The 16th Floor Hallway: Bye, Bye, Joe.

It’s a funny thing, isn’t it?

Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself again, aren’t I? That happens from time to time. You’ll forgive me, won’t you? Should I keep asking questions? No? Fine, we’ll move ahead; not to worry, you’ll catch up quick, you’re a smart cookie. Okay, here we go, another tale of hotel romance gone horribly awry and the origin of my original query.

It’s funny, isn’t it? The razor-thin line between love and hate, I mean.

I’ve seen millions of happy couples, supposedly-happy couples, sad couples, “what-are-they-still-doing-together?” couples, little people couples, ginormous people couples, dwarf/ginormous people couples, people who dress like animals couples, you name it, I’ve seen it.

The common theme linking all couples? The dime on which all relationships can turn.

Love can turn to hate faster than Barry Allen changes clothes.

One particular all-too public break-up debacle several years ago stands out in my mind more than others. I was working the midnight shift (and as you can imagine, I wasn’t exactly overjoyed about it), but instead of overhearing a rousing bout of coitus as was the norm during my rounds, Mistress Fate granted me a ringside seat as a young lady attempted to evict her beau from her room.

Except that he wasn’t about to go gently into that good night. There he was in the middle of the sixteenth floor – in front of room 1607 to be exact – four feet of nothing, the original greasy-haired weasel, standing in the hall, shirtless, sockless, and shoeless, under the ludicrous impression he still had his dignity.

Hotel protocol demands that a security officer mediate such disputes, but we were short staffed that night so I accompanied Lindsey, one of our more capable and hilarious-to-be-around employees, as she tried to clean up a messy situation. One glimpse into the room from the hall told the tale.

•  The musky odor spoke volumes.
•  A discarded box of condoms in the corner was a detail that could not be ignored.
•  Pillows strewn about the floor and a bundle of sheets at the foot of the bed helped complete the tale.
•  Various items of clothing, a bra hanging from the sprinkler head in particular, was the final touch necessary to give this story a Fifty Shades feel.
•  Something bad happened here. Sexy bad.
•  But for some reason that I never did uncover, the scene went from “sexy bad” in the room to “seriously sad” in the hallway.

Since he wasn’t going to listen to his former partner-in-sexy-crime, it became Lindsey’s job to convince this poor bastard to leave his balls in his former girlfriend’s hands and walk away with his tail between his legs. That idea did not appeal to him at all.

“Screw that! We arrived together and we’re leaving that way! I love you, Samantha! This bitch loves me and I love her!”

You have to admire a guy who isn’t afraid to declare his love for his bitch publicly, right?

But Samantha, the original cute-as-a-button, angelic, petite-but-ridiculously top-heavy, brown-haired, brown-eyed girl, wasn’t buying it.

SAMANTHA:  You’re drunk, Joe. Get out of here, please, before you embarrass yourself.

That train had left the station, Samantha.

JOE:  I’m not drunk or embarrassed! You love me! Admit it to these guys!

LINDSEY:  We don’t care about any of that, sir. If she wants you gone, you have to be gone. Nothing else matters tonight.

Lindsey was the voice of reason – in a whirlwind of chaos.

JOE:  Our love matters! She loves me and she’s all I care about! I worship this bitch!

SAMANTHA:  I don’t love you, Joe. Would I have called Security to get rid of you if I loved you?

You can say all you like about women being overemotional, but these two ladies were completely rational… and it did them no good whatsoever.

JOE:  You don’t love me, but you let me cum on you?

Nice. Definitely a quote worthy of inclusion, don’t you agree? I knew you would.

SAMANTHA:  (Sighing while rolling her eyes.)  You’re an idiot, Joe.

JOE:  I’m an idiot you let cum on you.

Again, nice.

Joe had exhausted everyone’s patience but he was far from finished.

JOE:  (Turning to me for help as he bobbed back and forth in the water.)  Come on, man! You get it, right? A girl doesn’t just let a guy do that and send him packing, that ain’t right! You can back me up, right, Boss?

ME:  It’s Robert… and no, I can’t. Not for a second.

JOE:  AW, COME ON! I’M DYING HERE!

ME:  My advice, sir? Walk away with a warm memory before things get worse. (Judging by the state of the room that memory would have been red hot; Joe should have considered himself lucky to have been one of the angelic Samantha’s sinful mistakes.)

But Joe opted for worse.

Much worse. When he refused to relent, Lindsey called in the authorities to escort him off the property. The Niagara Regional Police are used to dealing with drunken tourists but Joe had to have made some kind of Policing Hall of Shame as far as the two attending officers were concerned.

This guy just… wouldn’t… go.

Finally, the senior officer gave Joe one last option.

“You can spend the night in a cell where you’ll make some unwanted new ‘friends’ or we can call you a cab or take you the bus station. The choice is yours, of course, but we prefer the option that involves less paperwork – and crying.”

In an uncharacteristic display of wisdom, Joe surrendered (much like Goliath “surrendered” after David plunged a rock through his skull and decapitated him), allowed one of the officers retrieve his things from the room and made his way downstairs – and out of Samantha’s life forever. (The younger, buffer officer surveyed the room-turned-temporary-sex-den with lustful admiration as Samantha threw Joe’s clothes into a duffel bag. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the cop returned later on to “interview” Samantha’s brains out.)

And that was that, finally. The moral of this sorted tale? Hell if I know, kids. I’m The Hook, not Aesop.

See you in the lobby…