Oops, sorry this is so belated! I cannot keep a calendar straight in my head, even though there is one right next to my desk for that spectacle purpose, so I forgot that I would be gone for a quart of days for a family reunion on the lovely Oregon Coast. That may get a write-up soon.
But I think at least half of my audience was there anyway, at least judging by how many people at the reunion asked me how the illegal hotel sleep-over story ended.
For those of you who didn't hear the riveting story in person, here it is:
The Deathdefying Comicon Adventure!!
part tres.So I'm sleeping at one end of a long banquet table in a fancy hotel ballroom, with my backpack under my head as a pillow and a plastic bag full of snacks, comics memorabilia and a few large posters by my side. My pal Peter is at the other end of the table, his cell phone set as an alarm to wake us up at 4:30 so that we can be out of the hotel before 5:00 AM, the earliest conceivable time that a cleaning crew might think about tidying up this room. There's a floor length table cloth that covers almost the entire table, minus an eighteen-inch gap not far from my head. Although the room is unbelievably muggy, and the carpeted floor rather hard, it is this small gap that keeps me the furthest from sleep.
As unlikely as it would be at this hour of the mornight, I can't help wondering what would happen if someone were to pass by, glance toward the ground and see me huddled hidden beneath the table. I could just take off and run, but more likely I would stare at them dumbly, try and make up an excuse, and then be shamefully hauled down to speak to management, who would call the police, and slap me with a large fine and a larger lecture.
The logical part of my brain was fairly certain that no such thing would happen, but the logical part of my brain wasn't working at 3:30 in the morning. It had relinquished full control to my paranoid side, which kept waking up every five minutes to an hour and LISTENING.
My hearing was more acute than ever before! I had recognized the pattern in the elastical hum of the room, and could easily distinguish and dismiss it. I woke up for unexpected creaks and clanks, and after I felt adrenalin pulse to the very ends of my everstill fingertips I was able to dismiss them as unimportant at the moment. What I could not ignore was the slight whir of a machine being turned on, perceptible only to my supersense.
I woke Peter up.
He didn't hear anything different, his ears unable to pick out the one new electrical current in the air that was buzzing with dozens of them. I waited, heard the machine power down and start up a few times, then decided I had to make sure the coast was clear.
I left my bags under the table and slowly crept out to the hallway. My tennis shoes squeaked on the tile floor of the service area I was cardinally not authorized to be in, but I retraced the path to where we had entered and saw no one. Returning, more confident, I decided to go past the door to our ballroom turned bedroom, just to make sure the kitchen in the service area was deserted as well.
It was not.
A man in an outfit an outfit that immediately identified him as working there stepped from the kitchen to the hallway just as I was about to step from the hallway to the kitchen. He was no expecting me.
"Hello?" he said.
"Hi," I said, and continued walking.
For a moment I thought that was all I needed to do. Either this was not something unusual, or it was, and the man would be too confused to stop me.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"Oh, uh, sorry, I just, I left my pen in there, and I was looking for it," I said to him. I had lost my pen and was looking for it at 3:30 in the morning. That was my cover story. Believe it or not, I had it planned out ahead of time.
Yes, it is the lamest cover story ever. But it was mine and I was going to stick by it!
Fortunately, it didn't matter. I think the only room the custodial gentleman understood was "room."
"Oh, 'room,'" he said, "follow me."
And, just as I had imagined in my half-dreams, once caught I followed sheepishly and complacently down the hotel hallway, towards the elevator that would take me to the lobby where I'd confront an angry middle-aged manager who demand to know in just so many words who the hell I thought I was.
I thought of putting up something of a protest before we got to that point. I thought of at least asking, "where are you taking me?" so that I could better formulate a strategy, but I just followed behind the custodial gentleman with a stupid, silent grin on my face until we got to the elevators.
"Room," he said, politely, helpfully, "here you are."
And with that he left me to take the elevator up to my certain hotel room.
I took the elevator, but of course had no where to go.
I didn't dare call Peter, for fear that the cellphone ring might be heard by the custodial gentleman, nor did I want to rush back to the scene of my discovery, for a second appearance would surely not receive the same amiable grace that the first had.
When I made it back to the hallway I moved more slowly and silently than I had in my life, immeasurably aware of the stillsqueak of my shoes on the tile.
Just as I reached the door to the ballroom, I came face to face with Peter, shouldering both his bag and mine, my fate and his destination still unsettled in his mind.
I explained what had happened, and sleepily we returned to our table for another round of restlessness.
At 4:30, about 40 minutes later, the cellphone alarm went off. No one but us heard. We pushed it back another half an hour.
Then, groggy, malnourished and heavy with comic books, we were back on the streets again.
I have work at 6 AM! I must sleep! The Final Chapter ASAHP!!!!!!!!
