A bagpiper?
A childhood celebrity turned singer
I was traveling for work a couple of years ago, staying in a hotel outside of Atlanta.
Returning to my room after work, I carded myself in and found myself looking at two suitcases that were not mine, fully packed, in the middle of the room. I left the room and started back to the front desk to find out what was going on when I realized that it wasn’t my room.
In fact, it wasn’t even close to my room. It was at least 20 rooms away from mine and on the other side of the hallway. I went back to my room and along the way, as a test, tried using my key card at my co-workers room (I knew he wasn’t there, had no intention of entering, just testing my key card). It didn’t work. I also tried my card in the same (wrong) door the next day and nothing.
Somehow, I mistakenly wandered into the wrong hotel room, with a key card that worked for that door, at that moment. A room that was nowhere near mine.
Typing it all out, it sounds less bizarre, but it still weirds me out. I stay in hotels about 50 nights a year and have done so for over 6 years, and have never chosen the wrong room, except** that one time**, and the door opened!
1, 3, 7 and 9 happen to me all the time.
Here’s an odd one.
Some years ago, when I was single, a good friend decided she was going to fix me up with a woman she knew.
I agreed, and we all went out for drinks and dinner one night.
The woman and I were hitting it off pretty well. She was definitely attractive, and age-appropriate, and didn’t seem insane at all.
So, at some point during the evening, my friend turned to me and said “so how are Bob and Frank [odd, unique last name]?” Bob and Frank (fake names, obviously) are my stepbrothers.
The woman with whom I was being fixed up said “you know Bob and Frank [unique last name]?”
I said “yes, for years and years – they’re my stepbrothers.”
She said “I used to live with Frank.”
So that relationship never got off the ground.
I’ve told this before, but it’s all I got. When I was in 8th grade I decided I should start memorizing some poetry because some smarter people had done so and could recite wonderful bits of poems. I picked ‘The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere’ and memorized the first stanzas…let us flash forward to English class later that year. Our assignment: memorize the first stanzas (or as much as we could) of ‘The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere’. (and we each had to stand in front of the class and recite them!) W. T. F. ??? … I passed that little test with flying colors. What on earth happened there?? (the maddening thing is, no one I told this odd coincidence to believed me. Not my parents or friends. Why would I make it up?? But it was true.)
Well, then. Now then.
You’re not channelling the late [del]Sir[/del] James Savile are you? Because I think that’s gone a bit out of fashion lately.