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.