It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Monday, June 10
Longtime readers of this crap may – or they may not – recall that we’ve discussed ghosts at the hotel before…Ex-Maintenance Guy Luke was a strong believer in them and we dismissed that until a couple of years ago when we were working a missing persons case with the local fuzz and the constable noticed the light in the fitness center was on.
OK, big wow…Normally…However, the light in there is motion-activated and there wasn’t a corresponding human being in the gym!!!…Now, you do not go jumping to conclusions in these situations, but we still can’t think of a reason except for the light to’ve been on save for a supernatural presence.
Tonite, we had more examples that ghosts live here.
The first examples came as soon as reported for duty and manifested themselves throughout the nite: the phone would ring and then immediately stop…It wasn’t even a full ring, either, merely a partial ring, so there was no time to see if it was an internal call or an external call…If it was an internal call, you’d be able to see the extension.
It seemed destined to be an all-nite nuisance except we’re in the back office and the phone rings a full ring plus part of the a second, giving us time to note the call came from the “Out Pool” extension…Well, you don’t have to be Aquaman to deduce this is the phone at the outdoor pool, so we head out.
Nothing…GOA (gone on arrival) as we used to say in the private security racket…In fact, not only did we not catch the perp, we showed off our investigatory skills by not even finding the phone.
The ghost continued to bleep with me because later we’re in the can for our nitely crap and the door to the crapper is not only closed, but it’s locked!!!…And there’s nobody inside, either!!!
I am not making that up.
This obliged ol’ Sparrow to crawl in thru the bottom to open it…The ghost, content with its labors, then took the rest of the nite off.
There was more parking lot flooding tonite, less than last nite, but a tad more than two nites ago…The Front Desk Supervisor (FDS) had the past couple of nites off, so this was new to him, and seemed relieved when told it would subside overnite.
A lesson we’ve tried to impart from time to time here is always book directly with the hotel, either online or by phone…You have options this way and this lesson manifested itself again tonite.
About midnite a kid wearing a company shirt comes by and says he has a reservation…The name was not one of tonite’s arrivals, tho it turned out he was tomorrow’s arrival list…All right, this is generally no problemo, so we retrieve the reservation and we’re screwed because the boss lady booked thru a 3rd-party…The stay is paid in advance and our hands are tied because you can’t fart around with these sort of reservations…Had the reservation been secured with a company credit card sure, we could change the arrival date to tonite and make it a three nite stay…Book thru a third party tho, and we can’t do squat with the reservation, except honor it as is.
So he calls the boss lady, but she is not receiving calls right now, so the kid has only two options: sleep in his car or rent a room himself and he’s young enuff for us to strongly suspect he might not have the wherewithal to do that…We were wrong tho…He whipped out and ID and a credit card and we gave him a ridiculously low rate and made it so he wouldn’t have to change rooms in the morning.
Then, at zero-dark-thirty, we get a call from a guy who is hesitant and tentative, like he might be trying to put one over on ol’ Sparrow…He wasn’t, but considering the circumstances he was probably embarrassed…He mumbled something about wanting to check a reservation and he’s blathering about this and that and we had to interrupt him – which we don’t like to do – to request the arrival date.
I have the confirmation number…
Oh, Jesus H…I hate it when guests do this…Give me the requested information, dammit!!!…Because it’s somewhat easier to enter the arrival date than it is the confirmation number…We find the reservation and we ask who he is because it’s under a chick’s name and it turns out his name is in comments as the guest who will be checking in.
The fly in the ointment, tho, is there is not a credit card securing the reservation…The guy mentions this and says “I’m still working on that”…We tell him this isn’t a problem now, but on the day of reservation we’ll probably cancel it – depending on how busy we are…We’re wondering who in the hell cannot secure a hotel reservation with credit card…Good gravy, it make me look like a Rockefeller…He then asks how long he has to provide and we don’t know, but we pull June 17 out of our arse and he seems happy to have a deadline to meet.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1300 Monday until 2000 Monday…7.0 hours for the day and 17.0 hours for the week, another good Monday Total (MT).
The big news is that new portable cooler we bought last year made its seasonal debut today…I am not making that up…We put some water in it and fired it up, but we really didn’t need the cooling function, but we didn’t buy it for its looks, and the fan provided a comfy place to sleep.
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The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
The Diary of a Nobody was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!
