Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Cain't play wit you no more.

They're backkkkkkkk. Ladies and gentlemen the DNR Boys have arrived at the hotel once again to make life just a little bit more entertaining.

Thus far in the Boys' stay I haven't had to bake extra cookies. This is partly due to the fact that we have been baking about thirty-six cookies each day and putting them out later than normal, but also largely a result of there being fewer young guys than normal (and thus, fewer boys who are apt to badger/charm baked goods out of me). Of course, now that some of the DNR Boys are repeating their stay with us they are becoming much more comfortable and familiar with the staff (i.e. mainly those of us on the later shifts).

Last night, I was hard at work watching Glee in the conference room. During a critical DOES NO ONE BELIEVE IN MONOGAMY?!?! moment, five of the DNR Boys arrived, well fed and watered from dinner. One of the ones from last time, Calvin*, immediately called out to me. "Georgia! There are only two cookies left!" I heard the plastic cookie-roof open and close. "That's because you guys ate them all," I called back. "Man," one of the other four groaned as I walked into the lobby, "he done took the last two cookies."

"That's alright," Calvin said, his mouth stuffed with cookie, "Georgia'll make us some more."

"This isn't a restaurant," I said, "you can't just order food and I'm going to give it to you."

"Aw, come on, girl," Calvin moaned, "there's only two cookies left!"

"That's because you guys ate them all!"

"You gotta Easy Bake Oven back there?"

"What?"

"An Easy Bake Oven. How y'all make these cookies? Ya bake 'em back there?" He gestured behind the counter.

"We have, like, a professional Easy Bake Oven."

"A professional Easy Bake Oven?" one of the cookie-lacking men repeated. I made a rectangular shape in the air. "It's about that big and we just bake them."

"You gonna bake some more?" Calvin asked, devouring the second (and last) cookie.

"I have to ration out the cookies when you guys are here. We only get a certain amount every few weeks and you're going to run us dry!"

"Can I see where you bake 'em? I wanna see where the cookie magic happens."

In an effort to distract Calvin's cookie-requests I took him into the back office where all my stuff was not so neatly laid out. He commented on nearly everything he saw and then asked where the cookie sheets were stored. I opened the oven and showed him the three racks. He grabbed one and placed it on top of the oven. "So what would ya do next?" he asked.

"I am not going to let you trick me into preparing cookies for you guys!"

"Aw come on, Georgia, just a dozen more cookies. You ain't baked that many to begin with."

"I baked thirty-six!" He looked surprised. "When you guys come," I continued, "we bake three trays worth of cookies each day."

"Come on, girl," he said, holding up the empty baking sheet, "just twelve more cookies just for us."

"Cookies??" One of his buddies came bounding around the corner. "Are there cookies??" he asked excitedly.

"She's gonna bake us some more," Calvin replied.

"What? No one agreed to any cookie baking!" I said.

"We only need twelve more cookies." Calvin looked at his buddy for reassurance. "Ain't that right?"

"Yeah, just twelve more cook --" The friend stopped suddenly and assumed one of those innocent positions a young child gets when he knows he's broken something valuable. "Ma'am," he said, playing up his Georgia accent, "we would be much obliged if you would bake us some more cookies, ma'am."

Dammit.

"Fine," I said, snatching the baking sheet from Calvin, "twelve more cookies. Do not tell ANYONE."

"Oh no, ma'am," the cookie wing-man said.

Now, I'm normally pretty dense when it comes to realizing someone is hitting on me so it should really say something that I could tell Calvin was chatting me up as I prepared their batch of cookies. He asked me everything about myself from where I was born, how I ended up on the island, to whether or not I wanted to be the manager of a hotel one day. I told him I was only at this job to make some money before hopefully moving to Chicago soon.

"Why Chicago?" Calvin asked.

"My family's from there," I said, placing the frozen dough balls on the cookie sheet, "and I went to school a few hours away in Michigan."

"High school?"

"College graduate, thank you very much."

"Uh-huh, what you graduate in?"

"English with writing."

"Uh-huh, that's what I figured."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Yeah, girl. I could tell you was smart and talented." He smirked as I slid the cookie sheet into the oven and closed the glass door. "How long ya think those'll take?" he asked.

"About twenty minutes."

"So I'll come back down in twenty minutes?"

I nodded.

"Alright, girl. Twenty minutes and I'll be back down for those cookies." He tipped his baseball cap as he walked out the door. "Love ya, meant it, Georgia!"

A few minutes later the phone rang. The code told me it was coming from In House. "Those cookies ready yet?" a familiar voice asked as soon as I answered. I looked at the timer in my hand. "You've got sixteen more minutes."

"It's only been four minutes?!"

"Yep."

"Y'all got a slow-ass timer!"

"YOU have no patience."

"Alright, girl, alright. Sixteen more minutes. Hey, when do ya get off work?"

"Eleven."

"Ya wanna come up here when ya get off and split a bottle of Jim Beam with me and the boys?"

"Tempting. I'll have to get back to you on that. Check back with me around eleven."

"Ya gonna get plans between now and eleven?"

"Possibly. I'm a pretty busy person."

"Alright, Georgia, that's cool, that's cool. Sixteen minutes, yeah?"

"Sixteen minutes."

"Alright. I'll see ya in sixteen minutes."

I'm not gonna lie -- part of me realllly wanted to take him up on his Jim Beam offer just for the hilarity of the whole event. The other part of me said, "You're not exactly single and that could possibly backfire." There are also security cameras all around and, with my luck, something would happen to cause the managers to have to look at the tapes the next day and there I would be -- in all my frequently-makes-poor-life-decisions glory. (Truth be told, however, the not being single thing was the biggest factor. If not for that I totally would have gone up just in hopes of gathering more writing material.)

I went back to the conference room to continue watching the end of Glee. Suddenly, another DNR boys came racing into the room. He stopped short when he saw me and gave an embarrassed smile. "Did you need something?" I asked. "I'm hiding," he whispered. He put his index finger to his lips and tiptoed to the edge of the door. I could hear footsteps in the distance as he peered cautiously around the corner and then darted back inside. After a few moments the footsteps disappeared and the DNR guy, Runner, crab-walked out of the room. "You didn't see me," he whispered before darting around the corner.

While I waited for the cookies to finish I chatted online with one of my best friends, Eve*. I told her about getting the drinking offer from the DNR Boys and Eve asked what region they were because she might know them. It was then that I suddenly remembered that Eve's father is very high up in the DNR chain-of-command. I asked for his exact title. "Colonel," she replied. "He's their boss." Well isn't that a coincidence!

On the dot, twenty minutes from when I first placed the raw dough in the oven, Calvin came waltzing into the back office. I was just beginning to place the warm cookies in their plastic container. "No no no," Calvin said. I froze. "Don't put them in there. I'll just put 'em in some bags and take 'em up." He grabbed the cookie out of my hand. As he did, he noticed a ring on my finger -- a bejeweled owl. "Damn, girl, you got some bling!"

"It's my new ring. I just got it a few weeks ago."

"Where'd you get it?" He dropped his cookie to hold my finger.

"Atlanta."

"Yeah? Where in Atlanta?"

"Decatur."

"Yeah? What were ya doin' there?"

"Visiting some friends."

"Yeah?" He continued to study the shiny object.

"Yep..." I knew the conversation wouldn't present a better opportunity than this so I decided to give my new found information a go. "Actually, I know a friend of yours in Atlanta, too."

Calvin had gone back to filling his cookie sacks. "Uh-huh, who dat?"

"Bart Smith*."

Calvin paused ever so slightly in his diligent packing. "I don't know him."

"No? Bart? Aren't you DNR Law Enforcement?"

"Yep."

"And you don't know Bart? Are you sure?"

"Yep. I don't know Bart."

"Huh." I went to the register to make change for a twenty dollar bill he had handed me earlier. When I came back around the corner Calvin was filling a second bag. "So," he said, sliding the next cookie into place, "sayin' I do know Bart...how do YOU know Bart?"

"I'm best friends with his daughter."

"Oh yeah?" I swear he got a twinkle in his eye. "Who's his daughter?" he asked like someone conducting an interrogation.

"Eve Smith."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, girl, okay. I'll give ya that."

"So you do know Bart?"

"'Course I know Bart. He d'Boss-man. 'Course I know 'em. That how we end up at this hotel? You our connection?"

"Nope. Total coincidence. I've only been here for about four months."

"Okay, okay. Yep, I know Bart. He d'COLONEL!" Calvin finished stuffing the last cookie into his bag. "Well, girl, it's been fun, but I cain't play wit you no more."

"Whattttt?"

"You been fun and I like ya, but I cain't play wit you no more. You know the boss-man. Uh-huh. You's offfffff limits!"

"Awww, I'm sorry."

"Me too, girl, me too."

And with that, Calvin tipped his cookie bags at me, asked when I worked next and left. It didn't take long for me to relay this entire episode to Eve who then promptly told her father, who laughed for a solid ten minutes. I was asked for Calvin's name and the last I heard was that Bart was going to "mess with them" and tell their trainer this whole story (using the code word "cookie").

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful in comparison to that comedic event. Towards the end of my shift an incredibly drunk guy wobbled in and attempted to get a severely discounted rate. After he agreed to the best discount I could offer him he stumbled outside to get his ID and then his SUV backed away. I heard a "thump" and worried that the SUV had hit a parked car (more importantly MY car, which was in the space closest to the building). A few moments later Runner walked in and I asked him if the SUV had left. He said that it had parked and the occupants were walking towards the building. "Fantastic," I said, unenthusiastically.

"You gotta bad feeling about them?" Runner asked.

"No. Just not really wanting to deal with all that."

"You want me to stand here and look all intimidatin'? Show 'em I can rough 'em up if they give ya any problems."

I told him it was fine and there was nothing to worry about. When the three men entered, Runner hid around a corner where only I could see him and pretended to take a fighting-stance. The three guys were no trouble at all, but just very very sleazy and every time the oldest one brought up dropping the room price by $40+ Runner would jab at the air with his fists.

Ohhhhhh how I love DNR Law Enforcement Week!

2 comments:

  1. I am going to practice up on my Kentucky accent...

    ReplyDelete
  2. What does DNR Boys mean? I only know Do NOT resuscitate.

    ReplyDelete