french high five

These days, I am perplexed and a bit confused by the world in which I live.

Take, for example, my hotel odyssey this weekend. Every day, for three days starting Thursday night, my hotel would call me and say that they had expected me to check out, even though, in the system, my reservation clearly shows I am at this hotel until I leave for Banff at the end of October. When I would go down to the front desk to try to sort the matter, I was told they could only check me in for one more day, and the next day the process would be repeated (going to the front desk, having my credit card imprint taken, closing the previous day's bill, having my passport re-copied, getting new keys, having the towel boy stop by my room to see if I needed fresh towels, and then the annoying phone call from the manager welcoming me to the hotel).

I was complaining about this at work on Sunday, when I discovered one of the frogs I work with knows the general manager of my hotel (all the frogs here know each other). He called the GM, got my reservation sorted, and even got me invited to the nicest restaurant in my hotel for a private dinner with the GM. Since I have all my hotel room phones stuffed in the bedside table drawers because I really don't like phones, I missed that invite. But still. I was amazed the frog tried to help me.

Then, today, he brought me a "surprise" of "sweeties". The "sweeties" were these miniature Thai bananas that are sort of dried out, but they still look like miniature bananas. They are covered in something brown, which isn't honey, or sugar. Maybe I don't want to know what the brown stuff is. But it's mildly sweet, and the bananas were really good.

Being somewhat suspicious of the frogs being nice to me, I headed into a meeting this afternoon with the one who brought me the bananas. It was supposed to be only an hour, but ended up being almost three hours. We worked out some strategic issues on a new project, and then, at the end, he said, in french, my hat is off to you. The only reason I knew what he was saying is because of reading a version of cat in the hat with a french translation that went along with the english. Then the frog gave me a high five.

The french, they are such an odd group. They bring you nice snacks and then try to kill you. They're moody, prone to strange pronunciations, and think the entire US is built on a foundation of chicken wire.

But every once in a while, you get along with them. And that's nice.