By Grant McGee
My dad was a hotel manager.
I always thought he was The World’s Greatest Hotel Manager, but that’s
probably because he was my dad.
When I was a kid we used to live in the hotels he
managed. We lived in places like New
York City and Buffalo, New York and Honolulu, Hawai’I and Baltimore and my dad’s
hometown of Roanoke, Virginia.
The neat thing about living in Roanoke was that was where
his parents, my grandparents lived. The
big ol’ hotel he managed was smack dab downtown but my grandparents place was
out on the edge of the city near a big, wide-open field that had a great view
of the Blue Ridge Mountains that surrounded the city.
Out at my grandparent’s place is where I made all my
friends. There was Catfish and Dick and
Lewis and Kevin. Whenever I was in the
neighborhood we always spent our time running through yards playing army and
doing stuff boys did in the mid-twentieth century.
From time to time the guys would come visit at my home in
the big hotel downtown. We spent our
time swimming in the big pool or running up and down the hotel stairwells
playing James Bond because in big buildings you played James Bond and out in
suburbia you played army because in the mid-twentieth century we hadn’t heard
of urban warfare because the twenty-first century hadn’t come yet and The
Vietnam War was on TV and James Bond was in the movies.
After one fun day at the hotel, me and Dick and Lewis and
Catfish were at the family apartment watching the black-and-white TV. My dad was working and my mom was out
somewhere.
“Hey,” said Lewis. “You
get room service don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s
how we get dinner or lunch unless mom fixes something.”
“Can you order beer?” asked Lewis.
Everyone stopped watching cartoons and turned and looked at
me with wide-eyed anticipation.
I sat on the sofa dumbfounded. I’d never thought of that before. COULD I order beer from room service?
In all my 11 year old, 5th grade wisdom I
thought, “Why not?”
“Maybe,” I said. So I
picked up the phone and dialed the number for room service.
“Ask for Budweiser,” said Catfish.
“Hello,” I said, lowering my voice so I thought I sounded
like my dad, “This is the McGee residence, would you please send up a six-pack
of Budweiser?”
“Yes sir,” said the voice on the other end.
“Thank you,” I said in my deep voice.
I hung up.
Lewis jumped up.
“We’re gonna get beer!” he yelled.
“Wow,” said Dick, “That’s so cool, just call and ask for
beer and they send it up.”
Minutes later there was a knocking at the door of the
apartment. I opened it up and in walks a
waiter holding a tray atop which there is a six-pack of Budweiser glistening in
its coldness.
I had gone to my desk and scooped up all my change to give
him a tip that probably consisted of 83 cents or something like that.
And he was gone.
And the cold beer remained.
“Wow,” said Catfish, “Beer!”
He was the first to grab one, then Dick, then Lewis.
“Aren’t you gonna have one?” asked Lewis.
“Naw,” I said. “I don’t
like how it tastes.”
“More for us,” said Dick.
So there we were hanging around on a Saturday morning at the
big hotel downtown drinking beer and watching “The Jetsons” on the black and
white TV.
When someone came in the front door.
“What are you boys doing?” A voice called through the
apartment.
It was my mom.
Everyone scrambled to hide their beers.
I stuck the remaining cold ones out the window on a
ledge.
Mom came in the living room and surveyed all of us watching
TV.
“You know,” she said, “I just know you four have been up to
something but I don’t know what it is.”
I just smiled at mom and said, “Watching TV and drinking
beer.”
Catfish turned to me with wide eyes.
“Ha ha, very funny, young man,” said mom as she went into
the kitchen.
The rest of the morning passed and soon all the guys were on
their way back home around lunch time.
Somewhere later in the afternoon while I was in my room
playing with my train set my mom walked in.
“I have some questions for you, young man,” she said.
I turned and looked up at her.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Why is there beer in the kitty litter box?”
“There’s beer in the kitty litter box?”
We had a cat named Tiger, an indoor cat.
“I couldn’t figure out why he was walking through the
apartment howling,” said mom. “So I went
to his kitty litter box and all of his litter is wet, and smells like beer.”
I sat there for a moment.
“Um,” I said, “I ordered some beer from room service and we
drank it and when we heard you come in everyone was supposed to hide what they
had and I guess someone poured theirs in Tiger’s box.”
Mom stood there for a minute.
“We just won’t tell your father,” said Mom. With that she turned and left me alone with
my train set.
“There’s three more cans out the living room window on the
ledge,” I called out.
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