I Have Accidentally Committed Priestcraft

Night shift story time again! I'm just gonna do the long rambling version, full of fun and adventure, and also barely-connected tangents given in nigh-incomprehensible style (I LOVE PARENTHESES SO MUCH)!

So this guest came up to the front desk and said that his wife knew nothing about the Mormon faith but she was interested in the Book of Mormon. We have 'em in our rooms because Utah, along with the Bibles that the Gideons leave (by the way, I've worked at a bunch of hotels and I don't think I've ever actually seen a Gideon; I think they must be ninjas. Also, the Bible Dictionary says that "Gideon" means "hewer down of men" which is basically "man-mower" and I don't think I'd want to mess with that. So... probably ninjas) but in this case somebody had written in the one in their room and they were wondering if they could have one to keep. In my head I'm going "OH MY GOSH I COULD HAVE USED A FEW MORE PEOPLE LIKE YOU WHEN I WAS A MISSIONARY" and I scrambled around a bit at the desk to find the box of extras that we keep on hand, but they were nowhere to be found. PROBABLY Satan's doing, is what I'm saying. Either that or it was housekeeping's fault somehow. Basically all the evils in the world originate from either Satan or the Fairfield housekeeping department. Except when it's Dave, who I suspect has ties to both of those things. (Did I mention that I asked Dave to get us a mop? He got us one! And it's TINY. I'm looking this gift horse in the mouth and I can't even see if there are teeth in there, it's so small)

Anyway, I check the system and find an unoccupied room, make myself a key, and run over there to get a Book of Mormon, because somebody's eternal salvation is at stake here (but not really because they'd get a chance even if I drop the ball, but they'd have to wait who knows how long for that bus to come by again, you know? And what are the odds of some random person in Utah being willing to give them a Book of Mormon anyway? It's 55% according to a recent Pew Research survey on religiosity of adults in Utah) and when I get to the room, I check the drawer and the only thing that's in there is the Bible. "WHY IS THERE JUST THE STICK OF JUDAH IN HERE!?" I don't completely dismiss the possibility that it was taken by our housekeepers, who are basically the Mongol Horde with cleaning carts and fingers so sticky they could probably scale a sheer glass surface (like geckos, except that geckos don't have sticky fingers, they use something called van der Waals forces to take advantage of attraction between atoms which is totally sweet, but housekeeping has sticky fingers in the figurative sense in that they steal anything that isn't nailed down, and if it IS nailed down then HEY LOOK FREE NAILS) and I'm basically never above blaming housekeeping for things not being where they ought to be.

Suddenly it occurs to me that we had the big Jehovah's Witness convention a couple of weeks ago (¡En Inglés YYYYY Español!), and it wouldn't have occurred to me to blame them except we actually had a couple of them come down and ask if they could leave the Book of Mormon at the front desk because they didn't want to be in the same room with it. So maybe it was them one or maybe somebody else in the group saw a chance to strike a blow for Jesus/Jesús and took it home to burn it or something. Pretty nice guests for the most part, though.

I run back to the desk and get another room key for a different room. The guest is like "If you can't find one, it's okay" because he obviously doesn't grasp the SERIOUSNESS OF THE SITUATION. If I can't give a Book of Mormon to a guy who is literally standing there asking for one, I'll basically be the worst Mormon ever. I'm already not doing so hot on account of that whole hating my neighbor thing (seriously it's like RULE #2 so it's kind of a big deal. I don't mean my actual neighbors; in the three years since I've lived where I am now I have spoken to them all a grand total of zero times, which is awesome, and in my last apartment I only talked to my neighbors once and that was when they accidentally locked themselves out of their apartment with their baby inside and so I broke in with a butter knife in like 30 seconds LIKE A HERO).

Fortunately the second room had one, and I checked to make sure nobody had written garbage in this one, but it was cool. You can't foil me this time, housekeeping/Satan/Dave/JW Convention (¡En Inglés YYYYY Español!) I was feeling pretty good about everything when suddenly he gave me a tip. Three whole dollars. Which means I have now committed priestcraft, spreading religion for filthy lucre, and my efforts at being Not the Worst Mormon Ever were all for naught. When he asked about it being missing from the first room I told him that I suspected that the Jehovah's Witnesses took it, and he told me that every Jehovah's Witness he's ever met has been completely crazy. I told him, "They have a very... insular culture." He told me I had a lot of tact, and I told him that it's my job, which means I stop doing it when I clock out.

The front desk supervisor has been back from her mission for like a year or something, and when she came in to work this morning after all of this was over with I was like "I GAVE A GUEST A BOOK OF MORMON" and she got this look on her face that was halfway between "THAT'S AWESOME" and "My best night auditor is proselyting behind the counter at work, I am going to have to fire him and the hotel will surely fail." Then I told her that he had asked for one and that I accidentally committed priestcraft because he tipped me, and she laughed a bunch at that. I was having such a good time with my own cleverness that I forgot about the cash drawer key in my pocket and drove all the way home with it, and had to spend 20 minutes driving it back. Thanks a lot, housekeeping. Jerks.