Based on a true mess
It was my first week on the job, and I was determined to be the best housekeeper the company had ever seen. I had the cart stocked like I was going to war with dirt. Fresh sheets stacked to eye level, chemicals, extra toilet paper, backup air freshener, and a mysterious blue liquid that I suspected could dissolve a human body if left on too long. My supervisor peered over her glasses at me.
“Room 214 needs a full clean. Guest’s been there a while. Might be… lived in.” She gave me that vague warning tone that could mean anything from “lots of crumbs” to “crime scene.”
“Got it,” I said, like a hero in a movie, I marched down the hall, cart rattling, mentally reviewing the checklist: change sheets, scrub bathroom, vacuum, restock amenities, pretend not to judge people’s shampoo choices. Easy.
Outside 214, I did exactly what the training said. I knocked. “Housekeeping!” Polite. Professional. Nothing. I waited a few seconds, then knocked again, louder. “HOUSEKEEPING!” Still nothing. I pressed my ear to the door. Silence. Not even a TV murmur.
Okay, he’s definitely out, I thought. Perfect. An empty room. The housekeeping jackpot. I grabbed my master key, slid it in, and opened the door. You know when people say, “I saw something I can never unsee”? I always thought that was dramatic. I no longer think that.
Because there, dead center on the bed, under the bright, unforgiving lamps, was a fully grown, fully naked man. On his back. Legs over his shoulders like he was auditioning to be a pretzel. And wedged somewhere my eyes absolutely did not want to be a large, shiny dildo.
For a full two seconds, nobody moved. Time stopped. The room cleaner in my hand dripped once onto the carpet in a slow, tragic droplet. He froze. I froze. He made eye contact with me from his upside-down position, eyes wide, mouth open. I had never experienced mutual panic while someone’s feet were practically pointing at the ceiling. Then my brain came back online all at once.
I screamed. Not a cute, startled “oh!” Not a dignified gasp. A full-volume, horror-movie, diaphragm-supported shriek that probably rattled ice machines on every floor.
“SORRY! SORRY! OH MY GOD!” I slapped my hands over my eyes, which did absolutely nothing, because my imagination had already taken a high definition screenshot. I dropped the extra roll of toilet paper, fumbled for the door like I’d suddenly gone blind, and stumbled backwards into the hallway, nearly crashing the cart into the opposite wall. Behind me, I heard him yelp, “Oh my God!” in a voice about three octaves higher than before.
The door slammed shut on its own, and I was left in the hallway, heart racing, clutching my spray bottle like it was a rosary. I didn’t walk back to the housekeeping office. I sprinted. My supervisor was at the desk sorting keys, completely unprepared for the emotional hurricane about to hit her.
I burst in, wild-eyed, hair a mess, clutching my chest. “I CAN’T. I’M NOT GOING BACK. YOU CAN’T MAKE ME.” She blinked slowly. “Okay… I’m gonna need a little more context than that.”
I leaned on the counter, trying to catch my breath. “Room 214… he… he was… he had… his legs….up….and” I made a vague, horrifying gesture in the air that looked like I was trying to fold an invisible lawn chair.
She squinted. “You walked in on him?” I nodded violently. “Naked?” she asked.
“NUKED,” I said, because my vocabulary had abandoned me. “NUKED AND… EQUIPPED.”
Her eyebrows climbed her forehead. “Equipped… how, exactly?” I stared her dead in the eyes and said in a reverent whisper, “There was… a device.”
For a second, she tried to keep a straight face. I saw the struggle. The corners of her mouth twitched. Then she lost it. She slapped a hand over her mouth and started wheezing, shoulders shaking. “Oh… oh no… you got the full show, didn’t you?” she managed between gasps.
I glared. “This is not funny. My soul left my body. I saw heaven, hell, and a Toys R Us all at once.”
She was laughing so hard now she had to lean on the desk. “Did you knock?”
“YES, I KNOCKED! I YELLED ‘HOUSEKEEPING’ TWICE. He didn’t say a word! Not a ‘just a minute,’ not a ‘hold on,’ nothing! He was too busy… folding himself into origami!”
She wiped tears from her eyes. “Oh, sweetheart. Consider this your official initiation.”
I pointed a trembling finger toward the hallway. “I am never going back in that room. I don’t care if the trash evolves and forms its own government. They’re on their own in there.”
She chuckled, then held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. You’re banned from 214. I’ll put it in the notes.”
“Thank you,” I breathed, like she had just pardoned me from a life sentence.
As if on cue, the phone on her desk rang. She picked it up. “Housekeeping.” Pause. Her eyes flicked to me, then back to the phone. “Yes, sir… Oh, I see… You’re… done with your… exercise?”
I choked. My supervisor bit her lip to keep from laughing again. “No, no, sir, it’s fine. Our staff did knock. We’re just glad everything is… uh… in working order.” I leaned in, mouthing, “Is that him?”
She swatted at me, nodding. “Yes, sir. We’ll send someone later for service. No rush at all.” She hung up, then completely lost it again.
“‘Exercise’!” she cackled. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“I’m quitting,” I groaned, dramatically flopping into a chair. “I’m going to go work at a library. Books don’t put anything up their…..”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” she said, giggling. “Trust me, you do not want to know where people put books.”
The next morning, when I came in, I checked the assignment board with a tiny knot of dread in my stomach.
Room 110, 116, 120… 203… 209…
My eyes hit it: 214. It wasn’t assigned to me. I pointed at the board. “Who did you assign?”
“Someone else” she said.
“Did you warn her?”
My supervisor took a slow sip of her coffee, eyes twinkling. “I told her he was ‘very… flexible…Relax. I told her to knock three times.”.
I walked by the dorm 200 and another housekeeper’s voice: “HOUSEKEEPING!” Pause. “Sir? You need service today?”
A man’s voice replied quickly, “NO, THANK YOU!”
I nearly doubled over laughing right there in the hallway. For the rest of my housekeeping career, I never saw that man’s face. If I passed him in the lobby, I wouldn’t know. Which, honestly, is probably for the best.
But every time I walked past a yoga studio and saw a poster of someone folded in half with their legs over their shoulders, I’d think of Room 214 and hold my imaginary pearls.
~by Embarrassed Housekeeper, Alberta