Death By Linen Related Causes
Two days out of the five days that G was away last week, J was also away, leaving me with far too much responsibility. If for instance the hostel had caught fire, I’d be the one left with the responsibility of calling the fire brigade – wait, is there even a fire brigade on the island? I’d be the one with the responsibility of running round in a panic spitting on the flames to try and put them out. Of course there are other ways to put out a fire….
Or lets say 100 angry tourists arrive in the foyer banging on my little office window and all demanding of me the one free room I have inexplicably and considerably overbooked and they’re armed with the readily available rocks – I’d be the one to have to call the one Guarda (police) on the island to come up with his one shield and one baton to ward off the enraged crowd. And if the plumbing went and the hostel flooded I’d have to call the plumber with no legs – dont ask.
So A and I were alone. Though A is fully capable she occasionally has trouble with English which is why Im sure any emergency phonecalls would be left up to me. As were any bookings and requests from guests and basically the entire running of the hostel. Must…not…let…power..go…to…head. It did occur to me that here I had an opportunity to turn this place into a rockin hippy artist retreat but I decided one day was not quite long enough to round up enough hippies and grow my underarm hair. Anyway, Im not sure J would wholly approve (of the rockin hippy artist retreat).
One special responsibility I was given was the task of changing the beds in all the private rooms. The private rooms are special thus so was the responsibility. The decor all matches and there are colour ‘themes’. Before J left for Galway he did me the courtesy of laying out all the appropriate linen, immaculately ironed and in order of room numbers. You’d think me being a student of the visual arts that matching pre-matched linen sets to their pre-matched rooms wouldnt be a problem. You’d think so. The problem is my training under the broad umbrella of Visual Art doesnt stretch so far as to include a diploma majoring in Co-ordinating Curtains and Towels, or even a minor in Pillow Arrangement. Add to that my poor hand/eye co-ordination skills when it comes to the actual physical making of beds and you may understand how it took me all of three and a half hours to change 6 rooms. Thats an average speed of 35 minutes per room. Not an Olympic record Im betting. Lets just say if making beds was an Olympic sport, you wouldnt want me on your team. I could possibly be the person who carries the sheets for the athletes but even then…I’d likely bring a double instead of a single, or mismatch the duvet sets.
The worst thing is having not inherited my mother’s expertise in the area of hospital corners I had this awful sense as I was making each bed that I may wake the next morning to find myself responsible for the death of one of our patrons. The newspaper article reading ‘The deceased was found early this morning entwined in a purple and white striped sheet. It seems the sheet freed itself easily from the mattress as a result of irresponsible bed corners and slowly worked its way around the innocent sleepers neck, strangling him as his cries for help were muffled by the equally untamed duvet. The police are treating the circumstances as suspicious due to the fact that the green checkered duvet cover had obviously been brought in from outside the scene of crime’
Im not sure J was terribly impressed with my skills either because the second time he was away he laid out all the linen again but added post-it notes stating which room each set belonged to. With the aid of the handy post-its I managed to cut my time down to two hours twenty three minutes and forty six seconds. Now thats impressive if I do say so myself. How many athletes can say theyve chopped one hour six minutes and fourteen seconds off their time? Maybe I should try out for the Olympic team.
The one thing I am very good at is ‘Cleaning Associated Sound Effects’. (Also a genetic disease passed down through the females of the family, diagnosis of CASE is determined by putting the patient through a series of cleaning tests, the resulting grunts, groans and snorts indicating the progression of the disease – the only cure being confinement in a complete sterile and isolated environment (a big white box)).
I was always slightly amused at home to hear the noises coming from my mother as she went about doing the house work, and now I can say I understand where these noises were coming from and quite frankly I would rival her for both volume and effort. And we are still talking about noises emmanating from the vocal chords – nowhere else (Mum would win hands down in any other area). There’s the ‘mattress-lifting grunt’, the ‘crouch-and-stand groan’ and the ‘moving-furniture snort’. All of which I am a natural at. Hey its in my genes.
Of course I’d rather be good at really anything else, even Pillow Arrangement but hey youve got to make do with what talents you’re given right?. And if its my destiny to become a champion grunter Im going to give it all I’ve got. You wait and see, I’ll make all those Hungarian weightlifters jealous.
Tags: Inishmor
Em
Obviously you have all got to much time on your hands!
I’m too busy grunting and groaning and doing my housework…No!! I take that back – there IS no housework since Swami Em left.
I could send you some…