Stumble It!
Jan 22 2009
Camel Malfunction
Charlie, the GM here, invited me to lunch to catch up. We talked about all the friends we had and the not so good old days all those years ago.
Charlie was reminiscent of our favorite guest from hell, and to protect their reputation let’s just call them the Delta family. They struck gold from importing luxury European goods into the Middle East and established a huge empire throughout the region as well as in parts of Asia. They refused to speak English or Arabic although they were in fact Lebanese. They insisted upon speaking only French.
At that time there were two people in our hotel who spoke French, our French resident manager and me.
One fine Christmas Eve Madame Delta hunted me down. I was working as an assistant manager in banquets and I had done a few private functions for her at her mansion. She was not popular with my staff since Madame insisted on counting every piece of her silverware and chinaware in front of us before we could leave her home. But money was no subject for her so she was one of my top accounts.
This day the request was simple. Could Monsieur Banquet Manager possibly arrange a Santa for Madame’s children? Absolutely! Just as I was about to elaborate, Madame continued, “And I want the Santa to descend from a helicopter, taking many gifts with him. It will thrill my children. You can arrange that, no?”
“I will be happy to look into that. When is the party, Madame?”
“Why, this afternoon of course. Tomorrow is Christmas Day already!” she retorted incredulously.
We were trained to never to say no to guests and especially not to Madame Delta. I enlisted Charlie and the two of us frantically called a dozen of companies, authorities, and air force. We managed to find a helicopter but couldn’t secure the landing rights in her garden.
“Oh, my children will be so disappointed.”
I could imagine Madame pouting on the other end of the phone when I informed her of this unhappy development. I was not about to let this piece of business fly away. She could fill in our budget very nicely.
As my creative juices bubbled away, I sold Madame the idea of the Santa descending not from a helicopter, but from a camel. Since we were in the desert, I thought a camel would be even more impressive. She reluctantly agreed when I convinced her no other hotel would take a last minute request on Christmas Eve to do an outside catering function.
The camel was easy. Many hotels had their own camel supplier on call for special events to take guest for a ride in the garden. I chose three clean looking plastic laundry trolleys so I could pile her mountain of gifts inside, like a mini train. I made Charlie dress up in the Santa suit. A few platters of fish fingers, mini pizzas, chocolate cookies for the children and some caviar and cheese for the adults later, we stacked ourselves, food and camel included, into our banquet truck and departed for Madame’s mansion in the desert in time for the party.
All went well with the whole Santa on camel scenario: the children were so young that they would not have cared if a two-headed Santa arrived on a seven-legged elephant. As sweating Charlie and I breathed a sigh of relief while Madame distributed her expensive gifts to her three toddlers, the camel opened its legs and went to toilet on Madame’s pristine lawn.
Madame paid for the function at premium price, as usual, but I had to personally drive back to the mansion with a gift to apologize for the camel malfunction.
You are entertaining. I liked your story. I’m sure the kids like’d their santa as well.