Snowbirds

The Keys are hopping with activity lately. It is "season" and that means increased rates and occupancy at motel (yay!) and increased road traffic (boo!). It doesn't help that the ONLY remaining argument that H-bomb and I have after all of these years is over his driving. Well, I guess I cannot call it an argument when I do all the fussing and he just listens - while continuing to drive in his usual aggressive manner. I have never ridden with anyone who gets "flipped off", yelled at, and even have car drivers slam on their brakes in front of him in 55 MPH zones as much as him. In fact, I don't recall this happening with anyone else! I have actually witnessed on two separate occasions people stop their cars and get out to approach and yell at him. Whew. Yet somehow I have never been in any type of accident while he was driving. I suspect he is like a cartoon character, cruising along while happily chatting, weaving in and out of traffic, oblivious to cars crashing into each other in his wake.

Winter also brings many regular guests back to the hotel as well as new friends from all over the world. I have received wine and candy from regulars just this past week. I needed the wine after having to call police today for a "welfare" check on a young guest who deteriorated over the past week into what I would diagnose as a manic episode of bi-polar illness. During her stay here she acquired a puppy which meant she had to leave our property but she could not seem to get out of the room. She began to obsess over the keys to her room (#9) as being for the wrong room (#6) and no rational discussion of how the printing on the keys showed which direction to read the number would convince her otherwise. She kept attempting to open the room of the guests in #6 with her keys to prove her point. She is a lovely, intelligent young woman with a serious illness. The red flags went up for me early in her stay when she unfolded the most amazing and brilliantly concocted story of how she is actually in line for the British throne. It was an amazing tale full of details and convincing facts based on her belief that her grandmother served in WWII as a physician and fell in love with the father of Princess Diana and that actually Diana was her grandmother's love child - taken away from her by the evil Queen mother.

But, the harmless delusions began to go dark when she started accusing staff of stealing from her, sneaking into her room to put pornography on her laptop, and she began to use towels as backdrops for art with permanent markers. And then, the coup de grâce - the deliberate plot by staff to give her the wrong room keys. I tried to discuss medication history with her but that ended up with her turning on me also. So now I am the recipient of emails and photos of the evil room #9 keys. She finally moved to a nearby property who accepts pets and I will worry about her and hope that the police will keep an eye on her because she is a victim waiting to happen. We have given the next property a heads up.