Hi Carmen,
I forgot to share with you one more story from my Las Vegas trip which I thought you might enjoy. I decided to go for a walk early Saturday morning before my friend’s wedding later that day. I carefully hung out the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door handle outside the Luxor hotel room as I prefer no maid service during the day.
As far as I’m concerned, the room can stay messy the way I like it and it saves the housekeepers a little work, too. On my return from my long walk, I went to the Luxor’s 3B elevator to start up.
My room was way up high on the 20th floor. The room number was 20103 (“20” for 20th floor). This was a surprisingly long ride up in the elevator which was a bit of an adventure in itself: the elevator had seen better days.
The cage moved from side to side, rattled, shook, and made audible grumbling noises as though lodging a protest at being worked too hard. It was extremely slow, too, so each ride to the top floor seemed like an eternity!
The noise wasn’t so bad but this particular elevator also had an extremely bad habit of moving about inside its long rectangular cocoon tunnel; you could feel it shifting from side to side within the long vertical shaft.
Even the normally solid and implacable elevator floor itself sometimes lost its “level” feel . . . as sometimes happens on a ship crashing into waves. On every single trip I made with other hotel guests, someone was sure to comment on one or more aspects of this wild cosmic ride! We were, in fact, made quite nervous but tried to laugh it off in the presence of other guests as though a groaning, straining elevator was no big deal.
There had always been other people going up or down with me previously, but after my early morning walk on Saturday it so happened I was all by myself for the somewhat intimidating and dangerous ride. I was nervous when I saw I would be alone–no one to crawl out of the wreckage and run for help should the worst happen and the faithless elevator crash blindly to the basement from some great height.
I calmed myself the best I could before cautiously stepping inside Elevator Shaft 3B. I already knew that this particular elevator could qualify one day for a second life at a boardwalk amusement park. It would be billed as a “death-defying dare-you-to-ride-it devil elevator”: ride at your own peril!
Realizing that I was in for a long, lonesome, and bumpy ride, I searched for a way to comfort and calm myself. I decided to see if I could remember movements from my Tai Chi class. As the elevator started its noisy ascent, I began to move gracefully through a few simple postures. It was really fun since this swinging bumping grinding elevator provided the perfect challenge to demonstrating balance when changing from stance to stance!
I entered a semi-meditative state of mind as I performed these exercises but I kept one eye on the floor numbers lighting up on the panel. I planned one last beautiful stance right before I reached floor 20, with the usual little bow: hands in front, left hand balled against the flat palm of the right, the same posture found in martial arts around the world as well as Tai Chi. Salute Master, Salute Nature within a transcendental moment of breathing in harmony with the universe.
Waiting for the doors to open (at long last!) on my floor, I was so eager to get out I nearly ran “kerblam!” into a man who was waiting for the same elevator so he could go all the way down to the lobby by himself, brave soul! I had foolishly assumed there would be no one waiting for my elevator when the doors opened so I had impolitely leaped before I looked!
I mumbled some incoherent apology and then found the right corridor. I started walking steady and free, feeling very peaceful. That short Tai Chi meditation had really worked! As effortlessly as I had acquired this inner sense of peace, I was about to lose it just as quickly. I was just seconds away from blowing my cool completely!
As I got closer and closer to my hotel room, I could see plainly that the door was wide open. This perturbed me greatly because I take my privacy very seriously, as anyone would. I could see house-cleaning equipment in the hallway and as it turned out there was not one but two hotel maids inside: one young, one older, both Hispanic.
Well, that explained why the door was open all right (no robbery in progress, thank goodness!) but nevertheless I was not happy. I clearly remembered hanging out the “Do Not Disturb” sign before I left for my walk in the morning so this struck me as an unwarranted intrusion.
I felt so irritated (almost akin-to-violated) that I burst into the room with a “What’s going on?!” which was immediately followed by two stares and an instant state of confusion. The younger maid was not sure what I was saying and so she looked to the older one for guidance.
I started to explain the situation from my perspective but the younger one knew enough English to interrupt me by waving her hands and said “No, no, look at sign, look!”
I looked and sure enough the hang-on-doorknob sign was on the inside. That stopped me cold for a full minute. I was so sure I had put it on the outside door handle. Something was wrong but I didn’t know what. Then I took another look at the room.
As the maids had been busy stripping the bed of its covers and sheets, it had looked like any old bed to me at first but suddenly the room itself did not look right. Something buried deep in my misty subconscious was trying to go “click” but what was it?
I turned and dashed to the hallway to look at the room number and guess what? The number said “19103.” 19103!
Remember the guy who got on the elevator? I’d been on that slow, rattling, painful elevator for so long that I just assumed it was floor 20 when the elevator stopped and the doors opened wide for him . . . but he must have been waiting on Floor 19!
Talk about feeling stupid and shameful! I felt a deep blush rising that burned all the way up to my ears! I was totally in the wrong and there was no two ways about it!
By now the two maids were themselves quite excited, talking rapidly to each other in Spanish and neither was sure what was going on with me “this crazy man”. Were they in trouble? Were they about to be accused of something like stealing or some other improper breach of hotel etiquette?
I sheepishly went back inside the room and tried to apologize but by then they were not sure who I was or why this madman (me!) was so upset. Having entertained kids as a teacher for many a year, I knew I needed to think outside the box to regain some momentum of my own in resolving the sticky situation I had inadvertently created.
In short, I needed a big finish of some kind . . . so I got down on my knees in the prayer position of utmost supplication, my palms pressed together and fingers pointed upward, and asked for their forgiveness.
At this plea for forgiveness, both of them burst into laughter and we all laughed until the tears ran down our cheeks. We all realized at the same moment what had happened and how ridiculous the whole scene had become.
Certainly, I had “egg on my face” and “blood in my cheeks” (from blushing) but at least I had the good sense to try and extricate myself from the whole foolish scene the best I could by clowning . . . and me getting down on my knees to offer a sincere apology did the trick!
Oh Jeeesh Carmen, it was SO EMBARRASSING!!
The moral of the story is not to get upset too quickly or go flying off the handle until you’ve had a chance to ascertain the true state of affairs.
I am glad I did not do anything even more outlandish to express my initial surprise and indignation because I was already stepping into a deep enough hole as it was . . . and we all remember the old adage “the deeper the hole the harder it is to climb out”, right?
Oh lordy, what a perfect fool I made of myself . . . but in the end we all had a very good laugh!
True story!
Roger
