I'LL HAVE WHAT SHE'S HAVING

I am amazed how emotional and frantic Guests can be about ‘Lost & Found’. There are some weeks when a mother calls 10 times to see if we have found her child’s navy blue baseball hat or white t-shirt with absolutely nothing written on it. I love the people who call to tell us they have left all of their clothes in the closet of their room. I mean really ...how stupid do you have to be to do that? When 99% of the world leaves a hotel room don’t they do a pretty thorough check that they have remembered everything? I fully understand the phone call I got way back in the day when the person I got into the most amount of trouble with when I partied called me after Thanksgiving one year me to say that she had left all of her clothes in the dresser at our cottage because she was so hungover the day she and her family went home. I know that is true because I watched her try and puke into the hole of a coke can the night before. In case you are wondering it isn’t really possible.

Probably the most shocking ‘lost & found’ items we get up in the office are the most personal ones. The first year I worked in Reservations I was about 15 and I came into work one afternoon at 3:00 pm to find a toiletry bag on my desk. A piece of paper with an address accompanied it. I correctly assumed that I was to wrap it up and send it out but of course I am nosy and couldn’t resist looking inside. Just as I am opening the top zipper, Lynn and Marg yell at exactly the same time ‘DOOOOOONNNNN’TTTTTT’ WOW do I wish I had listened. I opened the zipper and staring at me was a ‘Steely Dan’, a ‘Giant Dildo’ call it what you may...with the accompanying accessories. I quickly zipped the case back up, put my head on my desk and laughed hysterically for at least 10 minutes. After I pulled it together I wrapped it up, (now wearing a HAZMAT suit) shipped it out and made sure to write ‘Fragile and Bloody Hilarious’ on the outside of the box....OK I didn’t but I wanted to. We didn’t call the guest to see if it was actually their ‘stuff’, the housekeeper just brought it up. I mean how do you make that phone call ‘Excuse me Mrs. Crozier but did you leave something SUPER special at the resort when you checked out???’

Approximately 20 years later the exact same thing happened only the woman who left it called us about 10 times to see if we had found and sent her bag of toys. When we opened it not only was there a ‘Red Rocket’ in there but there were also ‘Beads’ (use your imagination, I just can’t bring myself to write it down) and a whole bag of loot. A few things come to mind. If I were ever to take such an accessory pack on a vacation (and I don’t just in case you are wondering) you can bet it would absolutely be the FIRST thing I would put back in my suitcase when I was packing up. You can also be guaranteed that if I did leave it I would NEVER call even once let alone 10 times to have it shipped back. I would have to have paper bags custom made to wear over my head for the rest of my life. I would have to go and buy new things to chip my teeth on (sorry, I am so sorry for that, but it is funny so get over it!) and I guarantee I would figure out a way to get my name off the resort’s mailing list without anybody figuring out it was me calling!

Let’s move on to a few years ago. A lot of you know that the big pink chair in my office is a great source of information for me. People sit in that chair and just start talking, telling me all the latest gossip (after they leave my Mom sits in it and makes me tell her all of it...). A bellhop was looking for his ipod and the girl he loaned it to told him to just go into her room and he would find it was just under her covers. Imagine his surprise when he was feeling around the top bunk where she slept with her 5 OTHER ROOMMATES and he found her ‘Tower of Power’. It must have been the super silent model and I don’t remember hiring Helen Keller....think about that one!!.