Neanderpundit

“Do you ever wake up and not know where you are?”

Good lord, have I ever.

About a hundred and fifty million years ago, during te cretaceous era, I went down to Florida on one of my first out-of-town jobs. I was staying in one of the older Holiday Inns, the concrete walkways just outside the rooms, the extruded aluminum window-and-door frames, the loud air conditioner/furnace units under the windows, the heavy and ugly curtains. Brown bedspreads, orange carpets. Pepto bismol pink bathrooms.

the third day on this job, I got back to the hotel, took my shower, and flopped on the bed, exhausted. I was aslee before my head hit the headboard, and that took me out for several additional hours.

Around- oh, it must have been three ayem, I woke with a full bladder.

My bedroom at the time was arranged so the door was to the left of the bed, as you are standing at the foot of the bed; I woke up and my natural inclination was to head in that direction, grab the door handle, and go in search of the crapper.

Only when the door clicked behind me did I realize I was outdoors. My keys, my wallet, my glasses, and every stitch of clothing I owned was now on the other side of a locked door.

Now, I’m not amused, but I am a: instantaneously wide awake, b: Chilly, and c: Still (and now, even more so) in need of a pee.

So i look around and find a floor drain next to the ice machine in the hallway between the sections of rooms.

Then as now, you have that moment of intense concentration to make the erection go away so you don’t piss all over the wall, and it took me more than usual in the circumstance. (The old trick for the pee-shy is to do math in your head, works every time, but by the time I pissed in the floor drain I had already revisited the length and breadth of the Binomial Theorem)

I flapped barefoot down the stairs, and had to hop the fence to get to the pool area where I took one of the cushions off a chaise lounge and wrapped it around me like a big hotdog bun, cold, wet vinyl. The desk clerk let me back into my room and all was well again.

She was very helpful that night, as well as going out of her way the rest of my stay to make sure I was comfortable and had everything I needed.

Not until I checked out did I notice there was a security camera pointed directly at that ice machine.

Ah well.

I have had the Discworld books since the end of February and I have only just finished Jingo.

Now, I have had to do a lot of technical reading in the interim, and my days and night have been busy and full, but I should be through the whole set by now.

Part of the reason, also, is that I really like these people. I mean, I like a lot of characters in a lot of books, but there is hardly a discworld character I do not like, and enjoy revisiting. I expect Ridcully looks a bit like the better Roosevelt. I think I’d like to party with Susan StoLat. I feel, despite my better judgement, that I have a deep and abiding understanding of Death. I would like to see what shapes Angua passes through on the way to naked human. I used to work with Nobby. Commander- er, Duke Vimes is a blogger I know. Sybil is an old girlfriend, dragons and all.

They have become my friends, so to speak, and I’m gonna be pissed when I run out of books.

The first obit I actually like a lot.

“Weary of reading obituaries noting someone’s courageous battle with death, Mike wanted it known that he died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors’ orders and raising hell for more than six decades. He enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died.”

I like him already, despite never knowing him, but he follows with this:

“So many of his childhood friends that weren’t killed in Vietnam went on to become criminals, prostitutes and/or Democrats. He asks that you stop by and re-tell the stories he can no longer tell”

Bloody well done, Mike. May the beer always be cold, and the engines always be hot.