Hail Of A Day

The other evening at my hotel, I was returning to my room after a long, leisurely meal.  I was stuffed to the gills on some good New England seafood.  As I opened the door to my room, I was not prepared for anything out of the ordinary.  I passed the bathroom and entered into the main part of my room, which had one small light on in the corner.   This light was insufficient for lighting the room and lit the room just enough to help me see where I was going.

Simultaneously, I heard a shuffling noise and saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye.  My rotund, fish stuffed belly wouldn’t allow me to turn at Jason Bourne-speed, but I whipped around pretty fast.

I saw the outline of a head and shoulders crouching down behind my bed on the other side from where I was standing.  I’d like to say that I sprung into action with an animal grunt, but I sort of let out a shriek and gasp, simultaneously.  It sounded like a tire being punctured and a coach’s whistle going off at the same time.  This horrifying noise apparently startled my would-be assailant into action, because he jumped up quickly.

For just a moment, I thought I was going to be in a life and death struggle and was looking for either a mini-bottle of vodka to smash on the table or hoping that the criminal was standing in a bucket of water so I could throw the hotel micro-hairdryer in for a violent execution.  Cause if it came down to just my fists for defense, I was toast. Any athletic ability I had was done about 4 dinner rolls back.

A strange thing happened.  I heard a similar noise by my attacker.  In the twilight of the room, I thought, “Wow, I think my attacker is wearing a maid’s outfit.  Great, I’m being attacked by a transvestite burglar.  That’s even worse.”

Fortunately, it actually was a maid.  Apparently, I scared her more than I was scared myself.  She had simply been bending down to tuck in my sheets for the night, as part of the hotel’s turn down service.

We were both so relieved that we weren’t trying to kill each other that we laughed nervously and she high-tailed it out of the room. It’s nice to know that I’m so cool under fire.  I’ve gotta go take some Muay-Thai classes or something.