Memphis Soul
What is it with me and hotel rooms? I just blogged about an uninvited guest entering my hotel room in Santa Cruz and waking me from a really good dream. A year earlier, I intruded on a loving couple when I entered MY room. It was too much 411 that I am glad stayed in Vegas.
Yesterday my travel issues continued. The 6 a.m. wake up call seemed all too early, but I rolled over and grabbed the phone anyway. I guess, being halfway asleep, the phone receiver made kind of a bounce landing when I tried to dock it back with the rest of the phone. Oh well. I got up and headed toward the sink to wash my face, when the phone rang again. Oops. Must have not answered the wake up call in time. Picked it up again. Hung it up. Back to the face wash.
Ring, ring.
“Okay, okay! I get it. Enough with the snooze-alarm phone calls.”
I hung up the phone again.
Soon I was stripping down for a shower — the next step in my wake up ritual.
BANG! BANG! BANG! (went the door)
Dang. You and your wake up calls are pretty persistent here in Memphis, I thought. Then I rationalized that the hotel clerk probably couldn’t pound that hard on the door. Had I overslept? Were my travel buddies coming to get me so we could get back to the flooding assistance?
(By the way, as one of my “Dirty Gigs” I am in the Memphis area, helping to clean water damage out of a group of 150 homes that were flooded?)
I sort of stumbled to the door, in a daze, boxers and little else and opened the door.
Enter what looked to be a SWAT team. There were 3 members of the local police force or sheriff’s department , fully armed, dressed in black head to toe, standing in front of my door.
“Did you call 911, sir?”
In my mind (only), I fired back a smart arse response — “Okay, I’ll play your silly game: ‘I don’t know, did I call 911?'” Actually? I just said “No sir.”
“Well, someone did from this room.”
Then the “SWAT team” began to rapid fire questions at me. I must have seemed guilty as all get out.
“Uh, I’ve been here at the hotel three days …” (Actually, I had been there more like 5, so I hope they weren’t sticklers …)
“Is anyone else in there with you sir?” (More thought sarcasm — No, but given my experiences in Santa Cruz and Las Vegas, that could change at any time.)
“No, it’s just me. You’re welcome to come in and look around,” I offered.
“That won’t be necessary … Are you sure you didn’t call 911?”
I was relatively sure I hadn’t … but then there was that sloppy, groggy attempt to land the phone back in the cradle. Maybe that was it.
“Okay,” the officer in charge said, and I closed the door that had been shielding me and my boxers during the interrogation. No biggie — the officers were just doing their job.
BANG! BANG! BANG! I opened the door again … I recognized the knock.
“Sir, after the way you closed the door in my face, we are going to come in and look around.” I wondered what type of door closing I should use next time to better communicate that I am half asleep, innocent and in a rush to get in the shower.
“Are you dressed sir?”
“Uh … well, I am in my boxers.” (I hoped that was not offensive too … you never know who might be a tighty-whitey man … and regardless of his undergarment preference, I DID NOT want to get his briefs into a wad … as they say.)
“Sir, show me some ID.”
Ha … then I really probably jumped up top on the “No Fly List.” I stumbled to the desk, fumbled for my wallet and out of habit pulled out the hotel room key, handing it to the officer … innocent and unaware of my sleepy mistake.
He was not amused.
Oh man! I thought he was going to smack me. I apologized and grabbed my Texas ID, hoping he was a okay with the whole Lone Star State thing.
There was no beat down this day. But I sort of have a feeling I am being watched.
Meanwhile … I went to work in the aftermath of the flooding, drove a truck around and loaded up people’s belongings to be stored on higher/dryer ground. That night, I took a quick break at the world-famous Peabody Hotel in Memphis. (No, I am not staying there …)
Although I didn’t get to see the ducks parade through the lobby and invade the fountain this time, I did wade around in the Wi-Fi for a bit.
So posh! And when it comes to Wi-Fi, The Peabody has all its ducks in a row. Wi-Fi, free for the taking, fast, easy to access and no fowl were injured in the making of this blog – 6 out of 7 pings on the migratory PingWi-Fi rating system.
Know what I sayin?
