My Love/Hate Relationship With Mondays...

BEFORE WE BEGIN: Thanks for all the support, folks; my guest post over at Crazy Working Mom was a huge success! I have the best buds I can afford on a bellman’s salary…

Now for something fresh. Okay, this is a Monday post – on a Thursday no less – but I still maintain the word “fresh” applies…

The dreaded “M-Day” in question actually began at 5:06 a.m., as I was called upon to fill-in for one of our midnight bellmen who found himself struck down by pneumonia. Normally, I would still be fast asleep, my beautiful wife at my side (no doubt dreaming of vampires, but that is neither here nor there.), but no, I had to don my second skin and deliver two-hundred and forty-five bills and three-hundred and fifteen newspapers to various rooms spread across two towers and eighty floors.

That, of course, accounts for the “hate” portion of my relationship with the first day of the week.

On most days I relish the fifteen-minute walk to work; the quiet contemplation puts my mind at ease. Until I actually arrive at work, that is. At that point, all bets are off. I began my labors in a smooth, quiet fashion, developed over the course of fifteen years. But although my skills are polished, they often prove useless when I find myself confronted with the actions of the Modern Traveler. Case in point: as I dropped yet another newspaper in front of yet another door, the morning stillness of the fortieth floor was broken by a cacophony of grunts, moans, and the following statements:

ENTHUSIASTIC FEMALE OF THE SPECIES:  Yeah, do me like a black man! I deserve it!

A grin worthy of the Cheshire Cat spread across my tired face. Then it dropped like a cartoon anvil…

OVER-ENTHUSIASTIC – AND CONFUSED – FEMALE OF THE SPECIES: Hang on, baby, this thing is coming loose! (There was silence, followed by the sounds of what I can only assume were straps being readjusted…) Okay, baby! I’ll do you like… who’s that big basketball guy?

THE HOOK: (Lost in the moment.) Shaq?

Note to self: When listening in on girl-on-girl action… REMAIN QUIET!

My impulsive decision to vocalize the voice in my head forced my hand, and I decided to employ a strategic retreat.

In other words, I got the hell out of Dodge, fast.

I finished my deliveries with a smile on my face and a song in my heart – Katy Perry’s I Kissed A Girl, obviously – and the morning became relatively calm. For a little while at least…

As the Eleventh Hour waned, I was summoned to the Front Desk, where I was greeted by the smiling faces of two of my favorite agents. Their smiles had been prompted by the delivery of a pile of luggage to their desk – by a rather colorful individual.

Apparently an angry husband had hastily packed up his wife’s bags and delivered them to the lobby. Rather than risk a direct confrontation, he chose to leave them in my capable, but extremely unlucky, hands.

I feel as though I’ve forgotten an integral part of our tale. What could that be? Oh yes, the best part of the story lies n the delivery instructions given to me by one of my colleagues:

“We need you to deliver these bags to a room, Robert. A guy just dropped them off and said ‘Take my wife’s shit! She’s staying here!’ Apparently he’s divorcing her. And oh yeah, when you put this in your blog. just remember, he had one arm.”

My response?

“I know there’s a joke in there somewhere. I just have to find it..”

This, of course, accounts for the “love” portion of my relationship with the first day of the week… 

As for the wife, she was a white female in her mid-forties, not-so-fresh from the trailer park, who looked as though she had seen better days. To say the least.

Then again, I wouldn’t expect any woman whose one-armed, white trash husband had just kicked her to the curb, to look vibrant…

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