Who Says Wyoming Isn’t Funny?

The other day I checked into a historic hotel in downtown Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was a beautiful place built in the 1870’s, replete with tiled floors and beautiful Western-style furniture. After a few nights lodging near interstate off-ramps I needed to be somewhere real. A “dinner” the previous night at Taco Johns broke me. I’m pretty sure the chain is named for your inevitable destination after you eat their so-called food.

The desk clerk, it so turns out, once lived in the same seedy neighborhood of Portland, Oregon that I did. One night he was watching an episode of Cops and saw a fleeing criminal sprint past the mini-mart near his house. That is quite the honor. As we finished the check-in process the guy grinned and said “Wanna hear a funny story?”

He chuckled and said “So we’re having a wedding here at the hotel. And the groom, a guy named Richard Franklin, checks in. He heads upstairs. But then he comes back down from his room and says ‘I think there’s been a mix-up. I opened my door and saw a large, naked woman sitting on the bed.'”

I ask the clerk if he tried to sell that as part of the hotel’s Wedding Package.

The clerk smiles and continues: “So I call up to the room to clarify the mix-up. And a guy answers. When I ask what his name is he says ‘This is Richard Franklin’. Now I’m totally confused. So I hang up and go ask someone in the wedding party about the situation. And that guy says ‘Oh, there’s two of them, Richard C. and Richard S.”

The clerk rears his head back and shouts “He walked in on his own dad’s ho!!!”

We roar with laughter. This is my idea of the perfect luxury hotel.  The elevator might not work, but a story like that is totally worth the extra forty bucks.