Phone Boot(h)

Back at the hotel, M.O.M.’s job as a hostess required her to close out the registers at the end of the night.  The office was down the end of a hallway that ran between the restaurant and the hotel lobby.  Along this hallway were a row of payphones nestled in little privacy cubbies.   

After one particularly busy evening, M.O.M. closed out the register drawer and headed toward the office noting that no one was cleaning up after the diner service.  That was when she spotted one of the young bus boys, hunched over with this head buried in the phone booth cubby whispering to the person on the other end of the phone. 

Displaying the fact she was most certainly management material, M.O.M. passed by, and without pausing, placed her foot squarely on his protruding behind and shoved.  Practicing her tried and true method of attack and retreat, she never turned around or looked to see what his reaction was she just kept walking, and ducked into the office.    

What M.O.M. didn’t know, was that dad was following close behind her, not too close, but just close enough that when the man turned around to see who had kicked him in the butt causing him to thump his head on the wall of the phone booth, it was dad who he saw standing there, all six foot six inches of him.  And what could dad possibly say?  “It wasn’t me!”  

Now, bear in mind that in the more upscale restaurants and hotels, the staff dressed in somewhat more formal attire, I think M.O.M. could be forgiven for kicking a hotel guest in the arse under the mistaken assumption it was the wayward bus boy. 

Dad blinked down at the startled five foot, seven inch man then blurted out, “It wasn’t me!  It was my girlfriend!” and pointed at the closed door.  The man clearly inebriated and visibly shaken relaxed slightly.  “Oh, it was a chick?”  Then obviously relieved added “I thought you were mad at me or sumthin’!”

Dad, unsure how exactly to proceed said, “Wait here!”  Then disappeared into the office where M.O.M. had realized her mistake and was laying low.  I can imagine his shock as he pointed out what she’d done and insisted “You need to go apologize!” only to be met with a firm “No!”  By the time they left the office, the man was gone and presumably passed out somewhere.