Lodge Visitors at 2 AM

Nothing much happened on most nights when my crew and I cleaned Zion Lodge. Even the tourists went to bed when our shift started at 10:00 and by 11:00 or so, it was just us and the night clerk at the desk. For some reason, they kept a guy there all night long. I never understood why, but they did. He was an accounting type and was generally pretty boring, so we just cleaned the lodge and then left again at six.

But on one particular night, two young ladies walked through the front door at about 2 AM. I was cleaning the main entry when they came in and looked around for the ladies room. I never found out what they were doing wandering around at that time of night. It had never happened before and it never happened again.

To appreciate this story, I have to tell you about one particular man on my janitor crew. The rest of us were … well, let’s be honest … “ordinary” would be a kind description. But this guy was tall, blonde, slim. He usually did his work in nothing more than shorts and shoes. To tell the truth, the rest of us wished we looked a little more like him. He had a bashful, shy personality, but I think he knew that he had a running start on the rest of us too. We had a lot of fun teasing him. He usually took things pretty well. We were a generally happy crew.

Our janitor closets were in the back of the restrooms so when we cleaned the lodge, we propped the doors open with a mop so we wouldn’t have to keep opening and shutting them as we went in and out. The two young ladies in need of facilities examined the propped open door and decided to go in anyway. In a flash of inspiration, I knew what to do.

I ran upstairs to where our handsome hero was cleaning the dining room and did something I never did. Using all the authority I could muster up as supervisor of the crew, I ordered him downstairs to help clean the bathrooms. I was actually amazed when he tramped down the stairs loudly complaining about who was going to do his work.

He tramped into the ladies room with his bucket and his mop. There were loud shrieks and he tramped back out again. I never knew someone could blush all over their body before. He gave me a really dirty look and then retreated back to the dining room.

The two young ladies came out about five minutes later loudly complaining that this invasion of their privacy would be reported to management. The night clerk hid in his closet and the rest of us found a place to hide too. They must not have found any management because we never heard another thing about it.