Hotel Employee Training Guide: Chapter 16, Section 4
“These Beds Are For Midgets”
It is a surprisingly rare time when you will actually confront a very, very irate customer. However, it is still a situation you should always be prepared for.
You will receive a call from one of the 03s. The sweet sounding woman on the other end will say, “Hi, this is Mrs. Florian and I was just wondering if we could get a different room for tonight. The beds in this room must have been made for midgets.” You will not correct her. Yes, “midget” implies smallness and only terms like “dwarf” and “little people” are acceptable in the Munchkin community, but that is not important because you are about to find out it is just big people talking anyway. “I’m only 5’4″, but this bed is way too short.” You will apologize and offer her a new room. Then you wonder if she does the Worm in her sleep.
Fifteen minutes later her husband, a giant, estimated to be about 5’8″ and 120 pounds, will arrive for the new key. You understand why they need a bigger bed. His frame appears frail and weak and short, but a look into those eyes tells you that his name is, in fact, Bruce Banner. When he has bad dreams he obviously turns into the Incredible Hulk, a mass no double-sized bed could hold. Slightly frightened by this thought, you apologize again and try to hide the quiver of your hand as you pass him his new key.
Another fifteen minutes will pass. Then Bruce Banner will return.
“That is the same size as the other bed.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but that is a queen bed.”
“No. No, no, no, no. I sleep in a queen bed. That is not a queen. I sleep in a queen.”
You will stammer as you try to find a retort. You probably wouldn’t know how to argue this point under normal circumstances. Use some measuring tape and the Wikipedia definition of the dimensions on the second biggest of beds, maybe? But you can’t think logically because you are averting eye contact with this goateed stick figure, praying he does not get truly enraged and become a literal bull in a china shop (if the Hulk were more like a minotaur and the hotel lobby sold fine china, of course).
So he picks up the conversation for you. “Don’t you have a KING size you could give us?”
“We have no king beds.”
“Well this just sucks! That is not a queen bed!”
You would like to tell him that thousands of guests have come through before him and none have disagreed with our (and the mattress seller’s) definition of the size of bed that suits a female monarch. And some, if only have few, of those previous visitors even reached the towering height of six feet. On occasion we have even had side-show, carnie freaks who were taller that six feet (gasp). They all seemed comfortable, even with their height problems. This is what you want to say. What comes out of your mouth, however, is this:
“You are more than welcome to find other lodgings if you like.”
“WELL THAT’S NICE! More inconvenience to us! Just like last night when the toilet jammed up and we had to clean it ourselves!”
Not positive about the previous night’s happenings you assume he was reading the Wall Street Journal while dropping a deuce, got infuriated with the days financial woes and pushed out a Hulk-sized shit that broke the toilet in two. Bruce Banner probably cleans up after the Hulk a lot.
“I’m sorry…”
“This sucks! This sucks!” He continues to bellow this mantra as he stares at you and walks to the elevator. You are listening more carefully to the noise between his repetitive refrains for the tell-tale signs of fabric tearing over rippling pectorals. You are staring, but not to be tough. You are searching for hints of green tinting his pasty-white skin.
“THIS SUCKS!”
Bruce Banner reaches the elevator, which, unfortunately, is only located about five feet to the right of where he had been standing before. The elevator is upstairs. He has to wait. As the line of sight between the two of you is easily maintained, you are both desperately anticipating the slowest elevator on Earth.
Elevator music plays in your head.
You try not to look right at him, but you can feel his pointy, receding hairline navigate at you every couple of seconds. Clearly he wants to see that you truly feel remorseful. You however, want to laugh because you have escaped false tales of your super-villainy (you know, the Hulk would have to explain to the police why he decapitated you with his pinky and then peed down your neck hole. So he would lie and say you were trying to blow up the Inn or trying to destroy Earth or something).
Laughter is your enemy now. Find some other emotion. Anything. Sad memories. Please. But there is nothing. So you go with your next best idea: pretend like you were lobotomized. Have nothing going on upstairs or on your face. Yes, that is it!
Too bad you always sucked at poker.
The only thing about you that resembles a person who has had their frontal lobe removed is that bit of drool trickling down your chin, glistening in the florescent light.
Finally there is the soft clunking of a claustrophic death trap arriving on the ground floor. The elevator is here and the frail, shaking figure hiding certain painful death is gone…
Until he walks by later that day, when you have forgotten his face. You give him a friendly nod and the whole disaster begins again.
