Phone Booth

Has anyone here seen the movie "Phone Booth"? If not, make it a must see. You never know what might happen when you answer a ringing phone! Conversely, you never know what will happen when you let someone use your phone, and you don't know who they are calling!

Back to Seattle, and the familiar streets of 85Th and Aurora. As you know by now, I never knew who or what might walk into the hotel, and this was the case when a twenty-something lady checked in one night. This lady was strange from the very beginning, but since she was from Chicago, and not a local, I felt that it was all right to sell a room to her for a few days. Yes, she was a little weird in both attire and action, but oh well, I had seen stranger folks on the street.

As I chatted with her for a few minutes, I learned that she was allegedly in Seattle to find out about her younger brother's death a few months earlier. Apparently, she did not believe the police reports or their story about what had happened to him. Imagine that, someone not believing the Seattle Police! Just because his death had happened in the notorious Central District, known for Black people being shot by cops for no apparent reason, and she was Black, I mean why would she not trust Seattle's finest? Anyway, her story tugged at my soft heart and softer brain, and I felt sorry her.

For several days I watched as she came and went from her room. She always dressed up, and left and returned everyday around the same time. Nothing too strange about that. When she would come into the office, I would politely ask her if anything was new concerning her brother's death. She would reply in the negative and simply suggest that the Seattle PD was covering up the case.

It was bout this time that I started getting strange reports from my housekeepers that everyday when they entered the room to clean, that her furniture was all turned around and some of it was relocated around the room. Well, it was not the first time that I had seen such things in a hotel. I had seen mattresses placed on the floor, towels and sheets tied together, and sheet stretched across chairs and tied in a swing type manner. Of course, it always sent your imagination scrambling about what kind of deviant acts went on that night between couples. However, since this lady's arrangement of our furniture created a problem for my staff, I told the girls that I would talk to her about it.

The next time my guest came in , I did so, and she said that she was sorry, and it would not happen again. But, it did again that night. So, once I again I got a little firmer with her and told her that she could not rearrange our furniture.

By now, her behavior was becoming stranger and stranger. One night I heard loud voices outside on the staircase closest to the lobby. I went out , and there was my strange guests confronting another Black guest, yelling and screaming at him. She was demanding that he show her some identification. He was refusing, and asked her what authority did she have to demand anything from him. She looked him right in the eyes, and said that she was actually FBI. I intervened and told her to go to her room. I apologized to the male guest, and decided right them that I would have to ask her to leave the next morning.

The next morning, I told her that I needed I the room for pre-booked reservations, and that I would need for her to check out. She said she would, and left that morning. I breathed a sigh of relief, and went about my business that day. That night there was a knock at the door to my apartment, which was located behind the lobby. I opened it, only to find this same lady standing at my door, She said that she was sorry for the all the trouble that she had caused, and wanted to make it up to me., and then she asked where my bedroom was. OK, now what? I told her that
was unnecessary, and I was not interested in having sex with her. She huffed off into the Seattle night, and once again, I felt a sigh of relief.

Several weeks went by, and though I would see her sometimes walking along Aurora , I paid
little attention to her. As long as she left me alone, who cared. Then, one morning about Six AM, as I was getting to open the lobby for morning coffees, there she was, walking in the door, She very politely asked if she could use the phone to make an important local call. I decided to let her make a quick call, thus hoping to avoid a confrontation. I stepped away from the phone so she could have some privacy.

About this time I noticed that she was whispering into the phone, and then it dawned on me that she had only dialed three numbers. Oh my God, she must have dialed 911. I grabbed the phone and told her to leave now.She smiled and walked out of the door. As I returned to the phone, the parking lot was suddenly full of police cars. I walked out Cops all over the place. I walked out to the parking lot, and saw an officer that I knew. He was raging mad. What was going on her demanded, and who was the lady that had made the 911 call. Evidently, she had had told the dispatcher that I was trying to rape her, and had beaten her. The officer told me that Washington law said that when such a call was made, someone had to go to jail. Wow, now I was scared.

I told the officer about the lady, and how screwed up she was. Luckily, since he knew me professionally, he believed me. He them proceeded to lecture me in his official police voice on how stupid I was for letting a street person use the phone. They were especially angry because they had to leave an investigation in the Ballard area to answer this bogus call.

The cops left, and I was left shaking in my boots, and trying to imagine what the headlines in the paper would have been, " Hotel manager arrested for raping guest" Wow, did I ever learn my lesson, Never again did I let anyone use the phone unless they were family or friends. I never saw the crazy lady again.