Double Booked

"What do you mean, 'I've missed it'?"

The tired look on the airline employee's face tells me that she has no desire to repeat herself.

"Well... when is the next flight?" I press again.

A few taps on the keyboard later, she gives me her best smile and informs me that I've got twelve hours to burn. Before I can launch into my stereotypically American rant about how that will be unacceptable and it's the holidays and I have places to be and they can't treat me like this... she announces that the airline will be happy to put me up in a hotel for the night.

I sigh deeply and glance at my phone. Six forty-five, December thirty-first. I'm supposed to meet my friends in San Francisco in four hours. Now it looks like I'll be spending it alone in Charlotte, NC.

I inform the desk clerk that since I appear to have no choice at all, I will take the room.

My mood doesn't improve when I'm informed that while I didn't make the connecting flight... my luggage most certainly did.

All I can do is scowl at the city as the airport limo whisks me through the busy streets to my hotel destination.

I call the guys in 'Frisco and give them the bad news. I endure their playful berating about how I just had to eat extra spicy burritos earlier in the day and how it tied me up long enough to miss my connecting flight. I swear I almost started to cry when they told me about some of the ladies they had wanted to introduce me to.

Sometimes it really sucks to be me.

My boy Brad offers to send a guest or two over to my hotel room to cheer me up a little. I express appreciation for the gesture, but tell him no thanks.

I end the call and return to my window staring ways. Hopefully the hotel will have a decent bar with cheap drinks tonight. I figure a nice bottle of scotch will be the only thing on my lips come midnight.

"Here you are, sir," the van driver says as he hands me my carry-on bag. "I try and give him a smile. The poor jerk must have to deal with pissed off people twenty-four-seven. I follow up my smile with a fiver. At the very least, I'm going to try and act like a human being toward him.

"Three-seventeen..." I mutter to myself as I check my hotel keycard. "Just high enough for me to jump out the window and end it all. At least the airline was considerate enough to give me that."

My door unlocks with a little 'beep' and I step inside.

I immediately sense that this room isn't empty and check my keycard again. I look back and forth several times... yes... three-seventeen is correct alright. The damn airline has doubled booked the room. Perfect.

The clothing on the bed lets me know that the other person is female. I suddenly understand what's happening – I smile and chuckle to myself. My boy Brad is a bad, bad man.

Whoever she is, she's singing loudly in the shower right now. I kick off my shoes and stretch out on the queen sized bed. Not bad. I'm still going to send the young woman on her way when she gets out, but not bad. I'll have to call the boys and thank them later. It's good to have some buddies that are willing to open their pocketbooks and have your back.

The shower stops and she steps out – fresh as a daisy and naked as the day she was born. She walks around the corner, sees me, screams and jumps back behind the corner again.

I only catch a brief glimpse, but she looks expensive. Blonde. Gorgeous. Again, I make a note to thank Brad later.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" she screams. "WHAT DO YOU WANT!? HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE!?"