Perspective

Wednesday morning started out just like any of our other regular work days. Today however, Bill and Laurent were sick. Bill had the sense to stay in bed but Laurent decided to go to work to give us all a chance to get sick. I told him that he had to try to stop coughing at us and maybe wear a mask if he was going to work with us in close quarters. Something got lost in translation because that meant he should wear a scarf which only partially covered his mouth when he was coughing on us. I guess that meant we would only partially get sick. It was time to increase all my vitamins and practise, no not practise, perfect good hygiene. Anyway, we normally get up no later than 6:30am and try to beat the traffic down to the lobby for our 7:00-7:15am breakfast start. It seems that most days it is just the Bell group, but we have found lately, especially with American Thanksgiving that there are many other people around with the usual wailing of children wanting Fruit Loops instead of oatmeal or Cap'n Crunch instead of powdered scrambled eggs. Who can blame them, it's their vacation too?!

On this morning, my good buddy Jeff poured himself a coffee and the second he hit the tap on the coffee urn, the power went out! We heard from a bunch of the other guys that said they flushed the toilet and the power went out, they turned the water tap and the power went out etc. We had to respectfully disagree. We pretty much decided that it was Jeff's fault because none of the other instances could be substantiated. There was a room full of technicians that observed Jeff hit the tap on the coffee urn and boom! No power at our hotel! Now you can't argue with that logic can you!

So the instant the power goes out at our hotel a generator kicks in and we are all left eating in a perpetual "Brown out" situation. I immediately think back to the time that Laura and I were in St. Martin and we were sitting on the balcony, feet on the railing, glass of red wine in hand, bottle of red wine close by to recharge our glasses, watching the lights in the cityscape turn up and shut down. (Another funny story is that we met a bride later that week that said, "This is the honeymoon from Hell!" It's all in your perspective.)

So when 7:30 rolls around, the techs that have the furthest to travel, jump on their horse and decide that it's time to go to work. Good thing too because another early birder put his key into the ignition and you guessed it, the power went out, but that can't be substantiated! Problem was that our vehicles are behind electric gates and our eager beaver is stuck inside a now completely dark parking garage. Right about that time, the fire alarm goes off! So, we are all left eating breakfast in a good ol' Californian brown out with the fire alarms going off. I didn't see too many chairs moving to exit the building in a hasty but orderly fashion. I did hear many people comment that at least we couldn't hear any babies wailing this morning though! Once we finish all the coffee in the urn, we decide there's nothing fore it but to find a way to get our trucks out and get to work. Bill will just have to find his own way to get some rest and/or some coffee while the firemen find a way to silence the alarms!! Good thing we didn't see or smell smoke!! Those of us with full freezers may have found a good way to preserve meat! By smoking it! You see, on top of everything else, Joe is a shopaholic! Maybe that's not the right word. He's more of a bargainaholic! He will find things on sale and if the discount isn't good enough he will barter to the point where the salesperson will say, "Take it, and go!" (That's right, Russell Peters was talking about Joe getting the bargain)

Living in Ajax, I have become accustomed to many power outages. They don't last long usually! This one did! We were informed at the end of our shift that we were to report to our hotel with flashlights to retrieve whatever belongings were required to spend the night at the Westin. So I packed up enough clothes for a one night stay and also included my I-pod complete with the cheap little battery powered travelling base station Laura and I bought for the beaches of Portugal. I played soothing tunes especially for the front desk staff that seemed to be a little harried by a complete hotel to hotel move. We all got a chuckle out of listening to music in all this bedlam!

So once again, a night of heavenly sleep! But before that, it would be remiss if we didn't try out their eucalyptus steam bath, their jacuzzi or their indoor/outdoor heated pool! When morning came at the Westin we were all trying to find a way to claim an illness so bad that just the mere thought of moving us would have led to dire consequences! I just called it "Perspective!!"