Today, a story from my recent work trip:
I’m relaxing in my hotel room, catching up on some Netflix, eating take-out from a sushi restaurant, and packing to fly home in the morning. I hear a knock on the door across the hall. I couldn’t tell if it was my door, so I went to check. It wasn’t, but I see a food delivery guy standing at the door across the hall. I think ‘why didn’t I have someone deliver to my room, instead of picking up take-out? I could have been in my pajamas even earlier!’ But no one answers the door and he leaves.
About an hour later…
…I hear another knock on the door across the hall. Now I’m just nosy, but I go to my door and peer through the peephole. There are two people standing there and over the next few minutes, they knock a couple times, announce they are with hotel management, and then try to open the room door with a key card. The chain is on the door and they can’t get it open. But someone is obviously in there. They leave.
A few minutes later…
…they are back. They knock more loudly on the door. they try to break the chain by forcing the door open. It doesn’t move. They yell the name of the guest through the cracked door. No response. They go away again. They come back a few minutes later. The man tries to kick the door down. At this point, MY phone rings. I answer and it’s the front desk letting me know that there is a problem with the guest across the hall, and I may witness some noise for the next few minutes. Yeah…got that.
I look back through the peephole. Just as I do, the man from management appears to have jimmied the chain lose with a crowbar and gets the door all the way open. I hear sirens outside. I go to my window to see if they are coming here. They are. I go back to my peephole. Now they have the door wide open, and a first responder is in the room.
They start asking the guest questions. I’m wondering, ‘Is she drunk? Is she sick?’ I start thinking of disaster movies and books that start with one sick person, then a quarantine, and think ‘great, I’m across the hall, I’m definitely exposed.’ She seems to finally be answering their questions.
Suddenly I can hear her loud and clear.
As if she just woke up and was groggy, but now is wide awake. Because…that’s exactly what happened. She has apparently been traveling a lot, got hit with jet lag, and just fell so soundly asleep that nothing could wake her up, not the knock on the door, not someone yelling her name into her room, not someone physically trying to kick the door down. But now, with her room full of management, police, and EMTs, she is finally wide awake, and apologizing profusely for everyone’s trouble.
The moral of this story: BEWARE JET LAG. Don’t go to sleep after ordering delivery OR don’t order delivery when you are so tired you might pass out. Also, although the walls are a bit thin, the doors at Courtyard Marriotts are surprisingly sturdy.
And yeah, I should probably just mind my own business and not peer through peep holes. But you know you would have done it too.