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!