Monday, November 10, 2008

How A Scrap of Paper Changed World History

How many times have you seen a scrap of paper on the ground with writing or a drawing on it? So, maybe you are a little curious about what is on the paper. Perhaps it is a note between two teenagers expressing their eternal love or lust. Perhaps it is just a grocery list that fell out of Mrs. Smith's coat pocket.Maybe it someones telephone number, and when some person gets home they search and search for the missing number of that business contact, or that cute blond that they met at the bar last night. Perhaps is is just some meaningless doodling(I doodle all of the time.) Most of the time it is nothing, and most most of the time, although we may be curious,being the nosey creatures that we are, the scrap of parer remains on the ground, soon to be blown away by a gust of wind, or picked up and thrown in a garbage can.

You are riding down in a hotel elevator. You are in town for your usual business, and the last thing on your mind is that you might be the one to change world history. You are running late for the dinner appointment and your presentation to your prospective client is first and foremost on your mind. Out of the corner of your eye you spot a folded up piece of parer in the corner of the elevator. It is probably nothing. Someone had just got out of the elevator as you were getting on , so maybe it belonged to him. For some strange reason your eye keep roving over to the paper resting innocently in the corner. Why the attraction ? An invisible force draws your eyes again and again to that paper. Pick it up, pick it up.

Unable to resist any longer, you reach over and pick it up and unfold it. Your eyes dart quickly at the drawing on the paper. What exactly are you looking at. Slowly it dawns on you that you are looking at a hand drawn street map of the city that you are in. Must be directions. No, wait a minute, this is strange . The map starts at the Air Force base located right outside of town and goes down the freeway to the core of the city. What is this? And then the answer, born only at first by a small idea, and then growing into a full force realization. You are looking at the parade route that the President of the United States is going to be taking when he visits your town tomorrow. Something is wrong here. Why is the President's motorcade route drawn out in such precise form crumpled up in a hotel elevator?

Alarms began to ring in your head, and you know that you must act quickly. Your elevator has reach the hotel lobby, and you step out and rush up to the Front Desk where a young clerk is on duty. You tell him what you have in your hand, and insist that he notify some authority. The clerk calls the local police department. They take the call very seriously, and within minutes, a full regiment of law enforcement spring into action. The Secret Service is called, and within the next fifteen minutes, the hotel is crawling with policemen, and men in blue suites and ties questioning and combing through every nook and cranny of the hotel. You are questioned by the men in suites about what you found in the elevator, and asked to give a description of who you saw in the elevator when you stepped in.

Things move rapidly now, and it is quickly ascertained who the mystery rider was whom you saw step out of the elevator before you got in. His room number is obtained, and stormed by Secret Service Agents and FBI agents. No one is in the room, but they find more maps of the President's motorcade route, a letter stating the intentions of the person occupying the room, and then they find the chilling site of several handguns and rifles . The agents wait secretly in his room, and when he returns, he is arrested and charged with plotting to kill the President of the United States.

Because one guest followed his inner voice, a President's life was saved, and the history of the world was written in a different way then it would have been if the paper had never been picked up.
When I arrive for my shift, I was questioned by the Suits, and my background quickly checked out, as was anyone who was a guest or an employee of that hotel.

If you ever see a scrap of paper in the corner, and you feel drawn to it, pick it up, You might be saving a life, maybe even the President of the United States.

5 comments:

Go Figure said...

A potential pres hit person and a hooker...what next!?? Quite a lively vocation.

Cedar Street Kid said...

Hi, GF, but you have to remember these stories are spread out over a thiry-four year hotel career. Most days were probably like your profession, just routine. I imagine that you have some really strange stories from the courtrooms. However there are two more law stories to tell later. We have had the Police, FBI, and Secret Service, Next law story will be my encounter with the US Marshalls. Seriously.(:)

Carol Woolum Roberts said...

Your hotel stories are always so interesting to read. I mentioned them to my sister-in-law. Her and her husband have managed a motel in Oregon for two years, and she has had some interesting experiences, too. Not quite up to the caliber of yours yet. Keep those stories coming!!

Cedar Street Kid said...

Hi, SVG, thanks for visiting. Your sister in law will see many strange things if they are there for any time at all. Hotels/Motels are a world of their own.

MarmiteToasty said...

Bloody hell......... he was knobbled....

I love your hotel stories, it makes me wanna work in a hotel.... :) Im serious lol

x

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