Canada Day Musings. (A Little Late.)

For most Canadians and visitors to our home and native land, Canada Day has little to do with celebrating the birth and endurance of one of the greatest nations on the planet.

It’s about testing your liver’s limits, y’all.

(Sorry about that. I didn’t want to leave my American friends out.)

Many of the guests I served during the Canada Day check-out rush started their testing early and so they were, as they say, hanging like Spider-Man. However, most were stone cold sober and decent, hard-working folks.

Let’s take a quick look at a few of the characters the hotel hosted on Canada Day, shall we? (Yes, I’m doing one of these posts again because I just don’t have the time for anything else. Sue me.)

This guy started out Canadian…

ONE)  The Lolita.  A twenty-something (I hope!) brown-haired waif in impossibly-tight faded denim and a barely-there top that exposed her washboard midriff. I rarely notice young girls; at seven in the morning, I barely notice anything truth be told. Honestly, it creeps me out to examine a young lady who is close to my own progeny’s age – but sometimes you can’t help but make exceptions.

I’m not suggesting I found this girl attractive (personally, I feel she needed more meat on her still-developing bones), but her clothing set her apart, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the growing horde. Funny thing though, the men weren’t checking her out… but the cougars certainly were. And not in a judgemental way either.

I love this new age of sexual freedom and experimentation, don’t you?

TWO)  The Asian Scooby Gang.  Seriously, with the exception of the goofy canine, they were those meddling kids incarnate. Of course, they all appeared to stoners, not just Shaggy. But other than that, they were a cartoon brought to life in Niagara Falls.

They were no trouble; they just stood around giggling and pointing at the “funny Westerners” as they waited for their Mystery Machine. Asians make the perfect guests actually.

THREE)  The Child Left Behind.  Who grew up to be an old woman who appears to be ninety but is in fact closer to sixty. She never stays in the hotel but stores some bags with us for twenty-four hours while she goes and works the casino floor as a prostitute. Hard living on a scale I cannot imagine has left her skin leathery, her eyes sunken and her skin shriveled. She’s lost every battle worth waging and that truth breaks my heart every time I see her.

FOUR)  The High Roller.  Admittedly, we don’t get many “whales” as they’re known in the hospitality biz – most guests are folks of average means and tastes they cannot actually afford – but the few that we do are extremely generous. Sadly, they travel light and so they don’t often require a bellman’s assistance, though that doesn’t stop other staff members from swarming the biggest whale we have every time he arrives, which he did this particular Canada day.

Funny thing, he complained about the swarming during one visit – then retracted that complaint when he was ignored.

Rich folks, man…

FIVE)  The Harry Potter clone.  The spectacled little chap‘s standing at my desk as I write this, storing luggage. You’d think he could have teleported it to a neighboring dimension and saved me the effort, right?

SIX)  The Toronto expats.  They come down every weekend, a group of four families. The high-maintenance, cougar wives are dense but delightful.

“Oh, we just love it here in Niagara Falls! It’s unbelievable how different things are down here!”

To which I always reply…

“You do realize Niagara is only one-and-a-half hours away from TO, right? You’re not exactly hopping across the Mulitverse.”

SEVEN)  The Nervous Nellie.  This poor schlub was as jittery as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact I was going to take his bags down a separate elevator and meet him in the lobby before accompanying him and his shapely, raven-haired female companion to the parking garage. It took me a full fifteen minutes to get that straightened out as his girlfriend rolled her eyes and chuckled.

When we walked into the parking garage together the full picture emerged. Which brings us to our next subject…

EIGHT)  Cheater, Cheater, Nervous Nellie Eater.  Yes, you guessed it, his lover was actually another man’s wife. She even had the audacity to chant incessantly about her husband as we headed to the car. Don’t get me wrong, she appeared to be a decent, super-friendly gal who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

It’s just that she liked to have sex with people she wasn’t married to.

Everyone has something, right?

NINE)  The Three Impossibly-hot Brunette Hookers.  They‘re also regulars – who do things that are not so regular in most bedrooms, I  imagine. Bubbly as the day is long, this petite trio is equally bold. The first time we met, they exclaimed,

“We’re not here for our pleasure… but lucky for us, our business is bringing pleasure to others!”

I have no idea if they work as a team – talk about your eyes being bigger than your stomach – or if they simply go solo but share a room. Either way, they really are happy hookers. And yes, I realize that reference sped by most of you…

TEN)  The Little Big Man.  He was three feet of nothing – but he was a hundred feet of attitude. The stereo typical “Gino” in a pint size package, he literally walked around spouting, “Hey, how you doin’?” to everyone.

He leered at young girls his daughter’s age in full view of his spouse.

He was rude to every staff member he came in contact with.

He was a prize, no doubt about it.

Yes, in spite of our mild-mannered image, this country of mine is never boring.

Canadians are willing to open their borders to everyone… but we take shit from no one.

We love our Yankee cousins but we love everyone else too… until we don’t.

So come to Canada and see what all the fuss is about… and be sure to tell them The Hook sent you.

See you in the Canadian lobby, kids…

And since Canadians love beavers, here’s one last Happy Hooker image to keep you warm at night…