Lucy.......The Conclusion (To this Lucy story, at least)

So I’ve strung you along for a few weeks waiting to find out about dog poop. I apologize for this cheap literary device, as I use the ‘To be continued...’ thing as a means to juggle jobs, responsibilities to family and friends and personal time used to watch sports (it’s NFL playoff and college B-ball season, dammit!), which doesn’t leave much time to devote to the blog.
And you, you’ve allowed yourself to be strung along to find out about dog poop; there’s maybe something interesting to that as well, but I’ll leave it lie.

The day after Christmas brought not only more guests, but more dogs: four more dogs, to be exact - four BIG dogs, all in one room. Now Lucy has developed a bit of a reputation when it comes to picking fights with small dogs, and she may have a bit of a violent streak, kind of like Amy Winehouse has a little thing for drugs and tats; but unlike Amy Winehouse, Lucy’s no idiot, and can quickly distinguish between whom to bully and from whom to back down. There were two Labs, one German shepherd mix, and a sled dog/husky sort of thing; they were a united front, and would have drawn and quartered Lucy in short order. Their owners were good about following the Lucy rules, i.e.no dogs in the common area, and we really didn’t even know they were staying with us. We didn’t, but Lucy sure as hell did. The dogs weren’t even up the stairs and in their room before Lucy began planning her post pooch-departure statement. I contend that she didn’t poop for two days, in an effort to make the event really special.

The next two days passed without any significant events; we were busy as hell at the hotel, with all of the rooms being full, and Lucy quietly passed the time making every waking second of Busters’ life a living hell.

“Sure thing Buster, I’m cool with you being here, so long as you’re cool with me biting any and every square inch of your body whenever I feel like it, which is ALL THE TIME, but I promise you I’ll take an occasional break from biting you to flip you over and sit on your throat. So sure, I’m OK with you living here, you little son-of-a-bitch!”

December 28th arrived, and all of the guests eventually departed. We didn’t have anything too pressing going on the next two days except…...except for showing the hotel to two potential buyers!! As you probably know, the Riverside is for sale, what with me living in Jackson, MS away from my wife and all, and we had interested parties coming up at noon on the 28th of December and the next on the morning of the 29th. So we basically had about two hours to bust hump and get 12 rooms turned, the bathrooms cleaned, the downstairs tidied up, etc; we had to flat rock to get the place up to speed, and rock we did. All was going well, until it hit me that I never really nailed down a time for our “lunchtime” visitors, and no sooner did I consider this than, lo and behold, at 11:00 AM, there they stood, waiting for their tour.

All was well downstairs, and I knew Julie was wrapping things up upstairs, so no big deal. I even bought a little more time by getting them coffee and excusing myself to change from my work clothes. I sent word to Julie that the guests were here, and Julie sent word back to “show them the downstairs, and stall!!” So stall I did, lingering in the dining room, stretching out my stories on the past history, taking every opportunity I could to let them examine while I explained. Inevitably, we headed upstairs; first to the “East Wing”, which houses the main hall with the chandeliers, the bathrooms and the bookshelves. Again I stalled, asking them a lot of questions, many a ploy to forestall what, I wasn’t sure, as we headed to the “West Wing” of the hotel, where I believed Julie was still cleaning, as I’d yet to see a sign of her.

“Yes, these books are for all of our guests to read. We’d keep them here if you’d like. Look through them all and see if there’s any you’ve read before. If you see something you haven’t read but would like to read, by all means, have a seat and get started on it! I’d suggest Moby Dick if you’ve never had a go at that one!”


No interest in reading, but continued interest in seeing the rest of the hotel, so off we headed into the unknown. We walked past the bathrooms into the short west hall, (the hall where the ghost was standing that parallels the long west hall) viewed the rooms, and headed into the sitting room in the Tootie suite. Suitably impressed with this room, as it is the largest with the best view, we headed down the long west hall towards the Lennon room. About halfway down the hall, I encountered a sensation that was something akin to getting smashed in the face with a fungo bat; the smell took my breath, and all but buckled my knees. I continued to prattle on, acting like I didn’t notice anything; I’m certain the first question that entered the guest's minds was “Is there a violently churning raw sewage plant that we didn’t notice located immediately next to the hotel?”

We entered the Lennon room, and I hastily pointed to the plaque on the wall detailing his Riverside stay, laughing nervously as I said, “yep, heh..heh..he stayed here, all right..heh..heh”, the guests thinking, "Stayed here? He obviously died here, and we're certain he’s still under the bed!”

I simply couldn't hide it any longer; I had to mention what was as obvious as the pea-green pallor of my complexion.

“Hmmm. Smells a little like dogs in here. We had guests stay here that had four dogs, and wow, that smell’s a little overwhelming; my apologies. We probably shouldn’t allow dogs.” (I’m thinking, yah, the dogs stayed here, but I didn’t know they pooped in here for the last two days and piled it all under the bed, ‘cause that’s what it smells like!!)

The guests were quick to say, “Oh no, this is Colorado, you’ve got to allow dogs!”

Downstairs we go, tour all but complete, and there stands Julie, looking lovely, calm and collected. After introductions, she pulls me aside to tell me the raw truth. No, it wasn’t the four guest pooches that fouled our attempt at selling the Riverside; rather, it was our own little hoyden that did potentially permanent damage to not only our relocation efforts, but to our olfactory systems as well. And this time she didn’t do it outside the door, as is her usual modus operandi for saying goodbye to our big-dog guests, nor even did Lucy have the good grace to simply do it on the room’s floor; nope, she laid it right smack in the middle of the bed, on the comforter that Julie had replaced two minutes prior. This was the ultimate “up yours!!”- a two-day, fine-wine-aged poop, planted deliberately and skillfully, with love and obvious pride of ownership. When Julie discovered Lucy’s contribution to our efforts to sell the hotel, her first thought was to throw the comforter out the window, but she heard us below on the west deck, and thought better of it, as a flying, poop-filled comforter might have been a little tough to explain. Even in Grand County!

The interested party laughed when they heard the story (good that they have the necessary sense of humor to take on a venture like The Riverside), as we had to explain the source of the smell. I’m certain they were relieved to learn that it wasn’t the result of a hotel full of shared bathrooms. It was in fact, another little, and not quite so subtle, reminder to us all, of who really owns The Riverside Hotel; per her exceptional breeding, as she’s just doing her job.