Lost in the panic of a missing cat last night was a rather amusing happening.
Monday morning I went out to pack the car, only to discover that one of the jugs of water I brought from Alameda hat tipped in the back seat. All of the towels and our old “couch blanket” were damp, as was the seat itself. Some of the towels dried out in the bed of the truck on the trip to Albuquerque. Others didn’t, even being left overnight (I was too focused on getting us buttoned down for the night to check if the hotel had laundry facilities). Yesterday morning, however, I decided I couldn’t deal with the towels that were still wet and decided that our time together had reached its end. The blanket was dry enough that I strapped it down on top of the large bin in the bed for the journey to Oklahoma City.
Last night, when we arrived, I noticed that the blanket was nearly dry, but not quite. Corinne found the laundry room on the third floor, but when I got there I found I’d need more change to use the dryer. Since the room was empty, I set the blanket on top of one of the dryers and went downstairs to get change from the lobby. The front desk associate was helping someone with her reservation, so I waited nearby.
Imagine my surprise when I suddenly see my blanket out of the corner of my eye. Wrapped around the waste of a strange man.
“Dude, why are you wearing my blanket?” I asked.
He said he had got locked out of his room.
The front desk associate looked up and said, “That’s YOUR blanket?” I nodded, still kind of bemused, because this is totally something I’d expect to have happened back in San Francisco, but not in OKC.
At this point, the other associate came out. “I TOLD you I was on my way up,” she said to the man. She had a key in her hand and they went upstairs.
The woman at the counter and the associate couldn’t believe that the guy would just take my blanket like that. A few minutes later, the other associate returned with my blanket. She apologized profusely and said that the guy was not even naked, he had shorts on. Guess he was just shy?
Whatever. So instead of just drying it out, I got extra change and washed that damn blanket in hot water and then dried it, while we were getting underway with the whole Charlie hoopla.
Such an odd, drama-filled evening. At least the pizza was still good, even though it was cold before I had a slice.
Perhaps the incident with the Blanket Thief of Oklahoma City was the universe’s way of letting you know there will always be a little bit of SF wackiness in your purview.