Photo Shoot

My night bellman got a new cell phone recently, but lost a lot of his old contacts, so when he tried to find the number of a cab driver friend of his to pick up one of our guests he got a wrong number. The girl who answered the phone was a young woman who was out clubbing and they ended up having a conversation. After exchanging names, they arranged to have my guy call her back tomorrow afternoon. I overheard the exchange and joked that I was surprised that he didn't try to get a cell phone picture. Well, she called him back and wanted to know how old he was. He said forty five, but that he doesn't look it. I agree, he could be a fresh forty two. Even though he is 250% older than he is, she wanted him to send her a picture because he "sounds good". Well, ok then.

He asked me to help take the picture and to let him borrow my grey suit jacket because he didn't want the picture taken of his work issued purple suit and most heinous tie. For a good half hour we worked on the lighting and different poses through out the lobby until he found one he liked enough to send. This is not exactly what I expected to be doing tonight. Turns out he cant send the picture out tonight due to his service, so will have to wait tomorrow. Let's just hope she is sober enough to remember who he is when she wakes up and gets it.

The whole thing amused me to no end. Even if I was single and ever wanted to meet someone this way, it would never work. My assumption that the correct response would be to over apologise for calling the wrong number so late and hang up quickly. If the girl wanted to continue to talk to me, I would feel obligied to warn the dangers of such meetings. I am, however, going to start telling everyone that this is how my girlfriend and I met.

Services

"What kind of late night services does your hotel offer?"

"Uh, I guess that depends. What are you looking for?"

"Do you have any other services aside from food and liqour?"

"I'm sorry, sir. Can you be more specific?"

"That's ok. Nevermind."


Don't want to know.

Misconception

"Hey. Where's your bar?"

"Sorry sir, it's closed for the evening, but you can try the Irish pub across the street."

"Are there any gay dudes there?"

(oh brother) "Wouldn't know, sir. Could be."

"There were some at the last bar we were at. Don't get me wrong, they weren't too bad, but they were hitting on my wife."

"Well, I guess they sometimes do... wait, what?"

Street Friends

It's been getting slower and slower lately. Fewer travelers are coming around due to the season and the economy. Since we are having less guests and therefor giving me less shifts, I may not have as many amusing stories for awhile.

But don't worry. The snow and cold brings in the weirdoes to visit me at night.

What crazy people like to come in and talk to me about:

• the Masons
• Castro
• Chemicals that cause snow to turn yellow
• Nature turning on us
• Where the Swiss Hotel is
• the crazy people at Citgo that try to kill people with their eyes
• their mother

Actually, that was only from one woman tonight.

And she came back to pick up the Windex she accidentally left here from her first visit.

Sexual Harassment

This evening a young woman came to the front desk and asked if there were any female employees working tonight. The full time auditor is a woman, but on Thursday and Friday nights it is only us manly men who man the hotel, as you can tell by how masculine this sentence got toward the end. Anyway, this situation nominated yours truly to awkwardly try to zip up the back of her dress without touching her skin. I learned two things from this experience; I am glad I am a guy because those tiny zippers are a bitch and that it is impossible for me to be in that kind of situation without accidentally noting that is it "hard to get it up." Fortunatly we made it through without any sexual harassment lawsuits.

Which brings me to the entry I've been meaning to write about. Granted, I only have a little interaction with the housekeeping department so I have no clue what kind of situations they have encountered when they have walked into a room with too forward guy, but all of the harassment issues I know of come from those dirty minded women to our poor and innocent male bellmen.

One time a woman who was sixty going on twenty two called down to see if we could go across the street and pick her up a pack of smokes. Not trying to take away any one's tips, I asked the doorman if he wants to do it. No problem, easy money. He delivers the cigarettes and comes back down in record time.

"She wants matches. There aint no way I am going back up there."

Apparently she was up there wearing a robe and talking to her friend on speaker phone. Shortly after he entered the room he was flashed and crotch grabbed while the other woman on the phone asked what kind of dirty things they were going to do.

I walked the matches upstairs and found a houseman who was just leaving the room after delivering some sort of amenity. The matches were passed on to him. He had no problem going back in the room.

Another story was when we had a certain film star stay with us. We know this because she informed us she is an actress, a model, and a dancer. The front officer manager tried to confirm this, but for some reason our content browser blocked all of her websites. Anyway, a good friend of mine was working as a bellman that day and went up to check her in.

"Ah, yes. This is a good room. I like the mirror. Me and my husband are definetly going to have sex in front of it tonight. Maybe we'll film it."

"Uhhhhhhh."

She then sat on the bed blocking his way out with her knees.

"Hold on sweetie, let me get you a little tip," she said as she went through her bag. Several minutes later she pulled out a rectangle sheet and started to write on it.

He came back down to the front desk with a red face and showed us his tip. It was an artistic photo of her clutching her enhanced adjustments with the writing, "Hugz and a snuggle" with her signature. My friend loved this photo so much that he left it in his mailbox for everyone to enjoy when he left the hotel for another job. Fortunately, I had the good sense to put it in an envelope and deliver it to him for his birthday last month.

But then someone at the party stole it. Easy come, easy go.

Of course, it is a double standard that if the above two women were guys doing that to a female worker, it would have resulted in more than snickering on our part. Is that wrong? Maybe. But it is pretty funny.

Room Move

"Hello. My room has a mildewy smell coming from the bathroom."

"I see. Would that be from last night when your buddy got drunk and passed out in the bathtub with the water running which resulted in the flooding of the two rooms under yours?"

"Yup."

"I'll have a new key sent up immediately, sir."

Conflict and Resolution

A group of guests walked out of our restaurant and flagged down a cab from across the street. The driver makes a u-turn for his new riders. Another cabbie was sitting down the curb at our cab stand and didn't like this apparent poaching of fares. He walked up to the cab with our guests and pounded on the driver's window. Driver gets out and a yelling match occurs. Guests sit baffled in the cab for awhile until a fist is drawn back and released. Guests decide to look elsewhere for a cab.

While the two cabbies are fighting, our doorman and concierge try to calm down the pugilists along with the help of a friendly homeless man. Front desk calls the police. While waiting the police to come, Mr. Homeless gets tired of breaking up the fight and walks toward to the cab stand. Concierge recommends that the drivers stop pounding the hell out of each other because someone is getting into one of the cabs. After a few more minutes, they stop duking it out and one of them looks back.

"Hey, where's my cab?"

"Well dummy, remember when I told you to stop fighting because someone was getting into your cab?"

One driver drives away fare less and a little bruised.

One driver pouts as he waits for the police to arrive in our lobby.

One friendly homeless guy drives off in his new taxi which will soon be ditched after being stripped of cash, wallet, and cell phone.

One hotel desk clerk kicks himself for missing the whole thing while eating his burrito in back for lunch.