I’ll See You in Another Life, When We Are Both Cats

As some of you may or may not know, I work in the room service department for a 4-Star resort. Normally this is a very boring and redundant job. But every so often, there are moments when incredible things happen – in these rare moments, I have the best job on earth. Below is an account of one of those rare and fleeting moments:

Before we go any further, there’s one thing you need to know. The resort I work for has a program called “(Resort’s Name) Loves Pets.” Thanks to this program, guests can bring their pets with them to the resort. Guest can also order their pets, mostly of the dog and cat variety, special dishes on the room service menu. As repulsive as the idea of someone ordering room service for their pets is, it did lead to a pretty tremendous story.

So one epic night around 8 PM, while doing some tedious prep work, I noticed our normally jovial, slightly portly cashier/call-answerer pounding on his desk in the middle of the phone call. Shortly after he hung up the phone I walked over to inquire as to what the customer said to get him so riled up. He then proceeded to tell me a story of a clearly disturbed woman who would change all of our lives. Here’s a shortened, slightly paraphrased transcript of the phone call that transpired between our cashier, who we’ll call Joe, and the woman who will, for here on out, be known as Cat Lady.*

Note: These are just the highlights from the conversation; the actual call took well over seven minutes.

JOE: Thank you for calling room service, this is Joe. May I help you?

CAT LADY: Yes, I have two twin Persian kittens. What would you recommend for them?

JOE: - To eat?

CAT LADY: Yes, they seem hungry and I wanted to get them a special treat.

JOE: Well, I’m not very familiar with our pet dishes, but I hear all of them are very good.

CAT LADY: Well, I’ll just take one of each then…And a bowl of creamer for my darlings to drink.

JOE: OK ma’am. Will there be anything else we can get you?

CAT LADY: Actually I was wondering: Do you by chance have any outfits my cats could wear while they eat their suppers? (I’m pretty sure this is when the fist pounding commenced).

JOE: Well, I’m not sure, but I could check into it for you.

CAT LADY: OK, thanks. I’ll see you guys soon!

At this point, Joe hung up the phone and quickly relayed to us what had just transpired. Naturally, we were all enthralled, and concluded that this was the best/craziest person to ever order room service. And it turned out to be my lucky day, because it was my turn in the rotation to take the meal to this women, who, based purely on her phone call, is certifiably bat-sh*t insane. Upon hearing the news that I would be delivering this order, I started joyfully clapping my hands and jumping up and down in a circle. Wait, scratch that. My reaction wasn’t nearly that flamboyant. What I actually did was this: I started flexing and thinking about monster trucks. Yeah, that’s right, that’s how it happened.

Before Joe could put the order in to the cooks, we got a call from the front desk. As it turned out, this same lady had just called and asked if a bellboy could come up and read her cats a story. The front desk understandably became convinced that this was just a prank call, and that this woman had a great sense of humor. Obviously, we were all extremely saddened to find out this call wasn’t legit. Then, moments later, the front desk called to tell us that after checking her history, she has ordered pet dishes before. So, either this woman was as crazy as we initially thought, or she was the most elaborate, deep-pocketed practical joker of all time. Turns out it was the former.

So as I wheeled the cat litter and gourmet pet dishes up to this psycho’s room, I convinced myself that nothing that could happen inside the room could possibly come close to my expectations of how loony this lady was. Thankfully I was wrong, sort of. Here’s what transpired inside the room:

I wheeled by cart inside the room, and before I could begin my presentation of the assorted cat dishes, the woman interrupted me.

CAT LADY: Um, do you have any chairs my cats could sit on?

ME: (slightly flustered and perplexed) I think we’re all out (I didn’t even think we had any such chairs)**. We’re booked to full capacity this week (that part was true).

CAT LADY: Oh, are there a lot of Persians in house? (I assumed she meant the breed of cat as opposed to the human descendants of Persia, but I learned at a young age to never assume).

ME: (stunned, picking my jaw off the floor) Oh, I’m not sure on the exact number.

(At this point, I started biting my lower lip as hard as possible, so I did not laugh directly in this woman’s face. As I began to unwrap the cat food and place it on the floor, Cat Lady came over and started up another conversation with me.

CAT LADY: Oh, everything looks so great, what a nice treat for my darlings.

ME: (quivering because I’m biting my lip so hard) Yeah…

CAT LADY: Oh, if only they had little cat desserts, wouldn’t that be nice?

ME: (doing everything in my power not to lose my sh*t) Yeah, that would be something…

Nothing else major happened, and I made it through the whole ordeal without laughing at this woman. As I exited the room, I felt exhausted. I had used every once of self-control I had not to laugh at this woman, and it left me with nothing. Like a marathon runner, I had pushed myself to the limits, given all I could give. As I tiredly slumped back to the room service area, I realized that this was the best thing that had ever, or ever would, happen to me at work. The rest of my night was a complete blur: I was so drained from my encounter with Cat Lady.

So there you have it. And before you ask, let me just tell you that this is a true story. If I could make something this good up, I’d be writing award-winning fiction books and not posting here. Just trust me on this one.

Until We Meet Again

* “Catwoman” would be a better name, but it’s already taken, and the last thing I want to do is confuse people.
** It turns out we have special ‘pillowy’ chairs for pets that stay at our resort, and yes, this disgusts me.