No room at the inn, really?

Like the book itself, the book tour for "Hey God? Yes, Charles." has its humorous moments. I recently had a couple of hard day's driving to get to an interview. When I arrived at my hotel the second day, I was beat, I had work to do, and I was ready for my room. But maybe I'd started traveling a little too early that morning because, upon presenting myself at the front desk, the clerk pleasantly informed me that, not only was my room not ready, the housekeeping staff was at lunch and no one could give me a time. Maybe a couple of hours or three. There didn't appear to be a lot of guests, but since I had in fact arrived early and had been forewarned of check in time, I had no grounds for complaint so I thanked her

and turned to survey the room. The lobby was lovely and inviting. The weather was getting colder by the minute with precip a possibility. It seemed like a good strategy for a number of reasons to go ahead and unload the car.

Traveling by car creates a dangerous packing opportunity. I had LOTS of stuff. I chose a prime table, large, by the window, under the big screen tv, and began to fill up that table, a couple of chairs, and then the floor around it all. Rolling luggage, cooler, shoes, more shoes, suit bag, computer bag, book bag, catch all bag, snacks, file folders, purse. About the third trip in, the nice desk clerk asked me to confirm that I was only staying one night, right? I nodded pleasantly and tried not to grin. I got comfortable, opened my laptop and began to work. I spread folders out, popped a diet Pepsi. My territory was deep and wide and I had a view of all the lobby action. Perfect.

Suddenly, miraculously, in just a few minutes, the desk clerk announced that my room was ready. I'm not saying that I intentionally homesteaded the lobby in order to see for sure that not a single room was available. But sometimes I do think it's okay to gently encourage ourselves, and allow ourselves to be encouraged by others, to do a better job than we may think we can do.