Laughing With Di – Feb 2018

 What you are about to read is a true story. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Let’s have a laugh.
Back in the day, two young girls, uh, let’s call them Audrey and Lisa were on vacation in San Francisco, California. Base camp was the Pickwick Hotel on Fifth Street.
Our young ladies stayed at the Pickwick for only two out of the seven days reserved. Why you may ask? Well, uh, “Uncle Jim”, who lived in Oakland and, uh, “Uncle Bob” and “Aunt Myrtle”, who lived in San Jose, kept them coming and going on family overnight jaunts. The hotel staff thought they were quite suspicious.
Due to their constant traveling, they discovered a lack of clean clothes. On a night long to be remembered, Audrey decided to wash her lingerie in the bathroom sink. She wanted the items to dry quickly so she laid them on a towel, on the windowsill, with the window open, in the night breeze. Near midnight, when trying to bring in the unmentionables, Audrey yanked on the towel, and three bras fall out of the window floating down seven stories in slow-motion. Two landed on the hotel awning and one landed on the sidewalk below. A stunned Audrey bent out of the window, stared in horror, turned and ran out of the room. Spotting one of the bellboys, she casually asked if it was possible to retrieve “something” that happened to fall upon the awning. He tried to be helpful but said she would have to wait until the next morning (in his head he is saying, she’s one of those suspicious guests on seven). Not the answer Audrey wanted, and she still had to get her hands on the “item” laying in all its glory on the sidewalk!
Audrey ran outside and grabbed the bra from the ground. Two of the bellboys followed her out to see what she was about to do. Audrey, by now, is mortified as she explains what occurred in her room. Finally, Lisa collected herself enough (meaning she stopped laughing hysterically) to come down and give Audrey some moral support and all parties in this fiasco are now congregated in front of the hotel.
To make matters ultimately even funnier, two firemen came walking across the street and asked what was going on. It seems they had been standing on the corner and saw the whole thing happen. They actually thought Audrey was attempting to jump out of the window! They went to the firehouse, brought and parked their fire truck in front of the hotel, got a ladder to reach the awning, and one of them proceeded to latch on to Audrey’s belongings using a hooked stick, twirling each item in the air before dropping it into her hands. A small crowd had already gathered as soon as the fire truck arrived adding to the comedic value of the scene. One of the bellboys said the incident would probably be in the next day’s paper. It wasn’t. This tale ends with Audrey surreptitiously carrying her “stuff” upstairs amidst the good-natured snickering behind her back. She closed all of the windows in the room.
I just researched the Pickwick Hotel (I mean Audrey did) and the hotel photo revealed it still has awnings!