For the past three years, each and every time I have traveled from my home, someone has left a Precious Moments figurine in my hotel room. Actually, the same exact Precious Moments figurine: a clown, holding balloons.
The first time, I thought it was part of the décor in the hotel. The hotel mailed it to my home, thinking I had left it behind. I threw it away.
It reappeared when I visited Tulsa, then, in Portland. The fourth time, in Atlanta, I became disturbed, and hammered it into smithereens with my shoe. That did not stop another from being delivered to my Philadelphia suite.
My job requires extensive travel. I am a property inspector for a national real estate development agency. At first, I suspected someone in my office of leaving the figurines. After all, who else had access to my travel plans?
But then, I took that spa vacation to soothe my nerves. When I peeled the cucumber slices from my eyes following a nice, relaxing nap, there it was on the nightstand. It stared at me, with its eerily vacant yet sorrowful eyes.
I asked every employee at every hotel or resort I visited: did someone make a delivery, or ask for my room number, or lurk in the hallway? No one has any clues to give me.
One would think that its appearance would cease to unnerve me, but I become increasingly unsettled with every visit. I have changed jobs twice, but it still finds me.
I tried to change careers. I took a real estate course, but when I entered the classroom, there it sat on the teacher’s desk.
This time, I closed my fingers around its waist, carried it onto my room’s balcony, and flung it as far as I could into the darkness of the parking lot. I took a small bit of satisfaction in the resulting shatter, but only a bit. I knew it was only temporary.
The next morning, I packed my bag, headed to the airport, boarded the plane and sunk into my seat. As I have ceased being able to sleep in my hotel rooms, I tried to close my eyes to nap on the plane.
The flight attendants strolled down the aisles, preparing for take off. One tapped me on the shoulder.
“Excuse me, miss,” she said. “You’ll have to secure your belongings.”
Seeing my puzzled expression, she pointed to the seat next to me. There sat a Precious Moments clown figurine, holding balloons, staring balefully into my eyes.
