Karen and I shed our farm-girl clothes in a New York minute and jumped in Bubba, a stick-shift Ford truck, and headed to the big city. Our first obstacle was maneuvering Bubba into the underground parking garage of the hotel — but we managed.
The first thing I should note is that everyone in the hotel and restaurant industry in New York expects a tip — a big one. Judy met us on a street side, and as we entered the beautiful Waldorf, I saw it cost Judy five bucks for the uniformed doorman to open the door for us.
As we were swept into the foyer of the hotel, young men swooped down and relieved us of our bags. Judy checked us in and we headed over to the concierge’s desk.
Hector the concierge was a tall, muscular man with an ear-to-ear grin. He noted the highlights of the city and said he’d show us to our room. With all our bags on the cart, Hector led us to a lovely room several floors up that had a great view.
The room had an extra large king-sized bed in it. Karen, who’s never short on opinions said, “I’m not sharing a bed with you two.”
You see, I thrash, flip and struggle through sleep, often completely stripping a bed of even the mattress pad.
Karen asked Hector if he could bring up a roll-a-way bed for her. He said certainly. That cost Judy 20 bucks. Hector bid us goodnight and said the temporary bed would be up shortly.
We decided to head out to dinner. I wanted to treat us to Tavern on the Green. Getting gussied up took more than an hour. We left wondering why the temporary bed had not arrived.
With hair, makeup and fancy duds, we went downstairs and had the doorman hail us a cab. That cost three bucks.
We climbed into the back seat of the cab — first me, then Karen, then Judy. Karen started chattering about rolling down a window. Karen goes often into verbal overdrive and can say more words in less time than any other human on Earth. She also matches those words with hand movements and laughter.
“Where’s the window button?" she asked. "I’m hot. Roll the window down. Do you see the button? Lyn, where is it? Judy, roll down your window.”
As Judy and I scrambled in the back of the cramped cab to appease Karen’s request, she banged on the window between us and the driver demanding to know where the window button was.
The cab driver looked over his shoulder and made a slow, rolling down the window motion. There was no button, it had a handle. We roared with laughter, but we got the window down and made it to the restaurant.
Continued next week