The Tipping Point

Familiar readers will know how much I LOV talking about Malcom Gladwell and "punctuated equilibriums" and other really not-obvious things, but its rare when you get to experience one of those moments in the first person.

To wit:

At about 2 in the morning, young woman calls down from room 911 requesting extra bedsheets. There have already been a few inquiries regarding the whereabouts of the key to room 911 (All rooms at the Hotel Idiotica have physical keys, not keycards, that are supposed to be left at the front desk when a guest leaves the hotel), so I know that room 911 is occupied by an attractive blonde with stringy (crimped?) hair, and a sallow face (but in a good way somehow), as well as her two less attractive but still cute and vivacious young lady-friends.

Now since I'm the only staff here on Sunday nights (on Saturdays there's also a security guard), I'm really not supposed to leave the desk. Also, I was feeling pretty beat up and pretty much just wanted to stare blankly at the computer screen. So I told her if she could come down to the desk I could fetch some sheets from the basement.

She protested, and I was about ready to tell her she could freeze to death. But then she pleaded one last time really animatedly could I pleeeeeeaaaaase come up, and I heard her friends giggling in the background.

In this instance, the giggling was the tipping point. This faint background noise led to seismic shifts in torpor, disillusionment, and infecundity.

I'll be right up.

(As you can probably guess, this was also, sadly, the Dr. Scholl's Blueballs Moment of the Weekend)