Americans loose in a Greek hotel

Today we return to our Greek travel saga...

They say that bathrooms are one of the most dangerous places in a home, and we can testify that it is not only in a home that bathrooms are dangerous. We stayed a couple of nights in Athens, where our hotel -- which was supposed to cater to American tourists, who like their creature comforts -- was booby-trapped with odd-looking machines, cords, and all manner of gadgets. The bidet, we knew about. "They can't get us with that old European trick," my sister and I said to each other. But still, we treated it gingerly, for we knew that in a moment unawares we could accidentally push or pull something we hadn't intended to. And we preferred to "cleanse ourselves" in the bathtub.

The hair dryer, attached to the bathroom wall and sitting securely in a little holder, looked normal and harmless enough. But when we took it out of its little holder, it suddenly came to life, writhing and swinging wildly around and around until, fearing for our lives, we ran out of the bathroom and held the door shut, as if at any moment it would come crashing through and wind its crazed cord around our necks. When we thought it was safe -- which was after breakfast the next morning; in the meantime, we used our parents' bathroom -- we cautiously opened the bathroom door, where the hair dryer lay on the counter, serene after its outburst, and we carefully replaced it in the wall holder. It looked so natural that we doubted anything had happened at all, but then we saw the broken light fixture, and we knew we had not imagined it.

My mom, after the long plane ride, was luxuriating in the bathtub in her room. In the midst of her luxuriations, she noticed a cord that did not appear to have an obvious purpose. Being a woman of average curiosity, she pulled it, but nothing happened. She shrugged and thought nothing of it. She was just happy to have hot water.

A few minutes later she heard a knock on the outer door, and thinking it was my dad, who had come over to see my sister and me, she yelled, "Use your key! I can't get to the door!"

But there was only silence. Then another knock.

"I said use your key!" she shouted in exasperation. "I can't come to the door. I'm in the bathtub!"

But no key was heard, and no husband appeared. When he finally did show up, long after she was out of the bathtub, she said, "I can't believe you forgot your key! Where have you been?"

"I've been in the girls' room, watching a crazed hair dryer," he said.

"Weren't you knocking at the door?"

"Why would I knock?" he said. "I had my key."

She stared at him. "Well, then who was knocking at the door? About a half hour ago."

"I didn't hear any knocking," he said, "but I did hear someone yelling that they were in the bathtub. Half the hotel heard it."

She didn't want to go down to dinner after that, but we persuaded her that no one would know who she was. During dinner, the manager came over to our table. "Is everything satisfactory in your room?" he asked my mother politely.

Don't ask us if everything's okay with our room, I thought, thinking of the hair dryer.

My mother, somewhat puzzled, assured him that everything was fine.

"You do not require any..." he paused delicately, "assistance?"

She looked blankly at him.

He saw that hints and delicate speaking were not going to achieve the desired effect. "Madam rang the pull-cord alarm in the lavatory earlier in the evening," he said, as if reproving a small child for playing with a toy that was delicate. "We thought perhaps there was some emergency."

She almost choked on her fish, capers threatening to come out her nose, as we smothered our laughter in our napkins. Finally she managed to tell him that no, there had been no emergency, she had merely wondered what the cord was for.

By his look he clearly had had long dealings with dumb, curious Americans. "The next time Madam wonders what something is for," he said with a slight sniff, "please ask."