The Inn

There is this policy at the inn where I stay that keys are a luxury item. I haven’t seen my mail in 2 years of renting here, but it seems not to matter to anyone in charge. Once I took my complaints to the innkeeper and he looked at me as if I was asking him to provide a private stash of booze during Prohibition. He mentioned something about receiving sensitive mail from the Mexican mafia or some sort of nefarious plot and then I was looking at him like he had lost his mind and in fact I believe he has done. Any discussion with the innkeeper turns into a discussion going nowhere. In the end, his mantra is. “If you can find an establishment in town that is better, I would suggest you take up residence there.” It is an argument that works for him. My mail is no longer an issue. Occasionally I will be delivered a letter or a parcel. I should be happy with small tidings. A new resident at the inn took up lodging in recent days. I would be OK with that, but he wasn’t given a room. He was parked right outside my door to sleep on a discarded couch. Fortunately, he was a silent intruder and I had few complaints about him. He was obese and often asked me how he could best lose weight. At such times, he was often in the middle of eating a meal or at least a sandwich. It was funny. He wasn’t laughing. The innkeeper seems to have a unique way of choosing guests. Never giving them a key is part of the charade. Our latest guest is an example. He moved to the inn about a month ago and is holed up in one of the upstairs rooms. He has this old car which sounds like a spaceship coming in for a landing as it groans and gives out in front of our location. The problem is that it is most often in the wee hours of the morning and the world is asleep. I say the world, but for me, sleeping at sixty plus has become a permanent part-time activity and I am more a napper by definition. Now, he is at the front door of the inn and voila, he has no key. What a surprise! He must see my light on and expect that if the innkeeper is sleeping, surely I will hear him rapping and let him in. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. After all, I am a resident too. Was I hired on as the butler as well? Of course I don’t want any trouble from the Mexican mafia. Maybe it is time to relocate inns. But like the innkeeper says, it is cheap and moving is so damn expensive. And the mail? Rita Hayworth once remarked to an aghast relative that she threw out all of her mail, junk and all. “But what about the residual checks? What about all of your bills?” Miss Hayworth thought about that for a moment. “I find it all balances out in the end.” And so it goes.