On the Road: Pittsburgh 5:30AM
Aug272007
One of the big perks of a book tour is very nice hotels with everything covered by the publisher. SMP pretty much gets a deal with me since I don’t drink (it’s the liquor that’ll kill the budget) although I have been known to do some damage by buying the $50 Snickers in the mini-bar (there was NO MINI-BAR in the hotel last night; oh, the humanity), but it’s still very nice to know that I can pick up the phone and order anything I want and SMP will, in turn, pick up the tab. On the other hand, staying in a hotel has its drawbacks, especially if you have a very common name: I got an obscene phone call at 5:30 this morning.
I was fast asleep so it took me awhile to realize it wasn’t some kind of specialized wake-up call. The guy said, “I know you’re staying at the Omni, I saw you in the elevator” and then called me “chubby” which was weird since I’m really more along the “fat” line and it didn’t really go with the string of obscenities (none of which were really inventive or interesting; I used to teach junior high and high school, and I’ve heard a lot better there) not to mention the anger. After a minute or so I woke up enough to figure out that this was NOT my wake-up call (I kept saying, “Huh?” and I might even have said “Thank you” at first) , so I said, “I think you have the wrong number” and hung up. Then I took another couple of minutes to really wake up and called the front desk. They said somebody had called looking for a different name and then asked for my name which is extremely common, so I think it really was a wrong number; it’s not like the guy had said, “I saw you in the gift shop buying two Snickers and a bottle of water.” So some poor wench in this hotel is being stalked by an angry ex, I’m betting, since I’ve gotten real obscene phone calls before, and there’s usually some kind of minimalist narrative flow that tells you he’s not using both hands to hold the phone, and this was more of a string of insults using standard angry-guy name-calling.
But how lame is he? A rabid-ex phone call made through a hotel switchboard? I told the operator I was traveling with a man but the call wasn’t from him. If Bob wanted to call me obscene names, he’d just say them in the elevator and he’d be a lot more creative, plus that’s not his style; he tends to yell about specifics in a non-obscene manner. Actually, he’s never sworn at me, now that I think of it, and he’s been pretty mad. Plus it wasn’t his voice. This guy had kind of a wimpy Ross-on-Friends voice and Bob’s got more of a growl. This guy sounded like one of those run-of-the-mill twenty-something MBA types, the kind in the unimaginative suit who gets too loud in a bar, and I’m thinking that jealousy just got to him at 5:30 AM. (This could also be the novelist in me kicking in.) Or somebody’s stalking me and you’ll never see me again, although the “I think you have the wrong number” probably put him off some since I doubt that was the reaction he was looking for. He’s just lucky I wasn’t awake; I’d have asked for his goal and motivation. We writers use everything.
Anyway, the more I woke up, the funnier it seemed that I’d thought it was my wake-up call. There are hotels that offer you a choice of calls–the recording, music, a real person–but so far nobody has offered me the f—–g c–t call (I’m usually not wimpy about spelling things out but I don’t want this blog tagged as a porn site). Which made me think of the other kinds of wake-up calls that a hotel could offer like the Good Mother Call (“Rise and shine, sweetums, it’s another beautiful day for Mama’s darling”) and the Bad Mother Call (“Get your ass out of bed or you’re walking to school, and I’m not kidding this time”) or the Ex-Military Drill Sergeant Call (“Wake up, you f—–g maggot”) or . . . And then I realized that I had to leave the hotel in two hours, and if I wanted a shower and breakfast, I was going to have to get up anyway. So it was a kind of wake-up call after all.
So I will remember Pittsburgh this year as a great booksigning, two Snickers from the gift shop, and the obscene wake-up call. Well, that’s the Midwest for you.
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34 Comments to 'On the Road: Pittsburgh 5:30AM'
On August 27, 2007 at 6:35 am Jen T said...
My mom has the same common last name. It can be annoying sometimes especially when people ask her “Is that really your last name?” It’s not my madien name, since my mom is remarried, so I never had this trouble. But it is funny when the whole family gets together and I introduce my brother and step-brother and “this is my brother Jeff and this is my other brother, Jeff.” Gotta love the Bob Newheart Show for that one.
On August 27, 2007 at 6:57 am Kimbelina said...
Sorry, just have to say it:
What a way to start the day!!!
Forgive me.
On August 27, 2007 at 8:36 am me said...
Nothing says “welcome to an area that may or may not be the Midwest” more than a pre-dawn obscene phone call. Bob’s carrying his fully stocked arsenal, right? Stay close to him. Just in case. Remember, you’re living the dream!
On August 27, 2007 at 9:11 am McB said...
No, I don’t see Bob getting that chatty at 5:30 in the morning. Or any other time. I think that if Bob wanted to insult someone he’d not only be more creative, it would be both specific and on target. Not a waster of words, Bob.
Have fun in Steel Town. Save something for Dayton.
On August 27, 2007 at 10:27 am Mitzi said...
My wake-up call is (when home) my cat, Huusker, knocking the things off my bedside stand about 10 minutes before the alarm is to go off. How DO they know these things?
When on the road, I can usually get myself up just by, before going to bed, telling myself when I want to get up.
When I was married, one of the nastiest jobs I had was getting my husband awake to go to work.
But an obscene phone call – that at least is interesting and I expect to see it in an upcoming book.
On August 27, 2007 at 10:32 am JulieB said...
Well, I can only hope Chicagoland offers some pleasant counter-point to the start of your day. We Midwesterners welcome you, fellow-Midwesterner and Bronx-boy.
And, BCB, Chicago likes the Midwest just fine.
On August 27, 2007 at 10:45 am K.L. said...
Well Jenny, at least you have a humerous perspective on it. I got a wrong number once where the conversation was totally normal for a wrong number, until the end where he told me I had a beautiful voice, and would I like to have phone sex. I guess he didn’t want to waste an opportunity. I snorted with laughter and told him that my husband was sitting right there, and might take offense.
Have a great tour, and please try not to kill Bob before Dayton.
On August 27, 2007 at 10:51 am Jen Talty said...
I still can wrap my brain around Pittsburg being in the mid-west. It’s directly below Erie, which is barely west of Buffalo, which isn’t even close to the mid-west.
Chicago on the other hand, I will agree is in the mid-west.
Live the flamingo dysfunctional dream.
On August 27, 2007 at 10:51 am Mary the CB said...
K.L., I’m not sure Jenny should kill Bob after Dayton either. She’d be #1 Suspect. Though now that I think about it, she does have a lot of tips on what to do with a dead body…
On August 27, 2007 at 10:57 am kim said...
Glad that Pittsburgh could provide a unique wake up call! Now, about that Pittsburg/Midwest thing. An imaginary pool of 100 people in the greater Pittsburgh area reveals that 100% of the people state that no way in h*ll is Pittsburgh in the Midwest. It’s in the MidAtlantic region. I grew up in western PA,and, until I started high school, had the accent and grammar to prove it (youins, chimley, gumbands, it needs fixed). The Midwest means Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois–the boring states! (Ducking for cover.)
On August 27, 2007 at 11:02 am Sheryl said...
Ohio is a boring state??? I’d hate to see how creative Jenny would be if she’d been born somewhere more interesting.
If that had been me, not Me, I would have been cranky all day. But your interpretation of the wake-up call made me smile. Gotta love the Cruise view of the world.
On August 27, 2007 at 11:39 am kim said...
It would have helped if I had used the word “poll” instead of “pool.” Oh well, it’s hard to escape those MidAtlantic roots.
On August 27, 2007 at 11:41 am lady T said...
I’m sure the first words out of my mouth would have been ‘Thank you’. Then ‘Huh’. Then I’d have been looking for a frying pan, glass coffee pot or maybe just unhooked the handset from the phone. Wait there might be an iron in the closet!
Sorry you lost even a few extra minutes of sleep! Stay close to Bob. May your day get cherrier!!!
On August 27, 2007 at 11:52 am lady T said...
Loved the specialized wake-up calls bit too! LOL
On August 27, 2007 at 12:13 pm robena grant said...
Sounds like you’re back on track Jenny, loved your take on the wake-up calls. But just in case there’s a weirdo out there, put Bob on surveillance duty.
On August 27, 2007 at 12:16 pm ang said...
Midwest Living magazine (our version of Southern Living) covers stuff in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakotas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. The Midwest is the stuff in the middle between the Appalachian and Rocky mountains, and north of “southern” states Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma, yadda yadda. Western PA can easily fit into the “stuff in the middle” definition.
Bob and Jenny are coming to Chicago!!! Yeah!!
On August 27, 2007 at 12:26 pm Egads said...
(I kept saying, “Huh?” and I might even have said “Thank you” at first)
I keep picturing this. You’d think that a “thank you” would have given the guy pause.
I chuckle whenever I think about it.
Living the dream.
On August 27, 2007 at 1:37 pm ZaZa said...
The hotel caper book is next, right? Will someone in that book be getting an obscene wakeup call? I really hope so. /;+)
Sounds like Pittsburgh gave you a pretty good time.
On August 27, 2007 at 1:57 pm Jen Talty said...
You know, I was thinking. Yeah, I know, bad idea half the time, but when the phone rings at a hotel, I don’t put it to my ear. I just lift, then slam, because it’s usually not a person doing the wake up call. Hmmmm, maybe I’m missing something here.
On August 27, 2007 at 2:10 pm Becky said...
Somewhere there is a woman breaking up with her idiot boyfriend for accidentally crank calling her favorite author.
On August 27, 2007 at 5:12 pm Louisa said...
Sorry about the loss of sleep.
Totally understand about the common last name problem.
FWIW, A drill instructor is much easier to wake up to than an incontinent Pomeranian. I have experience of both, though neither ever phoned me.
Love the good mother/bad mother calls. Now, for the ringtones. . . .
No matter what else, You are a Great Writer.
On August 27, 2007 at 6:14 pm Trish Morey said...
One previous Aussie conference I’d booked a wake up call which duly arrived and I was greeted by this incredibly cheery voice saying “Good Morning!”. Blearily I muttered something and dropped the receiver back in the cradle thinking, wow, how weird to get a real human doing those when the phone rang again and an irate Paula Roe said “Did you just hang up on me?”
Um, sorry Paula. Maybe if she’d talked dirty I would have hung on longer…
On August 27, 2007 at 7:57 pm Stacy said...
Not to be totally off-topic (although it does have something to do with roads and Jenny), but can any of my fellow Western Ohioans give me directions from Bellefontaine to the Dayton signing? Mapquest and Yahoo!Maps are not being friendly to me today and it’s starting to put me into crisis mode. I wanna go!
On August 27, 2007 at 9:37 pm Jenny said...
68 South to 70 West to Exit 44/I-675 S, to Exit 10/Indian Ripple Rd. As I remember, you can see the bookstore from the exit but in case you can’t, Google Maps says to turn right on Indian Ripple, left on Greene, right on Walnut. Big mall, big bookstore.
On August 27, 2007 at 9:46 pm micki said...
(-: Jenny, you are wonderful. Life hands you a raspberry, and you make Mojitos (powered with laughing gas!). As a reader and fan, I hope this turns into a book!
I think the customized wake-up calls are brilliant. (-: Personally, I always start off as the Good Mother, but the morning quickly degenerates into threats from there. My kiddos do not wake well in the morning. Neither do I, or I could probably keep up the Snow-White-10-years-later routine until they are on the bus.
On August 27, 2007 at 9:47 pm micki said...
HUGE, OT coincidence! Amazon delivers Agnes! See y’all next week sometime . . . .
On August 27, 2007 at 9:55 pm WapakGram said...
Stacy- we couldn’t get it on Mapquest either as it is a fairly new place- like open for a year and obviously Mapquest hasn’t found them yet.
Bellefontaine- heck- another OHIOian! See you there- if we all find it. Maybe Bob could send up the Moot signal or something.
On August 28, 2007 at 12:10 am Penny-scope dope cherrybomb said...
Bob could signal if he could find Moot. Jenny I agree with everyone else please stick close to Bob. After all his little pinky can keep you safe. See you in Dayton.
On August 28, 2007 at 7:21 am Stacy said...
Thanks for the directions. Google, huh? Didn’t even cross my mind. Yay, I can go now!
On August 28, 2007 at 9:06 am Tanya Michna said...
ROFL! Well, not at the obscenities or being awakened so early (criminal!) but I loved your reaction. And the suggestion that hotels offer different kinds of wake up calls. Hope the rest of the booktour goes well and doesn’t feature anyone swearing at you.
Tanya, who bought her copy of Agnes yesterday!
On August 28, 2007 at 9:56 am Kieran said...
When you said, “Then I took another couple of minutes to really wake up and called the front desk. They said somebody had called looking for a different name and then asked for my name which is extremely common…”
My immediate response was that someone in security or at the front desk of that hotel should be told about this in a complaint…the clerk never should have connected that person to you without the caller providing your room number. I’m sorry that happened to you–I consider it a horrible form of anonymous violence against you. I wish I could laugh, but I can’t. The few times it’s happened to me, it really leaves me shaken.
On August 28, 2007 at 10:06 am McB said...
Still giggling over the idea that you thanked the guy for the obscene phone call.
On August 28, 2007 at 2:14 pm CrankyOtter said...
My phone number in college was CAL-SEXY, I kid you not. I got the BEST phone calls at 3am. I learned that even when you are belligerent to a caller, they still want to know what you are wearing. I should have gotten more credit card numbers. I had a lot of fun with it after a while.
And what is up with this interface? Every time I type a letter, the scroll bar flickers and every single bit of text that doesn’t start a new paragraph flickers back and forth. Good thing I’m not an eplieptic or I’d be seizing right now.
On August 28, 2007 at 2:18 pm CrankyOtter said...
Oh, and I love the idea of the customized wake up call. Of course it just wouldn’t be home if dad didn’t drip cold water from a washcloth onto my head.