Lost: One Potential Guest

I had a friend who usually lived further away, but her husband was an aide to their state’s congressman, so he often had to travel from his home state to DC. During one of the husband’s DC visits, my friend and kids flew down to stay with mutual friends, catch up with Maryland friends, and get to see the husband after a long period without him. I ended up volunteering to play chauffeur for their first trip to the hotel where her husband was staying since they didn’t have a car while in MD.

My friend’s husband was a little jealous of me, so I deemed that my being there when he finally got to see his wife and kids again would be less than ideal. I suggested my friend take her kids up to visit with her husband and I’d hang out in the lobby and kill some time until they were done. This was before smartphones were ubiquitous, and I hadn’t brought a normal book, so I settled for an audiobook on my mp3 player and sat back in a lobby chair with my eyes closed listening to it while I waited.

Employee: “Hey, mister, you can’t be here.”

Me: “Oh? Sorry, is there somewhere else I should wait?”

Employee: “No, you can’t be in the hotel.”

Me: “Sorry, why not? I’m waiting for my friend to get back.”

Employee: “We don’t let homeless people sleep here.”

This was the sort of upscale, fancy, prestigious sort of hotel where you would expect a bunch of rich congressmen to stay. By contrast, I was wearing my usual sort of clothing which was… not fancy or prestigious. Still, while I wouldn’t have called myself fashionable, I was hardly dressed in rags, disheveled, or otherwise giving off a “homeless” vibe as far as I could tell. My only guess is that he’d noticed that I’d closed my eyes while listening to my book and thought I was trying to sleep there. I guess only homeless people could be tired in DC?

Me: “I’m not homeless. I drove my friend here to visit her husband and am waiting to give them a ride back after their visit is over.”

Employee: “If you have a friend here, you can call her and tell her to meet you outside.”

Somehow, he managed to add a note of skepticism to that “if” that was subtle enough that I couldn’t really call him out on it and yet was still very clearly there.

Me: “Her phone broke sometime last week and she hasn’t gotten a replacement yet, so I can’t call her.”

Employee: “I’ve already asked you to leave. If you don’t, I’m going to have to call the police.”

Me: “I didn’t say I wasn’t going, but I need to figure out somewhere for my friend to find me when she comes looking for me since I’m her ride. Can I at least give you my name and a description of her so you will be able to tell her what happened to me?”

Employee: “I’ve already told you—”

At about this time, I felt something grab my leg and looked down to see that one of my friend’s kids had run up and latched onto me while trying to surprise me.

Kid: “Boo!”

Me: “Ahh, you’re a scary monster! Should I assume your mommy monster is coming, too?”

Kid: “They’re over there.”

Sure enough, I saw my friend and her other kid walking toward us from the proffered direction.

Me: *To the employee* “Well, it looks like I can leave now if that makes you happy.”

Friend: “Is something wrong?”

Me: “Oh, nothing much, just that they need to call the police about my apparently having lost my house sometime in the last hour.”

Friend: “Huh?”

Me: “I’ll explain on the drive, but if you all are ready, we should head to the car so we can appease this man who doesn’t think I’m worthy of being in the presence of their clientele.”

My friend was upset once I clarified what happened in the car. She even offered to have her husband get his congressman to complain about it. But I didn’t see how it would really help, and I doubted her husband wanted to go through that much effort to defend me personally, so I told her to just let it drop.

On her next visit, my friend had one of our mutual friends drive her to the hotel, and in mock protest, my replacement driver dressed up in the fanciest dress she had so they would know she wasn’t homeless. Apparently, our mutual friend made a rather sarcastic complaint to the hotel management about their treatment of me, despite my saying it wasn’t worth it. Sadly, I missed it, so I can’t report its contents here.