If I Can Make it There, I'll Make it Anywhere...

Frank Sinatra sings in his classic song New York, New York “if I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” Those lyrics really hit home while on a recent business trip to New York, where after only 15 minutes into my trip, I found myself homeless as well as going through a sort of identity crisis. Perhaps I should mention these events also unraveled as my right ass cheek was being firmly held in the death grip of a kinky lesbian grandma.

Awesome.

I flew the short distance from Montreal to New York Saturday morning on a claustrophobic express jet made for little people. You know you’re on a tiny plane when you have to do the limbo to get to your seat as to not hit your head on the ceiling. Better yet, when the pilot made the standard announcement for flight attendants to take their seats for take-off, he just called into the intercom, “Pam, prepare for take-off.”

While visiting New York, I was to stay at the Hudson, an uber-trendy boutique hotel, with what my coworker Brian likes to call the world’s biggest lobby, and the world’s smallest hotel rooms. I stayed there a few months ago, and swore I would never do that again (something to do with the feeling that the walls were closing in on me in my 150 sq. ft. room). As this trip came up somewhat last minute, I decided to go back to the prison I already knew, rather than play hotel room roulette with a different corporate hotel option.

As I attempt to check in at the Hudson, the man at the registration desk begins looking baffled. He can’t find my reservation anywhere. We try 10 different spellings of my name but it becomes clear I’m not in their system. I dig out my travel itinerary in mock outrage (hoping their obvious error will result in an upgrade for me), only to discover my corporate travel agency never received a confirmation for my stay. And just like that, I am homeless.

I pull out my Blackberry and call corporate travel to sort out this mess while the guy at the front desk attempts to hunt down a room for me that costs something remotely close to our corporate rate. While we’re doing this, I feel an arm wrap itself around my waist, and the warmth of a body standing too close to me. At that exact moment, the travel agent picks up the line so I'm momentarily distracted and don’t turn to face my molester.

That is, until the molester grabs my ass.

Horrified, I turn to face a woman, easily in her sixties, who leans over towards my ear and says in a sultry voice, “I can’t wait to see you again.”

Both the man behind the desk and I stand there stunned as the color in my almost-lovers face turns crimson. She looks at me sheepishly and exclaims, “Oh sorry. Wrong girl!”

It is all I can do to not burst out laughing in her face. Somehow ten long seconds pass as she walks away before the guy at registration and I break out in a roar of laughter. The perplexed travel agent questions what just happened, so I tell her, and we bust up again. It is not every day you get mistaken as a participant in a lesbian tryst and get assaulted.

In the end, corporate travel was able to sort out a room and the guy behind the counter upgraded me to a deluxe room (meaning my 150 sq. ft. room will be 175 sq. ft., with a hallway). I never crossed paths with my molester again, but kept looking for my evil tart of a twin, who apparently was the right girl.

The best line came from the man checking me in, who has no idea how I attract freaks like a moth to the light. As he handed me my room keys, he smiles and says, “I think this is going to be an interesting trip to New York for you.”

With a start like that, how could it be anything but?