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.