I’d finally managed to fall asleep when…click click click…click click…click click click click click. That’s the sound of a drunk trying to get into a Houston hotel room at 11:37 at night.
Some idiot had mistaken my room for his. Worse, he was a persistent idiot: he wouldn’t stop. Click click…click.
As I lay there considering the decline of mankind, I decided this fool must be punished for his rude behavior. But how?
I could hit him with a lethal bucket of ice water, but I’d neglected to stock the ice cube pail. I might try a Kung Fu maneuver, but which one? Being a Nordic Warrior King, I have many to choose from. What about a fusillade of whizzing coat hangers? No, the hangers were all in use, and I didn’t want to iron in the morning. A blinding squirt of shampoo in the eyes? The maid forgot to leave me any.
That’s when I realized that hotel rooms are dangerously short of weapons.
Finally, I just settled on screaming to the heavens. “Wrong room, you asshole!”
The clicking stopped for a few moments. Success. I heard a few mumbled words from the hall, and then….click click click click…click click click.
“ASSSSSHOOOOOLE!”
I yanked my pants on, grabbed a shirt, and rushed to the door, fully prepared to open a terrific can of whoop-ass on some Texan moron. But as I flung the door open, I encountered a hulk of a man, easily seven feet tall and weighing at least four hundred pounds, clad in lumberjack plaid and sporting a beard to make Grizzly Adams jealous.
“Hello,” he said in a voice like boulders. “I am Ivan. From Latvia. You are in wrong hotel room, Sir.”
Was I having a nightmare brought on by one too many Ziegenbocks? I shook my head in disbelief, then stammered, “No. No, this is my room.”
“I have card, you see?” Upon which he brandished a ragged key card, the magnetic strip so worn by now it wouldn’t open the door of a cardboard clubhouse.
“Let me see it, Ivan.”
The number scrawled across the front of the little key card envelope was barely legible. Apparently the front desk girl had failed middle-school penmanship. Her 7s looked like 9s, and her 3s like 8s. Ivan, already in the wrong country, had been sent to the wrong hotel room as well. It was a wonder he hadn’t ended up on the roof.
“Ivan. Your room is 239. Not 237. See?” I pointed to the flawed 9.
A dim light appeared in Ivan’s cavernous eyes. “Aaaaah, you veeeery smart American man. What is name?”
What? “I’m sorry?”
“How did your mother name you, Sir?”
Oh, Christ on a crutch. “I’m Kip. Kip Hanson.”
Ivan stuck out a hand the size of a smoked ham and gave me a vigorous handshake. “Thank you Mr. Kip. Very nice to meet Americans. I go now and talk with Maritza. You sleep now, ya?”
Who was Maritza? “Okay, Ivan. Goodnight.”
But as I started to close the door, he suddenly turned. “Mr. Kip, one moment please. What is ASSHOLE?”
“Never mind, Ivan,” I said, and closed the door.
Fifteen minutes later, as my mind tried to push aside the specter of Ivan the giant Latvian, the phone rang.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Kip?” A woman’s voice.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“This is Maritza, from the front desk.”
“Yes?”
“I have Mr. Ivan Zlabrewski here with me. I’m terribly sorry, but I gave Mr. Zlabrewski your room number by accident.”
“Yes.” Of course you did.
“Are you okay now, Mr. Kip?”
“Okay? A few minutes before midnight and a thousand miles from my home, I’d been woken from a dream of a red-headed Dana Scully wearing a skimpy nurse’s uniform and eager to solve an X-file, only to find a Latvian troll standing outside my Houston hotel room. How could I possibly be okay? “Yes, Maritza. I’m fine. Goodnight.”
“Ivan says he is very sorry as well, Mr Kip.”
“Goodnight, Maritza.”
“Goodnight Mr. Ki…” and I hung up.
As I slipped off to sleep, I felt the footsteps of Ivan Zlabrewski thunder past my room and stop next door at Room 239. Within five minutes, I could hear the chainsaw rumble of Latvian snoring coming from the other side of the wall. Latvians must be sound sleepers.
I got out of bed, flipped on CNN, and started to pack.