Big Mike: None Of My Business

October 1st, 2009

When I was a kid and I’d ask my mother for some new toy I’d seen on TV, she’d offer me one of two responses: 1) Who do you think you are, King Farouk? or 2) What are we, the Rockefellers?

At the age of six or seven, I had a vague notion that the Rockefellers were a rich family. As for King Farouk, I had no idea who he was. What I did know was that both responses meant no. The strongest muscles in my mother’s body were those of her thumb and forefinger, developed over the years by ceaseless penny pinching.

With age I’ve come to understand some of Ma’s penury. Not all of it, though. The Old Girl made famous misers like Paulie Walnuts or George Halas (“He throws around nickels like manhole covers,” Mike Ditka once famously said) look like drunken sailors. In fact, I’ve even learned how not to spend all the cash in my wallet in a single afternoon. Most of the time. Alright, some of the time.

Anyway, The Loved One and I are staying in a cramped room in the Hampton Inn here in Bloomington, Indiana until we can move into our new home (this week, fingers crossed.) We could have chosen a suite, which would make good sense considering we’ll have been here two weeks, but The Loved One — herself the possessor of an iron grip — nixed that idea. I agree with her reasoning but it seems that our room is virtually shrinking with each passing day. By tomorrow it’ll be the size of an iPod Nano.

So, we’re staying in a room that could be a suite but isn’t. That is, had we chosen to unbelt for the higher-priced accommodation, we’d be able to open a door between two adjoining rooms and stretch out in luxury. Sometimes, when The Loved One has decided to veg out in front of the TV (it seems that every single show these days either has a blaring laugh track or features a shrieking right-winger,) I gaze longingly at the locked door separating me from peace and quiet.

One unexpected drawback of the set-up is that the door separating the two rooms isn’t soundproof. I now know far more about the personal life of the man next door than I’d like. And remember, I’m the nosiest son of a bitch you’ve ever met. I consider no visit to another person’s home complete until I’ve peeked into the medicine cabinet.

The night before last, the man — a Texan, judging by his accent — spent hours moaning over the phone to co-workers, friends, family and, presumably, random souls whose numbers he’d picked out of the Bloomington phone book about some unbearable torture imposed upon him by the front office. His tyrannical bosses, he explained in excruciating detail at least a dozen times, had sent him an email that very morning informing him that the M-19 now was to be positioned in a different way in his sales spiels. I didn’t even have to put a glass up to the door to hear all this as clearly as if the man was sitting next to me.

With each recounting of this horror, his voice seemed to be getting a tad more slurred. The penultimate person he called must have mentioned it.

The man: “Well, sure I’m drinking! Wouldn’t you? I got an email this morning….”

After unburdening for the last time, the man made another call. This time he spoke in a hushed tone. I figured maybe he was trying to mask his Jack Daniel’s speech defect. A half-hour silence ensued, during which time I wracked my brain trying to guess what an M-19 might be. A cursory Google search informed me it may either be a kit-built spy plane or a medication for goats. I preferred to think the man was peddling spy planes.

My reverie was broken by a knock at his front door. The voices on the other side indicated he’d allowed a woman into his room. A co-worker, I supposed, and I girded myself to hear of his torment once again. Instead, he and the woman engaged in a nervous, too polite, overly-long kind of chit chat.

Here’s what I learned: he’d never done this kind of thing before, he felt a little nervous — for which he apologized profusely, he wasn’t a cop — he swore it, and, oh yeah, he’d had a terrible day thanks to an email he’d got that morning. I’m not Little Bo Peep so I knew what the score was immediately.

I got a particular kick out of the verbal dance they created out of their simple financial transaction.

He: “So how much were we talking about?”

She: “Two hundred dollars, sweetie.”

He: “Well, that’s fine. I’ve got it right here. But I’m afraid if I hand it to you you’ll whip out a badge.”

She: “Ha ha! No, not me. How about this? You just put it down on the table, then I’ll just pick it up. See? You won’t be giving me anything — I’ll just be taking something from your room.”

He: “Yeah, that sounds good.”

She (after a short pause): “See? That was easy.”

Next, the man stood on his head to make sure the woman was comfortable: “Would you like to sit here or there? Do you want something to drink? Should I lay down here? Is it too cold in here for you?”

The woman told him he was too jumpy, that he needed a nice massage. “Okay!” he said, like a kid who’d just heard it was time to open the presents. “Should I lay on my back or my front?”

It occurred to me I had no desire to listen to the rest of the proceedings. I packed up my MacBook and my crossword puzzle book and headed for the lobby. I figured if a man wants to spend $200 to feel like King Farouk, he deserves a little privacy.