Time to Go

Wednesday night

I was in dire need of a toilet, so I ran into a hotel and desperately yelled at the clerk, "Do You Have a Bathroom?" She pointed to a room and said, "You can use the one in there!" I ran through the suite, into the bathroom, and did my business. Once I was through, I walked back out into the room, while buckling my belt. For some reason, at that point I wasn't wearing a shirt. Thinking that the suite had been vacant (and not having had a moment to have a look around to determine otherwise) I was startled when a voice boomed, "What are you doing in my room?!" (It came from an indignant man, about 40, who wore a suit and a thin mustache.) I stammered and pointed: "She told me I could run in here and use the bathroom!" He didn't believe me, and had determined that I was a thief. He summoned the clerk (who seemed to be having second thoughts) and a policeman. In the meantime, I had to strip off all of my clothes to prove that I wasn't hiding anything, and sat (legs crossed) on a chair while the hotel guest inventoried his belongings. Once the policeman arrived, he grilled me about what I was doing there. At one point the clerk said, "Well, you have to admit that he's playing the part [of an innocent] well." Finally, I'd had about enough of this ridiculous situation, and I said to the guest, "Did you check to see that you have all of your money?" He said, "Oh! Right!" and looked through his drawer and suitcase and found that he did. At that point the officer asked me for my address, and I gave it to him. I added, "It's near the Maxwell House hotel." Satisfied that I was a local, he let me go.

*****

This is the sort of madcap comedy of errors that is reminiscent of the British TV series "Jeeves and Wooster." My wife and I recently bought a box set of the complete series, and have been watching it off and on for the past three weeks.

My wife had some Maxwell House coffee at the home of my brother and sister-in-law in Georgia this past weekend.