JB’s Blog

To paraphrase a comment:  Yet another misadventure with my cousin and I

Again, we’re young, somewhere between 10 and 11.  This time we’re on a Florida family vacation as we used to go on yearly during the February break.  Our grandparents gave us a roll of quarters to go down to the arcade with.  We’re on the fifth floor…well somewhere in the middle floor range.  We hit the down arrow for the elevator.  Nothing is happening.  Five minutes later an elevator arrives.  DING!  The down arrow over the elevator is lit red.  We go inside the elevator and hit the lobby button.  The elevator promptly goes up.

Um…did you hit lobby?  Yeah I did.  Are you sure the elevator was pointing down.  Yeah, positive.  DING!  We’re at the penthouse.  The doors open.  There is a bride, groom, and some family including the bride’s drunk hillbilly brother with a mullet.  There is also an angry looking hotel employee.  It’s hard to tell if he is angry at us, or angry that he has a job of dealing with drunks and calling up elevators.  They need to take photos in the elevator.  What are we doing here?  Sir, we hit the down button and the elevator was pointing down.  Well we called up one. 

At this point the drunk starts yelling at us.  What the f#@! is your problem?  You like playing around in elevators?  He is held back.  They want the photos to be taken now, to hell with us being there.  They have us stand hugging the side wall of the elevator Mission Impossible style.  Photos are snapped. 

Oh crap, the brother is in the next photo.  The photo is snapped.  He says I was just kidding guys.  The brother then promptly invites us to stay at the wedding party!  Trying not to laugh, we say no thanks.  They leave the elevator, it is time for us to get to the lobby to our arcade games, because if the family gets down there and we are not there…well that is a headache we do not need to deal with. 

Well tonight is my night to beat Ninja Gaiden, or maybe it was Mortal Kombat by this point.  I hit the lobby button.  The doors are about to close.  The brother pops his head into the door to shake our hands and apologize yet again.  The door clocks him in the head.  He is pulled away.  We go down to the lobby.  I do not beat my video games yet again.  Tomorrow is another day.

Since Jarett (my cousin) left a testimonial awhile back saying to ask me about all these random memories, I figured I’d blog one of them.

This one stems back to when we were either 9 or 10.  Our family went up to the Catskills to the Raleigh Hotel for Labor Day Weekend.  What is at the Raleigh…old people were at the Raleigh, and their grandchildren that were taken along with them.  This means that throughout the day there are events tailored to an older crowd.  This includes the twice daily bingo.  My grandfather claims that when an old person won, I’d curse her out and say she’s gonna die soon anyway, why does she need the money.  I have no recollection of this (maybe on purpose).  There was also Lou the world champion Simon Says caller or something like that.  Sure it was fun being picked on and made fun of for everyone’s benefit (i.e. being referred to as "muscles" when I was prety much a twig).  The other aspects of the Raleigh were all-you-can eat meals, tennis, racquet ball, and other various sports.  At night there’d be three decades ago’s biggest stars.  There was also the arcade, and the "teen club."  The teen club was essentially a dance floor in the basement, with a disco ball and a dj.  Then there were 8 children standing to the side of the floor drinking soda.

Our story takes place at the teen club.  Jarett and I strolled down there one night after going through our quarters a little too quickly (I just couldn’t slap the sleeper hold on I guess).  We venture down there and we notice two girls staring at us.  We walk up the stairs and realize they followed us.  In fact they are following us every where.  We sit at a table with our manly fruit punches and they come to talk to us.  One is black, one is white.  They claim they are sisters and the mother works at the hotel.  Well I am only nine at this point and not really interested just yet.  I decide we need to lose them.  Jarett continues to babble.  I find the white sister (who later became known as "Crazy Eddie"…maybe her name was Edie, i don’t remember) is still following me.  I hide behind an arcade machine. 

Well at some point I start enjoying the attention and my cousin now wants no part of it…I guess he doesn’t like his girl (keep in mind we’re either 9 or 10).  So we start playing racquet ball the next day.  My grandfather calls us over saying he can see them watching us from behind a tree.  I decide to very slyly take my shirt off as we play.  Now they did not refer to me as "muscles" in a complimentary manner (see pic of me as child in profile).  I must have looked ridiculous. 

Alas we no longer saw them after that as we had to leave the next day.  So that’s te story of the two sisters and I guess, the first girl to for some bizarre reason, have a crush on me.  Jarett feel free to supplement with comments what I am leaving out.

RING (once)…RING (second time)…RING (third time)…RING (fourth time)…RING (fifth time)…"The person you are trying to reach…[recording of name]…is not available right now.  To leave a message please wait for the beep.  Press 5 to send a numeric page."

So let’s see.  The phone just rang five times.  The person could not pick it up, or they chose to totally ignore my call.  Now I will press 5 to send a page to the person.  How is that any different from me having just called them.  It seems to be simply to help you annoy the shit out of someone one last time…this way in addition to the missed call notification/icon and the voicemail notification, they also can get a page that says urgent message or whatever else it sends.  So for the next person that calls me during 24 or Lost (not during a commercial break), I will call them during their favorite show and leave a message and a page.