Bachelor Party Mayhem

He made a malfunction tonight.

I saw one of the officers' lips twitch, and struggled to keep a straight face myself. Sometimes, not laughing is the hardest part of my job. The man in front of us apparently didn't notice. Which, considering the fact that he'd consumed far more alcohol than Paul Bunyan should've been able to put away and still stand up straight, wasn't surprising. It's amazing how quickly one can sober up when confronted with twelve police officers in one's hotel room, I suppose.

Fifteen minutes earlier, it had been a quiet night. Then I had been called down to room 1027, with Anne saying only that it was an "emergency." We'd been talking about deaths in the hotel, and how to handle them, and how none of us had current CPR certifications, so I was more than a little frightened. I stepped off the elevator and rounded the corner at a run, to find Anne and a guest standing outside the closed door. She had her keys in hand, he had personal belongings. I saw no blood, smelled no smoke, heard nothing out of the ordinary, so I slowed down.

"I'm transferring this man to another room," Anne said when I got there. "There are two other guys in there. They were screaming and shouting and breaking things in there a minute ago, and they won't let me in to check the damage, or give me their names." "Wonderful, " I said. "That's not going to be a problem. Do you have a key to the door?" She put her keys in my hand and stepped back. I knocked on the door. "Security." There was scuffling inside, and I heard the bathroom door close, but no-one answered. I knocked again. "Security." Still no answer. I love these kinds of moments. I shrugged at Anne, who looked worried, and then I stepped back just far enough to be in view from the eyehole. "You gentlemen have a choice. You can either open the door now and let me assess the damage, or I can go downstairs, call the police, and let them handle it. Which would you prefer?"

( The door opened. )