After growing up living in hotels for 20 years, I worked in hotels for another seven. So naturally I happened to witness, and sometimes even became part of lots of different stories. While some are dramatic, others like the ones compiled herein are humorous. The spooky tales will be left for another time.
Once done, check Hotel Living: Then and Now, a more recent piece in which I am comparing between those 20 years of growing up as “the son of the General Manager” in Egypt and when 20 years later I resided in a much smaller hotel in sunny Venice Beach for two years — as a long-staying guest.
Inspired by this list-article, there are also Funny Drug-Related Stories and its sequel Funny Drug-Related Stories 2 in the same series.
May you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing.
1- Haifa The Pillow Princess
Once in a fancy 5-star hotel in Egypt, I was called to the reception to check out Haifa Wehbe — the seductive Lebanese singer. After a three-day stay the bill was a little over $3000. However, she said she was supposed to be invited and shouldn’t be charged. Knowing that there wasn’t any notice left on the system, I replied that I have no info about this arrangement. So she unhappily handed me her credit card.
For some reason, I still called the owning company office, informing them about the situation. I was quickly told to let her go and to “charge it the company”. I gave her back the credit card, saying it’s all taken care of. She smiled and thanked me, then headed to the main entrance preparing to depart.
At that exact same moment, the head Housekeeping called me from Haifa’s vacant suite to tell me that she took one of our exceptionally soft pillows with her! A little confused, I called my manager and told him the story. He asked me to check with the bellmen handling her bags and look for the pillow, and to stop her if found.
I went to the luggage room and we did find the pillow. Imagine now I had to personally go to Haifa, who was standing in front of the main entrance surrounded by her Emo posse ready to get into the limousine, and find a gentle way to tell her: Hey, we all know that you just stole something from us but we want it back. And it came out like this:
“Excuse me, the Housekeeping informed me that there is a missing pillow from your suite.”
She instantly and nervously replied: “No this is mine.”
I then knew she was lying. I only had two choices; I was either going to tell her, “No it’s not, we saw it inside your luggage and you're not leaving with our pillow” and risk some unknown consequences. Or, pretend that she convinced me with her soft, spoiled voice and wave bye bye.
I chose to wave bye bye and to keep telling the story.
Once in the 90s in a five-star hotel in Egypt, an Arab guest was seen in his balcony hanging a bed sheet with his room number written on it in huge font, in a hopeless attempt to pick up a woman from the opposing building!
3- Turkish Connection
Another time in a different five-star hotel in Cairo, I was called to meet a Turkish “walk-in” guest who desperately needed a room while we were fully booked. I told him that the situation was extremely tight, but he insisted I help him. I then called the other property and made them book the last room they had, as well as arranged for a limousine ride to there. What a VIP treatment to a man who merely just walked into the property.
While the car was getting ready, I got curious to know why he was so desperate. So I simply walked to the lobby to find a ravishing, seductive woman in a red dress sitting there waiting for him. Aha. Hanky Panky. No wonder it seemed like sort of a do-or-die thing for him.
Before departing the property, the guest was all smiles when he came up to hand me a US$ 100 bill. He looked at my face and said: “Thank you very much, but you're not Egyptian... you’re Turkish!” What! How truly fascinating. To which I smilingly replied back:
“Well, I do have Turkish blood though my paternal family. But how did you know?”
“I just do,” was his mysterious response. Hm.
I'm still wondering what made him say that. Some friends suggested later that it was due to how I write my family name with a ‘C’, which he could see on the name tag. Though this is a French thing and not Turkish where the initial family name is written Şerîf.
Oh well. Happy to have helped people make love. I hope they had fun and didn’t think about me too much while mid action.
Pimpingly yours.
4- A Pimping Guest
Speaking of, one time in a five-star hotel in Cairo, a colleague contacted an Arab guest to kindly ask him to take a visiting female out of the room as it wasn’t allowed. The man asked if he could do it after half an hour or so, but my colleague refused. So the desperate man offered him some money, and when he still refused he offered him the visitor herself after he was done with her. Yep.
This is an example of the temptations hotel employees sometimes face.
5- Hash-Sniffing K-9
When working for a five-star hotel, also in Cairo, security called me saying that the guard dog at the entrance of the parking ‘caught’ some hash in one of the guests’ cars. I went down to check and told them to leave it as it.
Thing is, anyone who knows a tad bit about detection dogs would know that there are either “drug-sniffing” dogs or “explosive-sniffing” dogs, they cannot be both. We confronted the security company which provides the canines and they confessed they had picked the wrong dog for that specific shift. Of course anything could have happened because of this mishap and I doubt anyone would have suspected.
ALSO VIEW:
Funny Drug-Related Stories
Funny Drug-Related Stories 2
Hotel Living: Then and Now
The Ashram Sweeper Who Blocked Me on Facebook
Blocked by an Anonymous Facebook ‘Friend’
The Joy of Being a Wanderer and the Credit Card Number
A Dollar & Thirty Four Cents in Me Pocket and Feeling Fine
Personal Questions I’m Often Asked and Their Answers
The Bloke Who Thought I’m Too Much of an Alpha Male
The Girl Who Wouldn’t Share Toilet Paper
Not Sleeping With a French Hooker at 14
The Day I Became Bill Gate’s Elevator Boy
The Spell of the Topless Redhead
The Night We Turned ‘Beast Mode’ On
The Night I Became a Stripper in Spain
Placebo Effect & The LSD Prank
The Joy of Being a Wanderer and the Credit Card Number
I Kissed a Grandma... and I Liked It
When Lady Ran Away
When The Puppies Ate The “Chocolate”
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