Monday, October 24th, 9:22 P.M.
After Rinoa and I were done with Commander Lider, we
spent about fifteen minutes waiting for Captain Ushtar to take us to our hotel
room. We only waited about fifteen
minutes but it felt like for-fucking-ever.
At this point, after waiting at the medical facility, waiting for
Commander Lider, then waiting in the exact same fucking place for Ushtar, I am
done with waiting. Done. Fucking done.
I haven't been to a lot of hotels, so I can't say if
The Redford is a good one or not. What I
do know is that The Redford is one tall building. I bet if you dropped something from the roof
of this place, I'd be a long time before it hit the ground.
Captain Ushtar drove us to The Redford and took
charge of getting us checked in and situated.
Thankfully, that process didn't take long. That didn't stop Rinoa and I from complaining
about stuff. There was a clear sarcastic
element in my voice when I said, "This place looks real nice."
Rinoa continued with the sarcastic
conversation. "Yeah, you can tell
the time and effort that was put into making the cracks in the linoleum look
realistic."
"And look at that wallpaper. I haven't seen anything like that since they
bulldozed my great-grandma's house."
"And the air here smells like an old person's
house. Either that, or their intake sits
next to a chemical waste facility."
After Rinoa's comment I took a quick whiff of
myself. "Actually, I think that's
me."
After my comment, Rinoa took a whiff of
herself. "Yeah, our clothes smell
pretty rank. It figures since we've been
in plane crashes and the forest of the past two days."
"I could use a shower."
"Yes.
Not only could I use a wash, our clothes could use one too."
"I wonder if they have a laundromat in this
decrepit old building."
Rinoa looked at me with a disgusted look on her
face. "It has better be a private
facility. If it's public, no way."
I didn't understand this, and my face showed
it. "How come?"
"Hato, these are the only clothes I have. In order to wash these clothes, I'd have to
take them off, and I am not hanging around in a public place in my
underwear."
In hindsight, I should not have asked this
question. "Don't you have to wash
your underwear as well?"
In response to that, Rinoa punched me. Hard.
As I was grimacing in pain, Captain Ushtar came up to us. "Okay, I have you two checked in. It'll take a couple of days to arrange actual
housing for you, so for now you're staying here."
Rinoa asked, "Do we have to? I mean, this place might spoil us."
Captain Ushtar didn't take to Rinoa's sarcasm
well. He showed this by not even
responding to it. "Here are your
room keys. I'll show you up, follow
me." Captain Ushtar handed us each
a credit card looking thing and started walking away from us. We followed Ushtar into an old elevator, the
state of which matched the linoleum and wallpaper from the lobby. As if to distract us from thinking of the
very real possibility we could fall to our deaths in a tin box older than our
parents, Captain Ushtar tried to strike up a conversation with us. "I heard you two talking about
clothes."
Rinoa was appalled.
"You heard us?"
Ushtar seemed to treat this like a matter of
fact. "Yeah. Say what you want about the hotel lobby,
which, from what I heard, you did, the acoustics are phenomenal."
Finding out Ushtar could hear her was embarrassing
to Rinoa. She closed her eyes and
withdrew from the situation, leaving me to carry on the conversation. "So, what about clothes?"
Talking to me, Captain Ushtar said, "If you're
interested, my fiancé has a store with plenty of nice clothes for you and your
girlfriend."
I was puzzled by what Captain Ushtar had said at the
end. "Girlfriend?"
"You know, Rinoa."
I looked over at Rinoa after Ushtar said that. She was now turning away from us with her
eyes cast straight downward. I looked
back at Ushtar and said, "We don't have that kind of relationship."
A look of embarrassment came over Ushtar's face when
I said that. "Oh. Sorry, I didn't know. It's just I heard you talking and bitching
about things, and it reminds me of how my fiancé and I talk, so I-" This is when, mercifully, the elevator doors
opened. With evident relief in his
voice, Ushtar said, "Hey, look, we're here," as he quickly exited the
elevator.
Rinoa and I followed after Ushtar untill he stopped
just in front of a door. Motioning to
the door, Ushtar said, "Here's your room."
Being the one closest to Ushtar, I asked him,
"Which one are you talking to?"
Ushtar got that same embarrassed look on his face I
had seen in the elevator. "Uh-
Well, both of you. I thought you two
would only need one room."
There's making a series of honest mistakes and being
a general dumbass. I generally assume
people are the latter and have no patience for them. "What the fuck, man? You get us checked into this glorified rat
infested cardboard box without asking us a basic fucking question like how many
rooms we'd need? How did you get to be a
Captain? Are your subordinates dumber
than the bedbugs that surely have infested every fucking inch of this fucking
place? You know what? I bet-"
This is when Rinoa pushed past me, came to the door
to our room, shoved Ushtar for no real reason, opened the door just enough for
her to get in, then strongly closed it behind her. After this happened I looked at the door,
stunned at what just happened. Then I
looked back at Ushtar. Before I could
say anything, Ushtar said, "Goodnight then. I'm going to go back home, assuming my
stupidity doesn't prevent me from operating the elevator. By the way, the button that points down means
down, right?"
As I watched Captain Ushtar walk away from me, I
felt that I had just fucked things up again.
Not only was I standing in a hallway, unsure if it was okay for me to
enter the room I was supposed to sleep in, but I was just rude to someone that
was nothing but hospitable to me.
Hopefully the rug in this hallway is more comfortable than the wall I'm
leaving against as I craft this entry.
Later.
Hato Shurtleff
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