Loco Parentis: Sheets Happen

She works on the 1st. The hotel’s packed. She bids farewell to Ahmet, Towel Man, Raquel, Erma and the rest. She makes her last mitered corner in a sheet, wipes fingerprints from final credenzas. I expect, when I pick her up, that she’ll be a bit nostalgic.

She isn’t. “Somebody stole the shampoos out of my cart again,” she mutters as she gets in the car. “All summer long, those bitches have been stealing shampoos out of my cart. Is it that much trouble to fill up your own shampoos?” So much for solidarity.

This is Jake’s senior year in high school. Doug and I are discussing not sending him to some $50,000-a-year liberal-arts college next September. Instead, we’re thinking of a two-month stint in housekeeping at the Best Western. Look at all the hard lessons Marcy learned while she was there — in sociology, psychology, history, international relations, gender studies, game theory, math, economics, political science. Plus, they paid her.

And her Spanish got better, too.