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.

Fluff Filled Fluff

Here’s a quick blog to tide you over as I finish editing a blog that will eventually change your life. Anyhow, here are a few things I’ve been thinking lately:

- Steve “The Crocodile Hunter” Erwin was always kinda awesome, but mainly goofy. His death was about par for the course (too soon?).

- Seeing as how Carmelo Anthony was Team USA’s best player, and seeing as how he’s predominantly a mid-range shooter, shouldn’t we load up our national team with mid-range specialists? That’s why I feel pretty strongly that Mike Bibby and Rip Hamilton* should be added to the national team roster, and get ample playing time. If nothing else, this seems like a better plan than loading the team with athletes and slashers who all duplicate each other.

- No Daniel Hartman - I will leave you in!!!

- And now we’ve reached the segment of the blog where I’ll name-drop a phenomenal band that nobody’s ever heard of so that I can feel elitist: The National.

- Is anything better then all the baseball stories with the experts wondering why Home Runs are at a record setting pace this year. There are only two possible explanations for this but no one ever mentions either. The first explanation is that all the hitters just switched from steroids to HGH or (my pick) hitters in this era were always better and we’re starting to see that now more then ever since all the pitchers have stopped juicing. They way I see it these seem to be the two most logical options, yet every analyst just says thinks like “You really can’t explain it” and “It’s just one of those freak statistical years”. Look it’s either one of the two above, trying to pretend that it’s just some freaky coincidence, like Mark McGuire’s shrunken testicles during the ‘97 home run chase, is just embarrassing and insulting. The Jason Grimsley scandal proved to us that performance enhancing drugs were heavily apart of baseball for at least the past decade, therefore its only logical to that everything currently happening in baseball has to do with performance enhancing drugs either being used or no longer being used. It just depends on whether its players using an untestable kind or players sucking because they no longer use them.

- Miles Simon is a massive, massive tool.

- Ditto Zach Braff (Overrated)

- Is it just me, or is “Crossover,” the new movie about street basketball, about 3 years late? Along with their tardiness, the makers of this film failed to realize that Wayne Brady was never cool, or anything more than a one trick pony for that matter, and that no one would ever buy him as a villain (especially a seedy sports agent villain). And if that wasn’t enough, they hired the black guy from T(een)NBC’S “City Guys” to play the lead. Combine that with the uber homoerotic double alley-oop they keep showing in the trailer, and you’ve got a recipe for comedy gold. I feel like they made this movie just so I’d have something to watch on video at 3 in the morning a month from now. Thanks Tristar.

- It’s probably been over played by now, but I have to mention it: The new OKGO video is absolutely amazing. The song itself is beyond terrible, but the video might be the best thing I’ve ever seen. I ran into on MTV 2 one night while searching for something to watch during halftime of the FIBA World Championship. Despite what sounded like a musical abortion on my ears I couldn’t turn away from the screen. Just watch it and trust me on this one, the video is great: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI


- Top 5 Songs Currently Rocking me to the core:
1.) I’m From Barcelona** - Chicken Pox
2.) The National – Mr. November
3.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Cheated Hearts
4.) Murs – Freak These Tales
5.) Killers – When You Were Young (See ya ‘round, indie street cred.)
Bonus Song.) Boy Star Library – Me and Julia

- Work Story Time: As some of you may know I work the graveyard shift for a 4-star resort in Tucson. This resort, which for now will remain nameless, was hosting this years Mrs. America Pageant. So for the past few weeks theirs been 50 Beauty Queens running around the resort***.
One night while I was picking up a tray I ran into and had a brief conversation with Mrs. North Carolina. After the usual clichés Mrs. NC and I had the following exchange:

Me: So according to Vegas you’re favored to win the entire pageant****.

Mrs. North Carolina: Oh Mrs. Vegas said that?

Me: (Complete awestruck) Um.. no…

- And there you have it. I can’t think of anything else to write and I’m about to pass out, so I’m off. Stay tuned later this week (or next week)for an earth-shattering blog to end all blogs.

Until We Meet Again


* Try as I might, I couldn’t think of any other mid-range players. Has the basketball in America de-evolved so much that there are only 3 players left in the game who have dominant mid-range games? My answer: yes.
** Another brilliant band from Sweden. They’re hardcore tween pop and they sound like a combination of The Polyphonics Spree and Boy Least Likely.
*** Quick side not that I can’t prove: I’m pretty sure most of the Mrs. America contestants are married to gay men just so they can have the title Mrs. And thus have a better chance at gaining the crown. Either that or they all have gay entourages.
****Yes the fact that I brought up imaginary gambling odds in a casual conversation proves that I have a gambling problem, so what?

The Rasheed Wallace of Loews Ventana Canyon Resort

CTC. Cut the check. How could any of us forget the once infamous words of ‘Sheed telling the world that the only thing that mattered to him was getting paid. I know I can’t. Rasheed said this back when he was playing for the Portland Trailblazers, mere months away from being shipped to Detroit via hotlanta. And just look at him now, he’s the X-Factor, toughest match up and arguably the best player on the best team in the league. So what does all this have to do with you and me? Well I really don’t know or care how it relates to you to you, but as for me, I can no longer relate to ‘Sheed. Even though I’ve never smoked pot*, I found it much easier to relate to the Portland version of ‘Sheed. He was a man that was complete insane and completely honest.. He only cared about one thing and one thing only: gettin’ paid. Which brings us back to myself and Loews Ventana Canyon Resort (LVCR for short). While I still do my job, my effort is getting more and more half assed. Like the old ‘Sheed all I care about is my pay check, which are getting smaller and smaller do to less people staying at the resort. And when I’m honest with myself, there’s really no reason for me to try any harder then I currently am. I’m suppose to bridge the gap from the evening crew to the a.m. crew. My main duty is making sure the morning crew isn’t over whelmed when they get in and covering the p.m. crews arses. But here’s the problem with all that, there’s not single redeemable person in the entire staff of people I work with. There’s butt f*ck Chuck, the am crew’s manager who’s so gay he’s almost over doing it. He spends his entire day eating and flirting with boys and over weight women. Needless to say I’m extremely jealous. In fact the entire morning crew us pretty much a train wreck. The only semi-redemable person is this one over weight chica, but I’m pretty sure she talks sh*t about me in Spanish to the other over weight chicas**. Then there’s the pm shift, who might be an even more motley crew. They’re lead my a manager whose going through mid-life crisis so badly that I’m half convinced it’s an act. Despite the fact that’s he’s balding pretty badly he still tries to spike his hair up and pretend like nothings wrong. I’m also pretty sure that he dies his hair, but I can’t prove it. Then there’s the Chinese guy I work with, who despite being married and having a four month old child insists of giving be a recap of all the ‘tits’ in the room he just delivered food to. And we haven’t even touched on the goofy foreigner, the whinny/emo/constantly bitching about something guy., or the biker guy whose hearing is so shot he shouts everything he says and repeats every sentence to you at least 4 times. Wait, I forgot there is one redeemable soul in this gawd awful work place. That would be the heavy set cashier who has impeccable music taste and is extremely funny. But other then that I doubt I’d shed a tear if I never saw the rest of my co-workers. And now on to NBA playoffs thoughts and other news.

- Two years in a row I’ve thought Steve Nash probably didn’t deserve the MVP, and two years in a row he’s used the playoffs to prove me wrong. In related news I apologize to all Suns fans out their as I no doubt just jinxed the man.
- What’s the difference between Tony Parker and Steve Nash defensively? Tim Duncan, Robert Horry and Bruce Bowen. Both Nash and Parker are horrible defenders, but one player just has a plethora of great defenders around him so he doesn’t look half as bad. PG defenense is the easiest to cover up, you just need good defenders in other spots to be able to cover for him. Remember this next year when Nash is flanked by Raja Bell and Shawn Marion on the wings and Kurt Thomas and Amare Stoudamire in the post and everyone’s talking about how much he’s improved as a defender.
- Pat Riley should be fired for not putting a single decent defender or shooter around D-Wade and Shaq. It was painful to watch both of them get quadruple teamed by the Nets and have no one to kick it out to. That said if RJ’s not 100% healthy the Heat will take this series in 6.
- Fearless prediction: If Dallas somehow upsets San Antonio, the Suns are going to the NBA finals. Steve Nash won’t let his team lose to the Mavericks and all in all the Suns are the worst possible match up for them. But Dallas isn’t going to get by San Antonio, so it doesn’t really matter.
- If you enjoy basketball pray that RJ is healthy so the Nets have a chance at up ending the Pistons and we can be spared from yet another Piston-Spurs finals.

Well that’s it for now. Enjoy watching the Suns attempt to reach 200 points tonight.

Until We Meet Again

* Mainly because I’m certain I’d enjoy it far too much.
** For those of you scoring at home, that’s 3 heavy set Latino women that I work with in the morning.