The Player

This is always one of my favorite stories and I have told it many times. It is so unbelievable that it HAS to be true. Without further adieu, I give you The Player:

I was working at a small, exclusive luxury hotel over the course of about a year. Having said this, the guests at this particular hotel, as opposed to a larger, brand name hotel, were by far the most entertaining. I guess they thought that by staying at a hotel unassociated with a global brand name they had a certain sense of anonymity so they could behave however they wanted. This included families. In this particular vignette that I am relating to you, the guests in question were, in fact, a family. A weird one at that.

There was a mother and father and two, pardon my phraseology here, rather in-bred looking children. The mother was rather ditzy with enormous fake nails, puffy bleached blonde hair, and clothes that looked like she went shopping in Peggy Bundy's closet. The dad wasn't bad looking but he had an air of, as my sister would put it, an underlying sense of "Master Creep". They were nice enough but their whole demeanor really wreaked of Clampett-esque behavior. In blunt terms, they seemed kind of trashy and out of place at an upscale hotel. But money is money and it's not really my place to judge them. All that I am saying is that they weren't playing with a full deck of cards and I noticed it the minute I checked them in.

The night went on and they were in the lobby a little later but nothing seemed super out of the ordinary. I left for the night, knowing that I had to do a turn-around and planning on getting a mediocre amount of sleep in my 8 hours between shifts.

When I arrived for work the next morning, the night auditor was abuzz. She simply couldn't calm down and tell me what happened for the next 10 minutes. Finally, I got the story out of her.

At about 12am, she got a phone call from their room. Let's heretofore refer to the husband in this scenario as "douche" just for clarity's sake. I'm not biased. Or sarcastic. Ever. I swear.

Douche: "My wife is snoring and I can't sleep. Do you have another room that I could have for the night?"

Auditor: "We have one left. It's (insert expensive rate here) a night. You have to come down to the desk to fill out the paperwork."

Douche: "That's fine. Thank you."

So he comes down to the desk, fills out the paperwork, takes his keys, and goes up to his new room. The auditor thinks nothing more of this because it seems like a relatively reasonable request. She goes back to doing her shiftwork. About 30 minutes later, a call comes in from outside the hotel.

Caller: "Would you be able to transfer me to Douche's room? He's in (room number)."

Auditor: "I'd be happy to transfer you. Do you have the guest's last name?"

Caller: "We, uh, just recently met. I don't know his last name. Could you just transfer me to his room?"

Wierd, huh? Is this a drug deal? Illegal firearms being exchanged? Oh no. About 40 minutes later, two ladies of the night arrive at the hotel and, without a word to the auditor, go right up to Douche's room. They are there for an hour and a half.

Let's rewind for a moment here. (Yes, I'm going all retro on you by harking back to the days when we all had vhs players and had to manually rewind our tapes. God forbid if you returned a video to the rental store without having a massive guilt if you didn't "Be Kind, Please Rewind". We had one of those old school tape rewinders that was a CORVETTE. Booya. I used to watch my copy of Muppet Treasure Island over and over not because of how awesome Tim Curry was but just so I could use our sweet 'Vette.) This is a "gentleman" that is on vacation. With his family. They are staying in another room in the hotel. The wife and his two kids. I think they may actually all be on the same floor, ironically enough. He's having the time of his life. His wife is happily snoring away with their kids, none the wiser of her hubby's escapades. She's getting restful sleep and he's getting some poon. Part of me wants to say that it's a win-win situation.

One of the ladies that Douche has invited up to his room (to play backgammon, no doubt) comes down to the lobby and starts talking to our night auditor. She's picking up some things from our gift shop and saying, probably to herself, "My daughter would love this. This place is gorgeous."

I have no words.

She goes outside and a car picks her up about 10 minutes later. Another half an hour goes by. The other lady comes downstairs. This one says nothing to our auditor and goes right out the front door. A car picks her up as well. A few hours pass. Douche comes downstairs at about 5am and delivers this wonderful line:

"I'm finished with that room. Can I go ahead and settle up the bill?"

Stunned, our auditor charges his card and gives him the bill. He smiles, thanks her, and asks for another copy of the key to his room where his family is still blissfully sleeping. He gets in the elevator, goes up to his old room and, presumably, gets back into bed with his wife.

At this point, the auditor is so shocked that she is fully drained from the events of the night. She goes home. I am giggling by myself at the desk until my coworker arrives about an hour later. I catch her up to speed with what happened. It is now about 8am. We served breakfast in our lobby until about 11am every morning. Guess who shows up for bagels and fruit at about 8:30? Pushing the stroller with both of his greasy, mouth-breathing children seated inside. The family man to the bitter end. The very essence of class.

I have saved the best part of the story for last. My coworker, who is a married mother of 3, is furious about the whole situation. The family walks by the desk. She calls Douche over.

Coworker: "Excuse me, sir? I think you left a copy of your bill for your other room here at the desk."

Douche doesn't bat an eye. He walks right up, smiles, and takes the copy of the bill. His wife is RIGHT next to him and is completely oblivious. Like I said before, she is very ditzy. Even though she is next to him when he collects his papers, she has NO idea. She turns to her kids and starts cooing into the stroller. I am shocked. We even tried to subtly have him get caught but he is so ridiculously slick that he got away with it.

The more I look back and think about it, the more I realize that they deserve each other. I guess if I can take one thing away from the story is that in this life, you can never truly get away with anything. Sure, douche got away with this with his wife but I assure you, within hours the ENTIRE staff of the hotel knew every detail. And I will say this: Karma is a bitch. I can only assume that Douche eventually will get his comeuppance. Just between you and me, I think he deserves it.