Tale From The Front Desk

In my 20's I was working in the Hotel Industry as a Night Auditor. It was long hours. Most of those hours spent alone crunching number. The sound of the strokes on the 10 key ticking away the hours. Every once in a while I would get lucky and there would be break in the monotony with a strange guest request, or a problem I would have to trouble shoot. Some of those distractions would be down right strange and I often thought, "I should write these down and see if others would enjoy them." So, I am now going to do that. Here is the first in, what I hope will be enjoyable, Tales From The Front Desk.

So one night at around 2 am, (working graveyard you realize Good Night becomes Good Morning at 4 am) I receive a call down to the desk from one of our rooms. "Good evening, front desk." I answer. On the other end I hear an elderly mans voice, rather quiet in tone. "Yes, I hate to bother you, but I lost my wife.." Saddened I say, "Oh I'm sorry sir" thinking to myself how lonely it must be in the middle of the night after losing a spouse. Again the soft voice says, "You see, I've lost my wife...." Then there is a long pause, so I again say, "Yes sir, I am very sad to hear that." This time a little louder the voice says, "She's not here anymore." Trying to be comforting I say to him, "I'm am truly sorry sir, can I get you anything?" The man then says in a very loud voice, "No, I lost my wife! I went to the car to get her medication and when I got back, she was gone!" Now I feel really stupid and tell him I will help him look for her. While looking for her he tells me she has not taken her anti psychotic medication and she suffers from delusions. We finally locate his wife. She is outside sitting on a wall. On the Hotel side it was a short wall, but because the hotel sat on a hill, the other side dropped about 20 feet. As we approached her she started shouting to get back and not shoot her. She leaned back and nearly fell backwards. After a long while, her husband was finally able to get her to recognize him and we got them back to their room. After everything was back to normal and his wife was safe, all I could do was shake my head, pick up the phone and call another local hotel. To keep from boredom, several of us Night Auditors would contact each other with stories of, "You are not going to believe this one."

Hope you enjoyed the story. There are plenty more where that came from. If you would like to hear more, just let me know. Love to all

Burly Bear Chris