I’m Not Convinced We’ve Wasted Enough Time On This.

The phone conversation I just had:

Me- “Thank you for calling ‘Kate’s Motel’, this is Kate, how may I help you?

Them- (in thick eastern Indian accent) “May I speak with the manager Michelle, please?”

Me- “I’m sorry, she is not here this morning, is there something I can help you with?”

Them- “Well the reason for why I am calling we are offering (unintelligible) magazine to your property for first issue being complimentary and receive to your property remaining issues and what address I can send first issue which is complimentary?”

(No lie, the man spoke in a run on sentence just like that.)

Me- “Um……what?”

Them- “What is address?  First issue is complimentary.”

Me- “Oh, I get it.  Yeah, I’m not authorized to make those decisions.  What is your telephone number so I can have Michelle return your call?”

Them- “First issue is complimentary.”

Me- “I know that.  But I’m not going to get fired for accepting a magazine subscription that I wasn’t authorized to accept.”

Them- “So I am going to put down here that you are afraid…”

Me- “Wait!  You’re not listening to me.  I. Am. Not. In. A. Position. Of. Authority. To. Make. That. Decision.”

Them- “But first issue is complimentary.”

Me- “That’s fine.”

Them- “So that’s fine I can send complimentary issue? What is address?”

Me- “No!  Just give me your phone number so I can have Michelle call you back.”

Them- “Ummmm…”

Me- “You know, a phone number that you or someone at your company can be reached at.”

Them- “Ummmm…”

Me- “Are you not allowed to give the number out?”
Them- “Oh yes, I can give you the telephone number.”

Me- “Great.  What is it?”

Them- “Ummmm…”

Me- “Do you not know the number?”

Them- “Oh yes, I know what the number is.”

Me- “Great.  What is it?”

Them- “Ummmm…”

Me- “Look.  If you’re not going to give me the number, I really have to go.  I have guests waiting on me.”

Them- “First issue is complimentary.”

Me- “Good luck with that…”

(click)

Teenagers + Alcohol + Weed + Kate’s Motel = Fun For Kate!

I sure hope that Doo wasn’t expecting me to come home anytime soon. Finally, after 9 months of sitting at Kate’s Motel with no action or significant drama to speak of, I have at last had to call Henry County’s Finest to come to my aid.

Kate’s Motel loves the popo.

The popo loves Kate’s Motel.

I KNEW when they checked in this afternoon that I was probably going to have trouble, but I relented and checked them in anyway, secretly hoping that before the night was over, I would have the opportunity to exert my au-thor-I-TIE and throw someone out, sans repayment of room and board.

For two hours straight, I watched and listened to countless people going up and down the elevator, tried to convince myself that what I was smelling was NOT weed, and wondering just what the monetary damage to the room was going to be by the time all this was over.

The first noise complaint came 5 minutes before my shift was over.

*JACKPOT* (insert cha-ching sound here)

I went up to the room and warned them of the noise curfew….once.

Kate don’t play.

Twenty minutes later, Kate learned that Henry County’s Finest has a hard time taking one phone call at a time. I got put on hold at least twice. Fortunately, less than 2 minutes after I hung up the phone with the dispatch officer, 3 policemen walked through my lobby doors. Good service so far, Henry County.

Over the next hour, my protégé and I watched ten (10) people under the age of 21 pile into the lobby of Kate’s Motel. We watched ten people under the age of 21 get questioned about their age and I had to restrain the urge to stand up and shout, “You’re all just babies! Why in the hell would you want to jeopardize your future by fucking up like this?!? You were born in 1993 for Christ’s sake! I was already in high school by then!!! You’re all idiots.”

I have to admit that I enjoyed, down in the deepest corners of my acrimonious heart, watching those kids all receive breathalyzer tests. It was like being in the middle of my very own Cops show. I kept waiting for one of the girls to lose it and start fighting the officers and screaming stuff like, “I AIN’T DONE SHIT! YOU GOT TO LEAVE ME ALONE! LET MY PEOPLE GO!”

I wasn’t that lucky tonight.

While I’m not quite sure what happened to the delinquents, their alcohol came home with me. I got a half gallon of cheap Russian vodka and a flask of MadDog 20/20 out of the whole ordeal. If you look close, you can see the used breathalyzers floating in the bottle in the middle.

Life is good.

If You Ever Need An Outfit To Match That Stick Up Your Ass, Give Me A Call

Dear Lady in room 215,

It has come to my attention that you are not happy with the room that I assigned to you last night.  This is very unfortunate because, as I am sure you noticed, it was a very nice room.  All of the rooms at Kate’s Motel are nice.  They all feature hardwood floors, pillowtop mattresses, granite countertops, glass showers with rainfall showerheads, a 32” flatscreen LCD television, and they all come with microwave, refrigerator, free Wi-Fi, and a free Deluxe Continental Breakfast.

Incidentally, I do understand that the room you were assigned, one of the last 5 rooms I had in all of Kate’s Motel to offer you and being a handicapped room to boot (although at this point I do believe you have some handicap in you somewhere), it was not the ideal room for you.

You must understand why I question your claim of discovering a pubic hair on one of your sheets shortly after you checked in.

a) Are you 100% positive that it was a pubic hair that you found?  Did you smell it?  Did you examine it under a high-powered microscope?  I have to say honestly, if it were me in your shoes and I suspected that what I was looking at was a stranger’s pubic hair, I certainly would not have been able to convince my face to get close enough to it to examine it and determine exactly where on said stranger’s body this particular hair came from.

b) Most adults have pubic hair.  As is common with hairs from the pubic region, they tend to latch on to whatever cloth is nearest.  I’m sure you’ve probably had one in your mouth at some point or another.

c)  This is a hotel.  There are worse things than pubic hairs hiding in your room.  I’m surprised you were able to sleep at all.

In closing, I’d like to inform you that no, I won’t be refunding the entire price of your room.  I’m not authorized to make that decision; I just work here.  You should be grateful that you received the generous 50% discount that I graciously provided to you and remember to tip the Housekeeping on your next hotel stay.  They are less inclined to leave pubic hairs on your sheets when you do that.

Thank you,
Kate

Just Cause You Got The Monkey Off Your Back Doesn’t Mean The Circus Has Left Town.

My fingers start twitching, I can’t sit still and for some reason my face itches.  I’m getting the shakes.  Having a difficult time with the can opener, but that could be nothing…I’ve never had much luck with electric can openers.  The left and right sides of my brain are arguing with each other and the cacophony inside my head is deafening.

“Just go to the store and get some, Kate.  You have the cash in your pocket.  It’s not going to break you, and you know you want it.  They‘ll sell it to you.  You don‘t need a fake I.D. to buy it now.”

“NO!  Don’t give up now!  Your health, your life, is at stake.  If you continue, you won’t have to worry whether your son had a good Christmas or not because you won’t be there to make a difference.  Sit your ass back down.”

Then the sweats come.  Even though it’s 28 degrees outside, I go from feeling like I need to streak naked on the balcony, to turning the heat up to the “Hell” setting.  Waves of nausea, panic attacks, I think I’m even hallucinating that giant Coke in the fridge.  I read somewhere that the hallucinations can last for up to 2 weeks…  Not good.

In the next months, I should expect profound confusion, disorientation, hyperactivity, and possibly a grand mal.

The cons of stopping are seeming to outweigh the pros.  Don’t they do Intervention shows about this stuff?  Maybe I need rehab.  Does Obamacare cover rehab?

This craving may kill me.  I really don’t think I’m strong enough to handle this.  When I had nothing else, I at least had this tiny outlet.  And who could really blame me after all I’ve been through?  It’s not like I sold blowjobs for crack…I could have found a much worse addiction…

I need a cigarette so bad.

The Six List of New Year’s Resolutions

The Six List is a list of six categorically related items. What makes them related, or how they are related, is entirely up to moi.
Why six? Cause 4 isn’t enough, five is so cliché, and ten would be just pretentious (I love this word).

Instead of making resolutions that I know I can’t follow through with, I think it would be so much easier to make a list that I know I can live with, and that way I won’t feel like warmed up shit when June rolls around and I haven’t done anything that I said I was going to do.

6. Give up a vice.
Smoking, drinking, overeating, prostitution…these are apparently the vices that the do-gooders of the world are talking about when they tell you to give it up.  All I have to say to that is:  My vices could be a whole lot worse.

I’ve never sold my son’s Playstation to pay for weed, and I’m pretty sure that no sexual favor has ever been exchanged for monetary gifts or otherwise.

This year I resolve to only smoke after I’ve overeaten AND had a nice stiff mojito with my meal.

5. Take better care of yourself.
You mean I’m going to have to join a gym or give up my Cokes?  This is not an option.  I’ve tried cutting out the sugar in my diet.  It was not a pretty time in my life.  The Coca-cola keeps me sane, and you alive.

For the safety of the entire planet, I resolve to drink more Coke.

4. Read more.
I’ve read the entire Stephen King collection (some twice), almost all of the classics, Anne Rice, Lemony Snicket, J.K. Rowlings, The Brothers Grimm, Nora Roberts (in my younger days), John McCammon, The Twilight series, Dean Koontz, and countless books on the metaphysical side of life.

This year I resolve to progress to adding a biography here and there.  Something on Willy Wonka, maybe.

3. Swearing less.
What the fuck?  How am I supposed to accurately convey my anger at the idiots that come through this hotel if I can’t swear?  I guess it’s not acceptable for everyone at all times, but it’s not like I go into church to tell the preacher that I think he’s an asshole for not even remembering my dad’s name when dad was in the hospital having heart surgery.  Don’t ask me for a picture of my dad because you can’t seem to place the name.  Fuck you.

But I didn’t say that out loud.

This year, I resolve to drop the F-bomb less than 20 times a day.

2. Being more decisive and standing up for myself.
I think I got that covered.  I resolve to continue telling the people that talk to me as if I’m no smarter than Corky, exactly where they can go and what they can do with their self-imposed, guilt-soothing bullshit.

1.Learning how to do something new.
Something that most of you don’t know about me…I played piano for 20 years before I had Ryan, and had to learn to live with playing Fur Elise with a toddler tinkling at the top of the keyboard for the duration of the song.  When I asked Ryan last month if he wanted me to teach him how to play the piano, he informed me that he already knew.

K: “Well when did you learn?”
R: “I was born knowing.”

He gets that smartassedness from me.  He gets the know-it-all personality from his father.

For the year of 2010, I resolve to learn how to counteract my son’s smartass answers with even better smartass answers of my own.

Cross your fingers, the year’s almost up.

Artificial Intelligence Is No Match For Natural Stupidity

Dear Mrs. Obnoxious Lady in room 228,

Please remember when you are checking into my hotel that it is impolite to interrupt someone while they are talking.  Here are a few things that you might have missed while you were yapping at me in that horrible accent of yours.

a) Your discounted rate of $69.99 plus tax is exactly that.  $69.99 PLUS TAX.  This does not mean that you should stand at my counter and count out exactly sixty nine dollars and ninety nine cents.  Although I must admit that I smiled on the inside when you realized you were going to have to count again.

b) We have a Continental Breakfast that we graciously serve from 6am to 9am.  That means that it’s included with the payment of your hotel room.  It also means that you are welcome to expand your generous waistline on our danishes.  It does NOT mean that anyone on my staff is going to make your waffles and bring them to your room.  Something tells me you’re not a “tipper” anyway.

c) I know that you are expecting another couple to check in sometime in the near 20 minute future.  You’ve managed to tell me approximately 7 times since you walked through my lobby doors.  Yes, I will give them the same rate as you, and no, you don’t need to stand at the front desk until they get here to make sure that I’m not trying to scam you.  Although, had I known that you were going to be such an insufferable bitch, I would have told you that the lowest rate I had available was $99.99.  Because I can do that.

d) I could steal your credit card number if I really wanted to.  Fortunately for you, spending the next 20-30 years in jail for credit card or identity theft is not preferable for me, so your credit score is safe.  However, I can see where it could be hard to trust someone that you don’t know with this information.  Because it’s entirely possible that I have a loser ex-husband that fights me at every turn on child support, I could have a crappy job that doesn’t pay me what I’m actually worth, and Christmas is just around the corner.  Lucky you found an actual honest person.

I have a “script” that I follow with every single guest that checks into Kate’s Motel.  Had you listened to anything that I said while you were checking in, I wouldn’t have had to repeat everything and taken 20 minutes to finally get your keys to you.  You would have known what time breakfast was served, what time checkout is, and the best place to park your car.  And the best part is, you would have known all these things without ever having to say a word.

I also would have gotten through the entire procedure without a migraine headache to show for it.

Thank you,
Kate

You Can’t Hear My Secret

I can tell you a secret.

I can get it off my chest
have some redemption
throw away some guilt
fold it up small
and
shove it
where
the sun
don’t
shine.

I can show you
the
“forgotten”
corners of my heart
where the real me hides
hoping that no one
ever sees the truth
because what if it’s written all over my face and I’m the only one left that DOESN’T see that
everyone
already
knows…

I can take you
inside my Hell
where everything is my fault
and there is nothing I can do to fix any of it.
Where men hate
and women lie
and children cry
and the end
never
comes.

I can show you Love.
I can take you
to the place where love started
scared
excited
foolish and free
with leaves in my hair
and buttons misplaced…
the turning points of my life.

Decisions made and unmade.
I get to do that.

I can sing you my song
powerful
potent…
but you won’t hear it
because
you
don’t
know
it.

But I can still tell you a secret.

The Only Way To Improve A Coke Is To Put Rum Or Bourbon In It.

Lord knows I love a good Coke. It does nothing less than THRILL me that I live 20 minutes away from The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. If left to my own devices, I would drink Coke at every meal, immediately upon waking, AND right before falling asleep. Summarily, I would gladly hook up to an I.V. of Coca-Cola if it was possible. Diet Coke is blasphemy.

Lately, I’ve been only having Cokes when I go to work on the weekends. It’s just getting harder and harder to justify spending more than 5 bucks on a case of Coke these days when it’s only going to last for a maximum of 72 hours.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the refrigerator yesterday morning to find a fresh, unopened 20oz bottle of Coke sitting on the bottom shelf. I looked at it for a minute, convincing myself that it was really there and not some figment of my caffeine deprived imagination. When it didn’t disappear before my eyes, I closed the fridge door and set off to find Doo.

He’s SO good to me. He MUST have known that I was craving that sugary goodness and he brought me my fix. He’s the best man in the whole wide world and I love him so very much and I’m so glad that he just does awesome stuff like that to make me feel better when he knows that I must be missing my bestest friend in the universe cause she’s having her baby without me and he’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company because it’s ‘the real thing’ and maybe just maybe I should verify that my assumptions are correct before I drink it like some crackwhore who just blew the dog because that’s what her dealer said she had to do before he’d give her any smack.

“Doo? Umm…is that Coke in the fridge for me?”

“Nope.”

Silence.

No explanation. Just Nope.

In my initial shock I reasoned that Doo must have bought the Coke for himself to take to work the next day so that he didn’t have to waste time stopping at the convenience store before getting to the office. That shock wore off fairly quickly. The thought occurred to me that he might have been kidding. Doo does that frequently, and in our honeymoon phase of the relationship I’m still learning what’s a joke and what isn’t.

I decided I wasn’t going to touch the Coke.

So this morning, as Doo was walking out the door, I stopped him.

“Wait, you’re forgetting something.” I walked back to the fridge and pulled out the bottle. “Your Coke.”

“Oh. No, I don’t want it right now. Just put it back,” he says.

My composure slipped.

“You mean to tell me that you’re going to let in sit in that fridge and make me stare at it all day and not let me have any of it?!?!? Seriously?!?”

“Well the only reason I bought it to begin with is because they were on sale, two for $2.”

This is the moment that my eyes glazed over. The world was turning gray and suddenly it no longer mattered that other people existed on the planet besides me and the bottle of fresh, unopened Coca-Cola that I was currently white-knuckling.

Doo had already HAD one Coke.

You say they were on sale, two for $2, Doo?

You should have bought four.

Life is painful, nasty, and short. In my case it’s only been painful and nasty.

Woke up with a raging headache.
Ran into the corner of the kitchen counter.
Argued with Ryan on the importance of not falling asleep while standing up.
Spilled one Goody powder on the floor.
Choked on the other one.
Ran out of pineapple cream cheese half a bagel too early.
Ten minutes late getting Ryan to school for free breakfast.
Found out the hard way that Ryan can’t get out of the car at the lunchroom (which we pass on the way to the designated drop-off point), he must get out of the car on the polar opposite side of the school and walk all the way back.
Remembered immediately why I don’t like the teachers at Ryan’s school.
The blinker on the jeep is broken again. It worked yesterday.
Waited for endless agonizing minutes for the three teenage girls that live on the third floor to take their time coming down the steps; they somehow knew that I had to go to the bathroom and wanted to see if they could make me piss myself.
Aunt Flo is a dirty, dirty bitch. She tricked me into making me think she was gone for another month. Surprise.
Out of toilet paper.

I’m going back to bed before it can get any worse.

There Is Always One More Imbecile Than You Counted On.

Tip of the Day:
You know your PMS is out of control when you start to cry to the Walmart Vision Center lady because she called to remind you of your son’s eye appointment that you forgot about.

It’s not my fault.

Today was a difficult day.

I have to hand it to Doo, he took us out to eat and made me feel better. Nothing like a fat, juicy steak and the best Key Lime pie you ever had to take your troubles away.

So here’s the million dollar question: What do you do when someone in your life literally does everything in their power to make you as miserable as humanly possible? Putting them OUT of your life isn’t possible for the next nine years or so, and killing them is illegal. But it seems that this person has made it their life’s mission to make sure that you suffer tremendously for crimes that you didn’t even commit, JUST because they feel that you have somehow wronged them.

In my defense, I have raised my child with only the help from my parents and now Doo for the last 9 years. It’s not been easy. What parenting job ever is? I never badmouthed The Sperm Donor in front of Ryan, I never denied what little visitation was requested by The Sperm Donor, and I never asked the Sperm Donor for more money. Not even when I was reduced to working three days a week at $7.50 an hour. There’s no love lost between me and The Sperm Donor, but I’ll not have Ryan blame me for his father’s sins.

Ryan will find out what kind of person The Sperm donor is soon enough without my help.