Right Room?

Once we get the lady reunited with the bottom half of her dress, we are fortunate to obtain an elevator loaded like a can of compressed anchovies. Someone has disconnected the overload alarm. Our lady of the shortened skirt trips over the two inch ledge created at the lobby level when our cage sags below the designed altitude. So much for dignity.

I wouldn’t say that Rotarians consume a lot of alcohol at these meeting. The fact that they consume everything in sight is moderated by a penurious view of the entertainment budget. On this occasion, however, someone has had the foresight (or enterprise) to park a distributor’s truck filled with liquor just outside the lobby door. Fresh supplies are arriving by the case even as we thread our way across a very crowded lobby floor. Money is changing hands faster than in a Moscow bank. Where is that other tower elevator?

We work our way steadily forward until we are at the front of the queue waiting for a ride up the North tower. The door opens and more Rotarians spill out. In the elevator I stand eye to eye with an exceedingly charming red head. I pray to keep my eyes from straying downward. May my breath be sweet. My eyes drop as if they are connected to lead weights, so I pretend to fumble for my handkerchief in my coat pocket. I’m reminded of fishing behind Hula Dam in Oklahoma. The best fish are caught immediately behind the dam when the spillways are opened. Fishermen are also caught behind the dam when the spillways open.

On the fifteenth floor we run into an International director we know. He and his wife are also looking for the same reception. In fact, there is a long stream of Rotarians pouring from the elevators who are all looking for this same reception. As it turns out, we are in the wrong tower. Our latest information now instructs us that the reception is in the same tower as our room. This is the happy state of information exchange within Rotary. I knew I should have followed that last case of wine into the other elevator bank.