Entangled With Ivy
I am a blog virgin. Being that this is my first time, I wanted it to be special, but not all about me. I decided to go with one of the favorite characters from my past. Ivy.
I used to work for our friendly neighborhood power company. It was a good job, and occasionally they would send me on business trips to exotic locations. I’ve been to Huntersville, North Carolina. I’ve been to Rock Hill, South Carolina. I’ve been to Spartanburg. Okay, maybe these places aren’t exotic. If you don’t live around here, you probably haven’t even heard of them, but I found them interesting.
On two different trips, I was given keys to occupied rooms. That’s right, I said it, interesting. The only way to discover you’ve been given keys to an occupied room is to open the door and find people. You don’t knock, it’s your door. That means the people inside have no warning you’re coming. It's possible to see things you never wanted to see. I was surprised when I found the rooms occupied, but you should have seen their faces.
On three trips, I was dragged out of bed by a fire alarm. Did you know the sound of bells and horns in the middle of the night will cause people to run outside without putting on, let’s say, appropriate clothing. I don’t know about you, but if there’s any chance I have to run through a fire, I’m going to at least wear pants. There are some parts I don’t want to burn.
I actually visited one hotel that experienced two fire alarms in one evening. The first time there were about seventy people in various degrees of dress waiting outside for the fire department. Imagine this, you’re sleeping well, cutting Zs, dreaming the dreams of the contented, and a fire alarm drives you out of bed into the cold drizzly night. And it was a cold drizzly night. Once they get you outside they won’t let you go back to bed until the fire department shows up and walks through the building. These guys were woken also, so they aren’t any happier than you are. You finally get back to bed, and the alarm sounds again. All warm and cozy, you put the pillow over your head and try to calculate the odds that the alarm is real. Sure, there might be a fire. Sure, you could die a horrible death. But you’re real comfortable. The firemen showed up a lot faster the second time. Apparently, they hadn’t made it to deep sleep, and they knew where we were. When they arrived they only found three other guys standing with me in the rain.
Once, on another trip, I got a room with a Jacuzzi—in the living room. I’ve never really Jacuzzied myself, but I can see enjoying it while watching TV. But there were also two couches in the room, both turned to face the Jacuzzi. Is Jacuzzi a spectator sport? Is it something we can expect to see in the Olympics some day with stands of people watching other people Jacuzzing and little foreign guys holding up cards with numbers on them like 4.9 or 8.4.
I could have used some of those cards when I walked into the occupied hotel rooms.
Even with all of this excitement, my most memorable trip was the four nights I spent with Ivy, but that’s probably enough for my first blog. Next time we’ll pick up with how I met Ivy in Entangled With Ivy - contd.
In the mean time, let me know about some of your hotel visits and the interesting people you’ve found there. Bye for now.