn't really tiny). He has five daughters, all of whom are under ten, here in New York with his wife, who works as an African hair-braider in Harlem. He has another daughter who is older, maybe 17, in Guinea. I'm not sure if she has the same mother. In fact, from what I gather, Yusuf only learned of her existence, or that she was not dead, or something, shortly before he met me. He works every night of the week except Sunday, from 9 until 5 in the morning, although I encourage him to leave much earlier when he's working with me.

Yusuf is an ebullient, ebullient bear of a man. On Sundays, I really miss him. All the time, he is telling me these completely random things about himself. For instance, for a long time he says he played on the Guinean national soccer team. When I asked him what position he played, he said, "7, 8, or 9." which I eventually gathered meant midfield. Last night, I found out he was actually born in Sierra Leone, and that when he was younger, I'm not exactly sure how young, he worked for his father panning for diamonds. He was the one who had to watch all the other workers to make sure they didn't hide the diamonds under their tongues. Also, his name is not really Yusuf. I don't mean that in the sense that Yusuf is a pseudonym, though it is, albeit not a very good one. I mean when he came to this country he chose a random common name that he thought would be more palatable. Obviously that's not that weird. What's weird is that the name he used to go by is Ibrahim, but for some reason, he decided not to just switch it to Abraham. And then he got a little fussy when I started calling him Ibrahim.

Yusuf has a tendency to try and extrapolate larger meanings from all of the random stories he tells me, and these are a bit more hit or miss. I think about half of his wisdom gets lost in translation (English is his fourth or fifth language), and half gets lost in the gap between someone who grew up having to worry about blood diamonds and someone who grew up going to play four-square at the pool. And the other half goes into elocutions like the following: "The Indians and the Muslims [by which he meant Pakistanis; the two ethnic groups work at rival delis nearby], mami, they hate each other, Oh mygod! And all the Indians, they have the towels on the heads, and they see a cow, whoop!"

A Muslim himself, once or twice a night Yusuf finds a secluded room in order to say his prayers. Once or twice a night, he goes outside to smoke a cigarette. He spends most of the rest of the time prowling between the basement, where he sometimes does his laundry, and the stoop outside, where he yuks it up with the local deli-wallahs, and the back room, where he just sort of lies on the couch.

I feel like a lot of Yusuf's interaction with me is a bit forced. He vaguely refers to me as the boss--I can't tell if he's joking or not--and while I don't think he's trying to impress or please me per se, I do think he wants me to like him, maybe just on a personal level. A lot of the definitive observations he delivers are just bland rewordings of what someone else just said, and I would say that about half the time he's laughing, he's faking it (He has a fantastic hyena laugh, though). But he really is the only one who understands the true depravity, in one way or another, of everyone who works here, and we really do share some belly laughs at the riff and the chaff that straggle in here in the wee hours of th morning.

And once in a great while he will totally move me. Usually when he's just talking about his life, unassumingly, without trying to think of something grander. Like tonight, when he just said resignedly, "My life here is no good. I work and I work again, and then I sleep. And then I work again. How can there be nothing else?" I only recently found out that his position at the Hotel Idiotica, where he works 6 nights a week for 7 hours a night, is only his second job. During the day, he works at a factory, making...I still can't believe it, the stuff that appears on this web site: www.jeremysplace.com. Novelty food items. Fake poop. Fake vomit. Plastic ice cream sundaes. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Lately, Yusuf and I have been bonding over the universal language: guitar licks. I get through the night by playing music on the computer and while its usually bluegrass or the newest Scandinavian indie rocker, one night I decided to blast some Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Yusuf runs up to me with wide eyes, I can tell he's being serious, "Oh MyGod! What is this? I love this!" Then he mimics shredding an ax for a while. He made me play all the Neil Young guitar songs I could think of, so I played "Cowgirl in the Sand," "Like a Hurricane," "Rockin' in the Free World," "Cortez the Killer," et al., for about two hours, while Yusuf lay back on the couch with his eyes closed. Before he left, Yusuf made me promise to bring him all the rock and roll I could think of next weekend. Yusuf loves Neil Young, Guns n' Roses, Led Zeppelin, and Allman Brothers with Duane. He's not so high on Stevie Ray Vaughn, Allman Brothers with Dickey Betts, or Talking Heads (actually, I'm just not that high on The Talking Heads).

To conclude, I like Yusuf.

Back in the Saddle

Dear Readers,

A thousand million apologies for the dereliction of duty here at the Hotel Idiotica over the past few weeks. I know it's been slim pickin's as far as posts are concerned. Part of that is due to a yawn-inducing tale of intrigue and deception and one young person's quest for meaning that combines the absolute worst of Le Carre, Richard Bach, and Office Space. Also, there was something of a pregnancy scare. But all that in good time.

But the heart of the matter, and this is not very hard at all for me to say, is that I'm just not very dependable. And while it's true, and I hope this is the case with me, that artists are moody and temperamental and can't really be counted on, these qualities apply equally to malingers and general layabouts. Basically, I'm saying that this is the kind of behavior you should expect from a feckless human who refuses to bow before the twin idols of Morgan Stanley and Teach for America. And I'm not gonna apologize for it (except for the thousand million above). Basically, I occupy my time about as well as the United States occupies Iraq, and unfortunately I don't expect that to change until well into the next presidential term.

But that doesn't mean I can just pack up and go home. I'm here and I have a job to do. I have a mission to bring you all the banal zaniness that the Hotel Idiotica is known for. And can you imagine the carnage that would ensue if this blog were absent from your lives?

So we'll be coming at you, live, raw, and totally insensitively, building up to a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT in about two weeks. What could it be? More staff here at the Idioteque? The grand opening of the Idiexotica, the official brothel of the Hotel Idiotica? And how could I be pregnant? All will be revealed, TWO WEEKENDS post-hence. In the meantime, bite down on your pillows.

Leftovers

Last night, around midnight, a brunette woman whose face I remember as square and featureless, approaches me quite directly, pointing to one of a long list of what appear to be all the yarn stores in the Tri-state area. "Is this close?" she asks bluntly, pointing to an address that clearly says STATEN ISLAND. I gently tell her no, that she could take the ferry and then wander around for hours, but maybe she should try this one, on 34th street. Her eyes light up a little. "Ooh, is that near Macy's? How do I get there from Macy's?" I try to tell her that I don't know the exact address of Macy's, but maybe when she gets down to 34th st., she'll be able to read the address numbers and figure out which direction to go. She doesn't want to hear this, and tries to make things more confusing. "So do I go left or right from Macy's?" Finally, I just look up the address for Macy's. Then I try to explain to her that since the address for the sewing store on 34th st. is lower than the address for Macy's that means it's closer to 5th Ave, to the middle of the island. I can tell she feels pleased to be privy to this bit of insider info, even though I know, from experience, that she doesn't understand it, and she sort of wanders off to bed.

Fast forward to the morning, 10 am, who knows why I'm still here, when the woman comes in off the street (somehow I don't remember her leaving), and abruptly asks,"How do I get to 12th Avenue and Chinatown?" I'm totally loopy at this point, so I can't quite stop myself from laughing in her face and I loudly make one of those laugh-catching sounds.

After I understandingly tell her why that's impossible, she gets out a napkin and pen and says, "Okay, one last thing." She draws a dot on the napkin. "Here's Macy's. How do I get to the yarn store?"

When it's better to hold your tongue...

When a very large, very bald, and very grumpy man comes downstairs at 5:30 in the morning asking for a hairdryer.

Who's at the hotel?

A guy who's a dead ringer for the Johny Cakes guy from the last season of the Sopranos. Slightly thicker build, but same Fu Manchu mustache. Last night, he was wearing jeans with a chain in the back pocket and a cut-off jean shirt with a red sheriff star sewn on the front pocket. I don't know why I'm telling you this.

Also, I've been thinking about it a little more, and I'm about 5 % sure that that girl from last night actually was Blair from Gossip Girl

New Development

So the Benevolent Old Vulture just came in to the hotel to pick up the trash, which is strange because I've only seen him come down from somewhere, and he certainly hasn't come down since I've been here tonight, which means he's been outside doing something for at least four hours, and, no matter what that something is, it's probably unhealthy for a man in his condition.

Be careful, Benevolent Old Vulture! You have a home now, you don't have to scavenge!

"Is there Hate in my room?"

That is what a woman just called down to ask me. I've been having a really tough night. Mostly because I suddenly have gotten sick and it feels like there's a sandbag inside my head. I even drank some of that POM stuff, which I hate on principle, in hopes that the "antioxidants" would help, whatever they are. Also, the genius/total asshole who runs this hotel decided that, effective immediately, absolutely no one, even the people who have been coming here for 15 years, would be getting a discount rate. So I get to be cruel, and I get to get yelled at, justifiably, by jilted customers. And I hate to admit this, but I've been having the slightest, creeping doubts about the ultimate redeeming power of love. So yes, ma'am, it's possible there is Hate in your room tonight. What's that? Ohhh, heat. Heat, oh, yes, I'll get right on that, ma'am.


UPDATE: OMG, Hallelujah, Love is all you need, not thirty seconds after my whiny, why-won't-the-world-just-take-a-dive complainathon, a homely, older Scottish couple comes in with some balloons. "Birthday?" I inquire. "Our son, " the woman confirms evenly. The man looks me over a bit, and then sort of nudges his wife. She looks at me more closely, then softens up a bit. "Would you like a piece of cake?" she asks gently, and hands over a slab of decadent (and undoubtedly expensive) chocolate cake. I totally melt and thank them profusely and tell them it was exactly what I needed and my expression makes it clear that I mean that on a number of levels, and they seem rather pleased to have been able to make me so pleased.

Just then another lady's leaving the hotel and she gives me a really sympathetic look and asks if I want coffee and then tells me to "hang in there,' which I appreciate even if it is totally meaningless. Another older man who looked a little bit like Brian Cox comes in and give me a roguish wink.

Damn you, Jesus! Just when I think I've gotten out, you pull me back in !

Chateau Idiotica

Big News: The Polish band Lady Pank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Pank , www.lady-pank.pl , for Polish readers) is staying at the hotel tonight. I'm really really hoping they'll go nuts and stick a shark into a woman's vagina, or choke on each other's vomit or something, but they seem to be pretty calm

Spotted

Easily the most amazing piece of clothing ever to grace this establishment. Middle-aged woman, looked a little bit like Joan Cusack with glasses, wearing a somewhat faded sweater, possibly crocheted or macramed or something so that the stitches seemed rather large, that was absolutely overwhelmed by the majestic head of a bald eagle. I only caught sight of it as she was leaving in the hotel, but luckily she came back to ask a question. While she was saying whatever it was she was talking about, I studied the garment more closely. The front of the sweater, buttoned, would have held an equally discolored close-up of Lady Liberty. The sleeves were comprised of a rather confused stars and stripes motif. I expressed admiration for her plucky, unwavering sweater. She thanked me, and proceeded to tell the story of that little sweater all the way from it's birth in her friend's shop in rural Ohio until she unwrapped it under the Christmas Tree all those years ago. Her husband knew just what she liked!

As she left, I heard an old man, sitting with a woman whom I couldn't peg between his wife and his daughter, murmur, "That was a nice sweater"

Live transcript

of a conversation between the students of the aforementioned group of kids. It turns out that they are from Montreal, from something called Dawson College. Apparently college in Canada is something different than it is here, like a bridge between High School and University. Apparently they are all 18, and I am the coolest front desk man evar.

Anyway, a live listen-in:

Girl: "Oh my God. I can't believe we can't drink here.....blah blah blah blah but we got to stand up on the bar and do shots, it was fuckinawesome"

...

Girl A, on her way into the elevator, "Ok guys, get excited, tomorrow we get to go to Century..."
Girl B: "No, Forever 21"
Guy, looking like he's in Menudo, "No, Central Park"

Hopefully this isn't the last we've heard from this Canadian collective, a la The New Pornographers or Broken Social Scene, only the exact opposite.

Getting old...and creepy

So my buddy Yusuf tells me that there are "sooooo many" kids in the hotel tonight. "Like fifty!" he tells me. "But not little. Like 12 or 13 or something. Maybe 15. From a school"

"Not 18," he adds in an even tone.

About an hour later a cute brunette comes up to the desk. I open my mouth to tell her, "You look just like Blair on Gossip Girl," before I think about it and realize this would be a bad idea on a number of levels.

~~~~~

About twenty minutes later, some kids are taking pictures of themselves playing on the luggage trolley. They ask me to take pictures of all of them, and as I'm doing so, one of them makes sure to tell me that they're only doing this because they're bored because they're only twenty, so they can't drink here, implying some foreign origins. From their complexions and accents, I would guess Turkey.

Question: What does it say about me that the first thing that popped into my head was, "Hmm... maybe I could go buy beer for those kids"?

Bangers, Mash, Haggis, and Coddle

I hesitate to even type this in light of last week's Hasidic riot here at the Hotel Idiotica, but a stream of people from the British Isles just came in, and, so help me God, all the English had terrible teeth, the Irishwoman's breath absolutely reeked of Bailey's, and the Scotsman was tall and brooding, requesting room "Sheven Oh Sheven."

I'm just reporting the facts, not making any general statements about ethnic groups (even though, I mean, come on). But if you think this blog is racist and not a safe space, please write an angry comment. And tell all your friends to come write angry comments, too!

Confession/Warning

So I consider myself a good person and by the grace of God I try to make every day a good day where I am nice to people and do what is right for its own sake. But if you leave a postcard to be mailed at the front desk, I'm sorry but I am going to read it and post some of the interesting parts of it on this blog.

Seems like these two postcards are from a couple with interesting nicknames, to whom I'm going to show a modicum of restraint and refrain from publishing said nicknames, to their children in Kansas. One is to the daughter and very heartfeltly recalls a previous trip to New York, the other is to the son and a bit more perfunctorily mentions going to see Joel Osteen (whose syrupy anecdotes could sell salvation to the Lord himself).

Important: New euphamism for having sex; if you use this euphamism, more people will think you are cool and probably have sex with you.

Smash. This is the new lingo for young people.

Young Hispanic guy, wearing a green and gold letter-jacketish coat with Spanish lettering, trying really hard to be 18, comes in with his shortie, a small girl with auburn-gold hair, and a face that didn't seem to have any lines whatsoever on it, so that it looked like her head was covered in lip gloss.

"Any rooms?" she wonders with a stupid grin.

I'm about to say no, when the boy, quietly yet enthusiastically and forcefully, bangs his fists on the counter and says, "I wanna smash!"

The girl protests and bodychecks him a little, but gives him a look that says, "God, I hope we smash/ he smashes me tonight" (I'm not quite sure of the grammar).

Alas, once again, no rooms.

The girl huffs and puffs, "This is the second hotel we've tried." I suggest a direction where they might find a number of hotels for smashing. "Nah-uh," she declares emphatically, "We ain't going back that way," that way being in the direction of Times Square where all the hotels are.

It's a cold, cold world out there, folks, and none of us knows what tomorrow will bring, so if you've got someone you love out there, remember to smash them tonight.

Also, if anybody wants to smash, you know where to find me.

Marathon Man

Sloooow night, tonight. First incident of note, 11:54 p.m. Sweaty, disheveled, fat man in a white t-shirt comes in breathing quite hard. He is fairly wide, but he has an even more markedly protruding gut. He seems somewhat in shock. He hands me a note with the name and address of the Hotel Idiotica scrawled on it.

"I just walked from the last hotel I tried," he gasps. "All the way from Madison Square Garden!" He bends over with his hands on his knees for a bit, then rests his forearms on the front desk ledge. He seems to take it as a general affront to decency that he has been required to walk that far.

Unfortunately/fortunately, I have to tell this man the same thing I have already told a number of far more athletic/realistic people tonight, namely that we are out of rooms.

The fat man looks at me as if I've just opened the door to the courtyard where he will be court-martialed via firing squad. "From Madison Square Garden," he pleads.

"You could try this place a couple blocks up, " I volunteer and hand him a card, "Or about 100 other places in Times Square"

"How far is that?" he demands; he steels himself for a moment after I tell him it's two blocks.

"I walked from Madison Square Garden," he reminds me one last time before he turns to leave. Now usually when someone looks for recognition from me for their Herculean labors of touristry, like watching TWO Broadway shows back-to-back, or shopping at Macy's AND Barney's in one day, I manage to project a genuine sense of awe, and that's what I'm expecting to do this time, but when I dig deep for my indulgent smile, I find that it's just not there.

"That's really something, " I say to him as he leans expectantly over the counter, in a voice that's so empty I even surprise myself. Then, back to my usual saccharine goodness, "Bye-bye now!"

Anti-climax

So the moral proctor from last night called back tonight around midnight, said that he wasn't gonna be able to make it tonight. Sounded a little chagrined. He had me fix up some reservations for him. Told me he'd give me weed for helping him out. "Just doing my job," I said.

Meet the Idiots: The Benevolent Old Vulture

Ok, so this post is truly a live-blog. Every morning, at around half past three, an old, bald, hunched-over man, shuffles veeery sloooowly across the lobby to get the trash from behind the desk. In profile, he looks a lot like a vulture, what with his bald head and his protruding probiscis. But he's not leering or scavenging. He's like that old vulture in that kid's book with the lion. And not like the Spiderman villain The Vulture in temperament, even though he looks just like him.

He's shuffling across the lobby as I type. OK, now he's behind me, emptying out the trash. He almost always wears a flannel shirt. Tonight it's light brown and dark green plaid. I think it was last night, too. Last night, he actually didn't come down until about 6:30. I was getting really worried. But when he finally did come down, he had on a black pullover hat (these are called TOBOGGANS. Back me up, people from the South). I guess it took him an extra 2 and a half hours to put the black hat on. I feel pretty bad saying that. He's something of a pathetic figure. Apparently, he came over from Poland a long time ago (maybe the Boss Lady knows him or something), and now he lives here at the hotel, maybe gratis, in exchange for taking out the lobby trash in the wee hours of the morning (I don't know why he does it at this hour). Now he's dragging the trash bags backward through the hotel door an inch at a time.

My first night here, he came down, and I had no idea who he was. As he (the exact opposite of) barreled around the counter toward the trash can, I tried to ask what he was doing. I thought he was just a crazy guest. I thought about blocking the trash can. Then I tried to get him to let me handle it. But the whole time, he was giving me the most pleading, pitiable look that said, "Please, just let me do this." So I let him. This man is old. Frankly, I'm kind of scared to look at him now.

Further surveillance reveals that he's now outside, cleaning out the street gutters. And now he's shuffling back across the lobby, to the elevator, and...to where exactly?

See you next Saturday, Benevolent Old Vulture Man

Who Just Came Into the Hotel?

Three young, very stylish diplomats from Burkina Faso check in around midnight. One of them is wearing a columbia blue blazer with matching pinstripe shirt. very slick. All three of them are exceptionally good looking. They work at the UN. I'm going to ask them how old they are. I wonder which one my dad would think is better, diplomat or hospitality industry blogger?

One of the guys was really nice. His name was Winfred. I talked to him a little bit about Burkino Fasan history (pretty much just about how it used to be called Upper Volta), and he told me that Burkina Faso means "Land of Honest People." I really liked that a lot. He gave me several hundred dollars in cash to pay for the room, and when the count was right he said to me, "See? Honest people!"

When they came back down from their room, Winfred asked me for my name, which he wrote down on a card, so he's either going to say good things about me or complain that I'm a colonialist. The man in the dapper jacket, who's a dead ringer for a young Avon Barksdale, totally called me out on how I speak English weird to foreigners. I tend to do a lot of shrugging and head-cocking and even a little momentarily closing my eyes and jutting out my jaw to mull things when I'm talking in my pan-accented English. Avon leaned over the counter and, a little mischievously, a little menacingly, demanded, "Why you talk like that?!?"

Also, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit from drinking too much Sunkist too fast (A liter in about half an hour).

Wake-up Calls?

Here's your weekly Monday morning wake up call thread. I promise I'll be very gentle, and I'm d/d free. You won't be contracting any cases of the Mondays from me. So leave your name and the time you'd like me to wake you up. If you want a song-a-gram, I'll do that, too!

I'm not chicken, you're a turkey!

One thing I forgot to note from last night:

Wiry, light-skinned African-American guy comes in to the lobby, wanders around a few seconds, then leaves. I don't think much of it because this guy's a real regular; he's here pretty much every weekend, and apparently, he's been coming here for the better part of a decade. He owns or works at a restaurant nearby.

Usually, he'll just bark at me to "Wake up!" on his way out the door, but sometimes he'll even ask me if I want a cup of coffee or anything. Last night, though, he comes back in about half an hour after he puttered about before, and he's just reeking of alcohol and cigarettes. And in a way that confirms my suspicions that he has some kind of drug problem. He's just too slick. He looks around for a second (I think he had waited until Yusuf went downstairs to get something), then approaches the desk and says something like,

"Hey, man, hey, you remember me?" I nod. "Brad, right?" I correct him. "Hey listen, man, I've been coming here awhile, and me and some of the guys had a little deal where I'd come in late and if there was a dirty room where someone had already checked out, I'd slip 'em 20-30 dollars and they'd let me sleep there til 7 in the morning [an hour before my shift ends]. Whatchu think about that?"

I try to appear noncommittal: "Hmm, I dunno man. Let me check and see if we even got any dirty rooms." I'm stalling, so I go over to the drawer where we keep the keys to dirty rooms, positioning myself so that he can't see what's in there. Thankfully, we actually don't have any dirty rooms.

"Hey, sorry man," I drawl and empathize, "but we just don't got any rooms. I'd probably help you out, but there's no dirty rooms." His eyes turn down for an instant, but he seems resigned to this.
"Yeah," he says, "y'know I got an apartment, but the hot water's out 'til Monday." He flinches just the tiniest bit, so he could be lying, or then again it could just be a coke side effect. He sighs for a second. Then he starts talking about something, just drunken prattling for ten minutes or so (this is not uncommon). Finally he cuts to it: "Y'know, I'll just tell you, I ain't gonna wanna stay at my place tomorrow night. So if I come by tomorrow night, you think you might have a dirty room for me? I can bring you some money, a hot meal, whatever man."

I shrug. "I dunno, man, 'm not sure if we'll have anything or not." There was probably a little more "let's do business" than "you're fucked" in that shrug, but I can't be sure how he took it, or if he even remembers the conversation.

Finally he turns to go, but then he stops a few feet from the door and turns back. "You puff?" he asks. This genuinely throws me. There have probably been five times in my life where someone completely unexpectedly asks me to smoke weed, and I always respond like I'm in middle school.

I stutter for a few seconds, then manage, lamely, "Which one?" He looks at me like I'm a little slow. "Weed," he says, and pulls out a small, cerulean piece, holding it close to his chest. After I nod uncomfortably, he motions outside. "You wanna hit?" Now I'm buggin' a little, and I say I can't, not on the job. He says c'mon, its no big deal, it's not gonna mess with your job or anything. At this point, I step back and try to be dignified and mutter something about "lacking the confidence." He shrugs,"Aight, man. See you tomorrow."

Well, good reader, who could have known that your stay at the Hotel Idiotica would be so fraught with ethical trials? Will our hero follow the path of righteousness? Or stumble through the wilderness of intoxication and, um, usury? Be sure to tune in tomorrow for the dramatic conclusion! Or influence my behavior by telling me what I should do in the comments section!