So, as some of you may know, my wife works at (and now actually manages) a hotel. We’ll call her B, because that’s what I do. Most of the housekeepers at the hotel are immigrants, and very few of them can speak English. This sometimes causes some problems, but usually everything runs smoothly.
Yesterday was a day when the language barrier caused a big problem.
One of the housekeepers, I’ll call her Sophia, came to B in the middle of the day looking absolutely awful. B couldn’t make out most of what Sophia was saying, but the basic gist was that she felt sick and needed to go home. B didn’t think much of this but was a little worried because Sophia was acting so weird and never calls in or goes home sick.
About an hour later, another housekeeper came to the office in a panic. “Emergency! Emergency!” B followed the housekeeper downstairs where another housekeeper, we’ll call her Betty, was incredibly sick. She was drenched in sweat, pale as a ghost, and speaking gibberish. B only knew she was speaking gibberish because she asked the housekeeping manager, Marta, to translate, and she responded “I don’t know! No sense! No sense!”
B called 911, directed Marta to (VERY CAREFULLY) go check out the last room Sophia and Betty cleaned (they had been working together) and look for anything suspicious. Then she took Betty’s blood pressure while they waited for the EMTs. It was crazy low, and Betty was now just sobbing and praying.
Finally the EMTs arrived. One of them was bilingual and able to ask Betty questions. At one point, Sophia pointed at a shelf. The EMT walked over to said shelf and picked up a can of chocolates. Looking it over, his face changed. “Oh, honey,” he said to Sophia. “You’re high as a kite!”
He handed the can to my wife. It was clearly marked “Medical Marijuana,” but neither Sophia nor Betty read English well enough to make out THAT distinction, so they finished almost the entire can. A guest had left it behind in their room and the housekeepers thought they were just eating some sweets.
Sophia came back to work today but says she feels very sleepy. Betty called in and my wife was more than okay with that, after having her own experience with edible marijuana a few years ago.
And Marta is reminding all of the housekeepers that when a guest leaves something behind, it goes to the lost and found. Even if it’s just a can of chocolates.