Brooks' last day in Roma

Brooks' Last day - número 21 An inauspicious start. I woke up early. Answered some email, tried to upload a picture into this blog to no avail, but the big event was yet to come. I kept thinking of a nun from yesterday. She rode next to me for six hours on the train from Lecce to Roma. She kept crowding me. Elbowing me. Kate said I had six hours. She and others had to deal with pushy nuns for years. Kevin announced Ann B. Davis, former star of Love that Bob and more recently of Brady Bunch acclaim, slipped in the bathroom and killed herself. OK. Kevin takes a shower and comes out with a towel around his butt and announces he has splashed a lot of water in the shower. Oh goody. Kate announces there is one more church to view before they go off to the airport. I haven't seen a church in days. I don't want to break my lucky streak. Don't read too much into that previous sentence. Once the door closes on my intrepid church seekers, I get up to take a shower It is a bathtub with a fragile plastic sheet that extends along only half of the tub. It barely touches the bottom of the tub. I adjust it to minimize the amount of spillage. I turn on the water. The soap is located in a dispenser at the end of the tub away from the shower head. I get a little soap and reach for the shower head. The next think I know I am holding the shower head and I have slipped and crashed through the little shower wall. The edge of the bidet has stopped me from going all the way to the floor, but my head has struck it rather severely and I roll over onto the bathroom floor. I hurt in many places but the shower is now flowing onto my chest and then to the floor. I place it into the tub and get up slowly without slipping again. Unfortunately, I am still covered with soap. I gingerly return to the tub and rinse off. I curse as I dry off. My face hurts. I dress and dry up the water and stare in the mirror. I have a dent on the right side off my face. I curse some more. Have I dented a bone?That makes no sense: one side of my face must be swollen. I take a few naproxen: pain and anti-inflammatory pills. Wait. The best is still yet to come. I go down for breakfast. Two men stand behind the concierge desk. They cheerfully greet me. Buon giorno. I respond Buon giorno. How are you doing sir he says in his heavily accented English. I say, "I'm glad you asked. I slipped in the tub." He says horrified, "You slept in the tub. That is terrible. What is your room number sir?" "No. I slipped in the tub." I point to my swollen cheek. "Perhaps, I should see the hotel doctor?" They both look at my face. Shake their heads negatively. "That is nothing. You are fine. Have you had breakfast yet? Go straight through those doors." I thought I was in a scene from "Fawlty Towers." I was waiting for John Cleese to ask me why would I want to do a stupid bloody thing like that for. "Like what?" "Sleep in a bathtub. Who was in your bed? You know you only paid for a single." "No you fool. I didn't sleep in the tub. I slipped in the bathtub while taking a shower." "Well. I didn't slip. You did. Did you break anything?" "Only my cheek," showing it to him. "Perhaps I could see this hotel's doctor?" "Oh. Now I get it. Trying to pull a fast one. Your face is fine and you think I'm running a bloody hospital. Get out. Go on with you. Breakfast is in the next room. Try not to fall before you get to your cereal." I enter a crazed dining area. People are all around me. I'm not feeling well and folks are jockeying for position to get their toast and juice. I go to the coffee machine that is dispensing all types of coffee: cafe, cafe latte, cappuccino and all with a push of a button. It regurgitates some foamy brown stuff. I grab a sad looking croissant and join Kevin and Kate. I show them the side of my face and share my woeful story. Kate is properly upset for me. She says you are going to have quite a bruise. Kevin proceeds to regal me with various horror stories. "First Ann B. Davis and now you. In high school I knew a boy who hit his head in gym class. He got up like he was fine. He went home and got into bed. He never got up again." Now my face is really starting to hurt. Marj and Phil have joined us. Phil says nothing and shakes his head. I take a bite out of the dreadful croissant on the side of my mouth away from injury. Owww. It hurts I say and it is on the opposite side. Marj who has been silent up to now, says, "that's not good." I'm starting to feel sad. I've had better coffee at the Greyhound station in South Station. I push my "breakfast" away. I go up stairs and lay on my bed. Kevin and Kate return to get their luggage. As they go out the door, Kevin warns me not to fall asleep. That could be dangerous he says, as he reminds me of the boy who never woke up. I say Kevin I have a nine hour flight ahead of me. He throws up his hands, "don't say I didn't warn you." Ugh. The day has barely begun.