revelations

As the general manager of a chain of restaurants (what, you didn't know?) my days are often filled with atypical situations that require my attention.

Take today, for example.

I'm about to leave for the day after working 9 loooong hours and one of my employees notifies me that a customer left a jacket behind with no identification. At this point, we're about to close, so if the customer came back, he'd be SOL. I dig through the pockets a bit and come up with a map and two sets of keys, one to a rental car and one set with two identifying tags for a relocation service and an apartment complex with a series of numbers.

I'm generally a good samaritan, mostly because I wholeheartedly believe in karma, so I called the rental car company and asked if they could track down the gentleman if I gave them the license plate number listed on the key tag. They could, but unfortunately, the guy didn't give a number where he could be reached. I left my cell phone number with them, just in case the guy calls in to report the keys missing. I grab the white pages next and look up one of the names listed on the keys, but they're no help whatsoever and offer up another place they're affiliated with. I call the place they refer me to, no dice. I called the second number listed on the key tag and give them the series of numbers and they find a record of the guy, but again, no way to reach him. I again left my cell phone number with them in case the guy should call them looking to gain access to his temporary apartment.

So I go home for the day, leaving the jacket behind, hoping the guy will discover sooner rather than later that he has no keys to go anywhere and no keys to get there with. J comes over to kill time before her dinner reservation, and I get a call from the manager at another one of my locations that a certain gentleman has phoned them looking for a jacket that he left earlier in the day at another one of our restaurants. I give the manager the okay to give the guy my phone number (not without the whole "But you say never to give out your number!" bit) should he call back again looking for me. Sure enough, I get a call a few minutes later from the guy.

Now, I guess my phone is louder than I thought, because J could hear him talking and she was sitting across the room. My eyes lit up at the same time hers did when I heard his hot British accent and I could barely focus on what the guy was saying, because she started fanning herself.

Let's just say he gives good phone.

I agreed to drive back to the restaurant so he could get his jacket, but not before J and I giggled like little girls over the potential hotness of the Brit. At this point it occurred to me the map I found in the jacket pocket was a map of London, information that didn't seem pertinent until then.

I drove up to the restaurant, wondering which of the guys in the general area belongs to the hot voice.

Have you ever done that conversational dance in your head, the "Please don't be that person. Oh please oh please oh...shit."? Now, he wasn't ugly by any stretch of the imagination, but someone with such a perfect voice ought to be devastatingly gorgeous, yes?

No. He was old enough to be my father, and then some.

Turns out he really is a nice guy and the rental car joint and the relocation service never reached him, he simply retraced his steps and took a gamble and called one of the numbers listed on the menu we have posted outside. He was overly (but not irritatingly) apologetic for making me come all the way back to help him out, especially since he was on a business trip and would be flying out in the morning. He tried to slip me a twenty for my troubles, but I politely declined, saying, "Just come back and see us next time you're in town." I really wanted to say something along the lines of "pay it forward," but that sort of chessiness is reserved for my online journal.

The karma gods are smiling on me.

Chew on that...