The day at the Hotel was starting off reasonably good. As I walked into the office everyone was happy and all smiles. I shot the breakfast lady, Marcie my usual look of “nah, nah, ne-nah, nah” too which she responded with a scowl. This is our relationship. We kid back and forth like that. I proceeded to clock in pick up all maintence requests, my radio, clipboard, and off to the maintence shack. From there I began the general cleanup of the hotel grounds.
It was a cool Mississippi morning. I was grateful for this. This past summer was so very unkind to me. But the sun came out, it was still cool, and the day was for lack of a better word, gorgeous. I passed an elderly gentleman who spoke and said, “It turned out to be a nice day.” I replied, “So far, anyway.” He laughed rather hysterically at my response, but in my mind I felt I was a little negative. After all of those classes my Pastor taught on being “positive”, having a “PMA, positive mental attitude”, and “self-fulfilling prophecies”, I should have known better. But I went my way and completed all of my initial tasks.
The final task of the day is testing, cleaning, and opening the pool. This has to be done before 10am when the pool is to be officially opened. First I decided to brush the sides before vacuuming it. As I neared the deep end, Marcie stepped outside the kitchen and asked me a question. I answered it. Then Miss Judy showed up. She’s the head housekeeper. The harassment ensued. We went back and forth briefly. But I continued to brush the sides of the pool.
They began to say things like, don’t go falling in and such the like. I’m not clear on what I said. But I think I said, “I won’t fall in.” I’ve been cleaning the pool for almost 2yrs and never fell in before. Then I brushed the side of the pool one more time. Because I’m in the deep end, I’m trying to make sure I hit the walls all the way down to the bottom. In doing so, I leaned too far forward. Then I realize, like a cartoon character, that there was nothing holding me up except for gravity. All the flailing, arm waving, and yelling could not stop gravity from her nefarious deed. I went in head first into 60 degree water.
I came up for air. I’m panicking and trying to stabilize myself. As you all know, statics does not look favorably upon blacks and our swimming skills. Luck for me, I am in that 5% range that can swim. But there is a difference between diving into cool water and falling head first in to cold water! I got my bearings, found the edge and did a series of breast strokes to get out of the water. When I got to the edge I pushed myself down into the water and back out again to give myself some leverage to get out.
Once I am out I got a guest on my left arm tugging and one of the other breakfast ladies, Shelia, on my right arm tugging and helping me out of the water. Well, I was already out of the water and I said as much. Marcie who was watching me went and told Frank our General Manager who came running to see if I was okay. He glanced, saw that I was fine and went back inside. Marcie chided him for that, but had I been in Frank’s position, I would have done the same. Even the front desk girl, Kawanna came out briefly to see what was happening. Then promptly went back inside to “tweet” about it on facebook and twitter.
*Smiles and says, friends*
This is an accurate account of what occurred that day. My cell phone was in my pocket and my radio on my hip. Both got wet. As of this post, my cell phone is in good working order. If you wish to hear the M. Night Shyamalan version (the version with a twist at the end) you can contact Marcie the breakfast lady for that version. In her version, Sheila clears the pool fence without using the gate and pulls me out of the pool. Never mind that I’m 5’ 11”, 300lbs and Sheila is 5’6” 160lbs. Sheila must be Wonder Woman in disguise, or something. The moral of the story is … when an elderly gentleman says to you, “It turned out to be a nice day.” Reply to him, “Yes Sir, it sure has.”
-Rynal Grant “The Hopeless Romantic”
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