Stealing

Stealing towels from hotels has never been a habit. In my life I’ve done it only once, at the Hotel Carmen. It wasn’t so great a towel that I just had to break the habit of a lifetime and put it in my suitcase. The evening prior in that same room and the hotel restaurant I’d argued my way into a separation from someone I’d loved so on some unconscious level maybe I was taking revenge on the blameless hotel. It is a pretty nice towel though. I just used it.
I am reminded of a girlfriend who toured Canada with me about 15 years ago. Most hotels provided us with a pot of tea in our room with breakfast. On the last morning of our stay she stole a teapot. Ok, a teapot is nice. We can use it when, if ever, we get home. After that she was unstoppable. She stole a teapot from every hotel we stayed at and we lived on the road for most of that year. She had to buy extra luggage to carry all her teapots. I didn’t say anything. It seemed like a harmless, if odd, little vice in an otherwise very nice law abiding woman. I did refuse to carry her clanking noisy bag in hopes she would stop when it became too heavy.
We were on a train that stopped in the middle of the Canadian nowhere where nowhere is what they do best. We were boarded by police who went from car to car making people open their bags for inspection. Probably they were looking for drugs or some sort of contraband but I joked with her that they were looking for the famous teapot thief. I mentioned that this was a serious crime in Canada and I hoped she didn’t have to be some big muscular lesbian’s girlfriend in prison. She took me seriously. When the police entered our compartment she was shaking.
Opening her luggage they saw all her teapots, looked at her curiously, said nothing and moved on the the next compartment. I’d like to say she stole no more teapots but at least she only stole nice ones from then on.
When we broke up she caught a bus from Canada back to the USA on a cold Toronto morning. She had a suitcase full of clothing and another full of teapots. She slipped out of my life with one suitcase. After she’d gone I noticed she’d left the teapot suitcase behind. I left it too. Whoever found it later found a lifetime supply of teapots.
Last night I played a pub where the point is energy. Slam them with one uptempo song after the other. I didn’t enjoy it but on another level I’m glad I can do these gigs. This is as bad as it gets in my profession. And it ain’t that bad. On the plus side I got to be ungodly loud and that’s always nice, at least for me. I played late. Drank and hung out even later, caught the 4 A.M. night liner bus home and slept the sleep of the blameless. I woke up in the middle of the afternoon, showered with a stolen towel and thought about the one who made me steal it.