By Joshua Ryan
Chapter 20: Opportunities for Success in Uniformed Service
I’m leaving out a lot of stuff about the “guests.” The kids that trip you in the hall. The people that open their doors and see you and squirm and slither away as far as they can get, hoping not to catch your disease. The old gentlemen who like to tell you jokes. “Hey boy—how many slappies does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Don’t know? Well, what DO you know? Ha ha ha ha ha! I heard that one on the tour today.” The young ladies who check in for their bachelorette party, four to a room, and totter off to shop for their bridesmaids’ dresses, leaving their puke on the couch. The boyfriends muscling them past the ugly slappies that would otherwise want to rape them. The annual guests who’ve learned that if Housekeeping turns up at an inconvenient time they can always say “Corner,” and the slap will have to find the nearest one and stand there facing it until the guests are ready to leave their room.
It was good that during those first days I had Dave to keep me standing at attention with my hands behind my back, anytime there might be trouble. And to teach me a lot more things than how to change a hotel bed. He went way beyond what hotel management calls Guest Relations.
