Friday Feb 23, 2007
Dear Marissa,
I called earlier this morning than I called yesterday, but with the same result. Well, that isn’t quite true. Beyond the fact that you weren’t there to take the call, nothing else about it was the same.
This time a man answered the phone and there was no gender doubt. His voice came up from somewhere down around his ankles, and it made my cell phone reverberate like it was time to upgrade my service. And, he spoke English. That’s a gross understatement, like saying Dick Cheney isn’t an expert marksman. This man spoke perfect Oxford English, and I’m not talking about Oxford Mississippi English.
He said, “Good morning. Thank you for calling the Inn Near the Sea. If the Calgary Stampede and Democratic convention hadn’t still been raging in the background, I would have thought that I had reached a wrong number. However, they were still going strong. By the way, what is that noise and does it ever stop? You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. Anyway, I asked for you and there was a long pause. Finally he asked, “What does she look like?”
I said, “Well, she’s brunette, very attractive, young, wears glasses…”
He interrupted me when I said, “She’s an American student from…”
He said, “Stop.” Then there was total silence on the phone. I thought we had been disconnected. Finally he said, I should point out, rather rudely, “No, there are no chicken-shit Americans here, only delegates to the import-export convention.” Then he hung up. That’s right, he hung up. Now how’s that for rude?
What’s going on down there, Marissa. Is it time for me and Leon to come down? We have a lot of frequent flyer miles from the time the Sky Marshall handcuffed us in the bathroom of the 747, got drunk with the stewardesses then went home with a couple them, forgetting he’d left us on the plane in the bathroom with an Out of Order sign on the door. We flew for two days before a clean up crew found us. We were in Tokyo.
Anyway, if you need us, all you have to do is say so.
Love,
Jake
