One morning a few years ago, I pulled into a parking spot in front of the office at around 7:00 am to start what I assumed would be a typical busy day at Cleves. I had no idea how atypical it was about to be. Waiting for me outside the office was our Baker. As soon as I saw the look on her face I knew something pretty bad had happened. I opened my door to ‘we had to call an ambulance. A girl was found almost naked and covered in mud in the Main Hotel Lobby - BY A GUEST’ (For the record that was not very funny that morning but is HILARIOUS now looking back). Trust me that is not the way the Director of HR at a resort wants to start her day!! I found out that her roommates had moved her to the front of the staff house to wait for the ambulance. When I got there, lying on the ground on a blanket was the most wasted human being I had ever seen and having spent my whole life at Cleves, that is saying a lot. There was talk that she had potentially been drugged by somebody and obviously finding her naked, alone and this wasted in the morning, in the Main Hotel Lobby was bizarre even for Cleves. I tried to wake her up and she head bobbed a few times at me but I couldn’t get one coherent word out of her.
Due to the bizarre 9-1-1 call that was made the OPP were also dispatched. The paramedics arrived, did their assessment and loaded her in the back of the ambulance. This poor girl had just earned the distinction of being labelled ‘the drunkest human being this paramedic had ever seen in his career’ - YIKES. He told me to follow them but that the police would come and the ambulance would pull over so they could brief him. We had just gotten on our way when the cop car came screaming from the other direction, did a U turn and we pulled over. It wasn’t surprising that I knew him. There was some panic with all of us because we didn’t have a clue what had happened to her or how she ended up where she did, in the state she was in or if anything horrific had happened to her. After a brief chat we all headed to the hospital. They put her in a room in emerge and started an IV to get some fluids other than vodka running through her veins and thought it would be a good idea for me to sit in there with her while she came to, lucky me.
At about 9:30 am she opened her eyes and saw me standing beside her bed and said, ‘Where am I?’, I said ‘Where do you think you are?’ She looked around and said ‘In a hospital’ to which I nodded. That was quickly followed by ‘What time is it?’ I replied ‘About 9:30’ - she bolted up in bed and screamed ‘I AM LATE FOR WORK!!!!’ That was immediately followed by me saying ‘Honey, that is the least of your problems right now. What happened?’ Of course she couldn’t remember. The Doctor on duty wanted to run some tests and said she wouldn’t be let out for a few hours so I decided to head back to Cleves and try and figure out what happened and how she ended up where she did, looking like she did.
I spent about 3 hours putting her night together and when I had fully solved the mystery I was relieved and quite frankly highly amused at the same time. The following is the abridged version of what happened.....
It was a Tuesday night so she hopped on the bus to Resort Night. She was underage (not a big surprise) and had excellent fake id that apparently also worked at the LCBO. She and her roommates started priming for their night out almost immediately after they had finished work at Play World that day so she was well on her way before she even got on the bus. When they got there she met up with a bunch of people that she had just graduated high school with (the same school I graduated from - so proud...) so her Cleves friends lost track of her. At the end of the night when the bus was leaving to come back to the resort her roommates tried very hard to get her on the bus but her high school friends wanted her to go back to their cottage with them. They assured everybody they would have her back in the morning in plenty of time for work.
She continued to drink and party at a cottage. At the first sign of daylight the time came to get her back to Cleves. When the boat pulled up at the dock, she fell in the lake, dragged herself up on the dock and proceeded to take her jeans off. They watched her stumble and weave halfway up the dock and then left. Looking up she obviously thought that nice looking cottage (the Main Hotel) would be a perfect spot to have a nap before work so she continued up the path. She bailed in 2 different gardens (hence the mud on the legs, I later saw the ‘body prints’ in the flowers), weaved up the stairs and curled up in front of the fireplace to have a little pre-work nappy.
Her parents were called by the hospital and they showed up a few hours later. The Dad tried to give blame me for the events of the night. He couldn’t believe his underage daughter was allowed to go to the bar. I pointed out that she was an adult and if she was old enough to work at Cleves she was going to be the one doing the babysitting for the summer, not me. Even though I am sure he didn’t appreciate my answer, the argument ended after I said that.
She didn’t come back to work at Cleves that year. It turns out that the ‘lab tests showed some irregular numbers in her liver screening...’. A few days later they came back up, packed up her stuff and moved her out. I don’t think she actually had ‘liveritis’... I think she had ‘humiliateditis’. Imagine the man who originally found her curled up in front of the fireplace going back to his wife and kids after picking up his paper and telling that story!!! That gave a whole new meaning to ‘Dirty’ Dancing.
