Captions Sunday!

More excellent captions/short stories from Dolores Azul. Enjoy! 

“All About Eva” 

Carolina and Eva: two rising executives in the hospitality business. Both of us work for the third largest hotel chain in the world, and we both worked our way up from the bottom—Eva in the kitchen, and myself in housekeeping. 

Eva is still a rising executive. I am...not. Her salary just crossed the quarter-million dollar level. My income is a tiny fraction of what it once was...Both of us took pride in starting from the bottom. Safe to say we both know everything about running a hotel! We both understood what it means to be at the bottom of a corporation—and a society! So when a new hotel-wide training program was due to touch down, we both drew straws to see who got to work incognito and “start from the bottom” as a new trainee! 

I drew the Lucky Short Straw, but Eva generously lent me a whole battery of materials she had intended to use for herself! What an arsenal it was! In order to truly play the part and not give herself away, she got some smaller-than-microdoses of psyllocybin, with cannabanoids, along with MP3 recordings to listen to at night, to gently hypnotize the listener! She used them to up her leadership skills (I had no idea!) but the ones she gave me were designed to keep one cheerful on the job, no matter how stressful! She even lent me a key to a small apartment of hers, so I could immerse myself into my role, riding the bus to orientation instead of my dead-givaway Lexus! I put one of the lozenges under my tongue the day before orientation and put headphones on before going to sleep. 

When I woke up, I couldn’t believe how light, sunny, and cheerful I felt! Even putting on my housekeeping uniform and work clogs was just...so much FUN! I had to remind myself I was riding the bus, and the reminder cheered me up even more, if possible! Not needing my morning cup of coffee for the first time in ages, I had to stop myself from whistling as I rode the #7 to the downtown orientation and training! 

Orientation took place in a brand-new building, with all new training personnel. I didn’t recognize a single face as we were signed in. When asked my name I said the first one that came to my head: Susanne Lozano. Where did that come from? Not to worry, because it matched the very convincing fake I.D. Eva had made for me, instead of for herself! 

Once we got past orientation, the training was...a revelation! I thought I knew everything about cleaning a hotel room (I’d put myself through college doing it!) but I eagerly drank in the new techniques they taught us! Sweaty, but serenely cheerful, I rode home to Eva’s apartment and was happy that I only had time to eat dinner before putting on the headphones and taking the lozenge again. 

For a month, my life was the opposite of being an executive—I was a housekeeper at one of our hotels, one I had never been to, and it was a 45 minute bus ride from my—I mean EVA’S—apartment! That only made it better! All I had time for was washing up, riding to work, cleaning hotel rooms with a smile on my face I had to suppress! Didn’t want to annoy my fellow housekeepers! Then ride home, eat dinner, and almost eagerly go to bed! 

After one month incognito, I had to promise myself to leave the job and go back to being “The Executive.” Across the lobby I saw my friend! I waited until she was alone (I, as a housekeeper, was being very forward talking to her at all!) then approached her from behind. As I was ready to wave at her, I found out......I’D FORGOTTEN HER NAME!! My waving hand faltered as she turned towards me: 

“Hello Suzanne, how is work?” A red flush of embarrassment I was sure was on my face, I could say nothing...“Very nice to see you, but you best be getting to your rooms.” All the rest of the day, I pondered my memory lapse! How could I forget...forget...my friends name?? Riding the bus home, I STILL could not remember! I took an extra lozenge that night, the last thing I wanted was for my good cheer to go away! 

A meeting was called when I got to work, for all employees. In the meeting room my friend (what WAS her name!?) was introducing a new executive standing next to her announcing that her position was the one I HAVE! Indignant, I was about to shout, and I realized—I HAD FORGOTTEN MY OWN NAME!! Struck dumb (what’s my name, what’s my name!??) I stood frozen, trying to remember as everyone else left the room. Then my cell phone rang. I stared dumbly at it...I FORGOT HOW TO ANSWER A CELL PHONE!! What ELSE have I forgotten!!?? 

My friend (Alice? Eunice?) stood in front of me: “That’s something else you don’t know anymore, is it? Keep your nose clean Suzanne.” She pressed a small flat metal box into my hands. 

“You don’t want to run out of lozenges, do you?”

I came to the “Land of My Ancestors” for two reasons. The business reason was to secure a supply of Unagi, the freshwater eel that sells in a top-notch restaurant between $50.00 and $75.00 EACH—and it’s worth every penny! When my father was working in Kyoto because they needed industrial designers who could speak both Japanese and English, he took me to dine on some. Heavenly! The grilled filets, with the savory, slightly-sweet sauce...even the deep-fried bones, which sounds nasty, but isn’t! Crunchy-yummy! Soooo good! 

The other reason: I see no reason why a business executive can’t engage—in COSPLAY! I’m American, and I’m still proud to be, but Japan does cosplay better than anywhere else! 

I planned my cosplay like a military officer! I brought schoolgirl outfits that match the local Kyoto schools—I know they match, because I visited each of them when I was last here three years ago. Dressed in a schoolgirl uniform, I wanted to hire on as a Maid in a Café in Akihabara! No matter that I’m old enough to be in business, I look young for my age, even in Japan! Although I’m born in the ‘States, I’m fluent in Japanese, so the scheme worked! During the day I’m touring the eel farms with my business counterpart, and at night I’m working as a maid in a café! Working as a maid is so much better than being in the company of my “counterpart,” who is SUCH a gaijin! That’s “foreigner” to you State-siders who don’t know. Anyway, if he has to get a hold of me, I can see him in only fifteen minutes—because the café where I work is just across the street from the hotel where he stays! 

It’s both thrilling and really embarrassing to serve malted milks and wafer cookies to men a decade younger than I am, until...it...happened. The last thing I expected in colorful, brightly-lit Akihabara was to hear—gunfire!! I was wandering back from my break when I heard shots and people screaming! I ran away from the sounds, and almost tripped over—my American counterpart!! Face up, blank stare, SHOT DEAD. My scream was not “in character”—it was genuine! When I got back to the café I didn’t need to hear “YAKUZA” hoarsely whispered in my ear to know who was responsible! 

I welcomed the opportunity to stay in character as a café-maid, but I didn’t like the REASON. As long as I was an eighteen-year-old maid, I was safe; but surely if my counterpart was killed, they would be after ME too!! 

Both the reactions from my fellow maids and the quiet, well-tailored suits tell me that some of the Yakuza have been frequenting the café where I work! They dress like businessmen, but no corporate climber is as cold—or predatory—as these men are!! They actually seem to like ice cream, and by American standards they are very polite, except that they will “invite” the girls to sit on their laps! PROOF that they are Yakuza, and not bothering to hide it! Even I had to sit on a lap once!! If you can imagine a Japanese Robert Mitchum...menacingly handsome, deep silky voice...what frightened me most was—I am quite sure he LIKED me!! 

I CAN’T keep this up forever! It isn’t only the “Nihon Mafia Visitors,” it”s also that I’M 32 YEARS OLD!!! In two years I’ll look too old for this job. I’m going to have to get work as a domestic, because ANY high-profile job will put me in danger—my life as an American Businesswoman is gone forever! At least I’m still alive...

I picked a BAD time to drop in social station—but is there ever a good time? 

Yes, being a hotel housekeeper is much safer than it was when film moguls, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for rooms and suites, took sexually-harassing the help for granted. Yes, it’s much better now that we have Panic Buttons in case some guest presses us up against the wall and gropes us—which used to happen all the time. It happens much less, but it still happens. 

But my situation is kind of...unique... 

I’m actually an executive vice-president of an investment firm. Being young and healthy, I don’t LOOK like one. Being weird and strange, I don’t vacation in Aruba, London, Acapulco, or even Hawaii like most executives do! 

My idea of a vacation is...hiring on, with real—but ALTERNATE—I.D., in hotels AS A HOUSEKEEPER. Just because you make a success of yourself doesn’t mean the shy and easily humiliated part of you ever really goes away—and if you BANISH that person from your life, it eats away at your soul. A part of looking younger than my investment firm colleagues is that I don’t let my soul get eaten away!

 I witnessed a very bad harassment at work, to a colleague who is a dear friend. Had I not been there, it would have been a rape, no question! I already know that during the trial, I will be called to the witness stand. I can do that, because my I.D. as a housekeeper is alternate, but REAL. No way I WOULDN’T testify for her! 

But I am NOT IMPRESSED with the law firm on the case (engaged by the hotel!). In fact I’m aggravated! Because the hotel chain wants this sort of behavior stamped out for good as much as we housekeepers do, the law firm is biting off too much! I can’t argue for this, because housekeepers are not supposed to be familiar with the law, and making too much noise would lead to my dual I.D. being exposed, and the case for my friend fatally undercut in the courts! 

So I can expect to remain a housekeeper until the trial is over—and it hasn’t even begun! Because of that stupidly-over-ambitious law firm! What I intended to be a week cleaning hotel rooms might end up being well over a year! If I inform my investment firm what has happened, it will hurt my friend’s case in court! 

I CAN’T let that happen! 

So I’m stuck as a housekeeper for maybe a year, maybe eighteen months—and there is a overwhelming chance I won’t have my position at the investment firm when it’s all over!! 

I feel so stupid, because a small part of me has always wanted to be stuck as a housekeeper—and that may well happen! But the comraderie of my fellow housekeepers, the lowly place in life I’m stuck in that's SOOOOOOO delicious, keeps my heart light and my face smiling, even as my status in the world drops from the high pinnacle it used to be, down to the sunken depths of Permanent Blue Collar!!

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