They’ve taken three rooms at the hotel. Twenty-six people, and they’ve taken three rooms. And the desk clerk wonders, “What is the world coming to?”
Their first stop on this Friday early evening is a girls’ interscholastic college volleyball game. As our group sits in the stands they can be seen watching the game with great intent. The action on the court is fast and furious, and the quality of play is very high. Many volleys last ten, twelve, and even fifteen trips over the net . . . with there being some excellent hard-hit “spikes” that are countered by some equally excellent “digs.” The players’ concentration is fairly intense, and their enthusiasm bubbles over after a won service or point . . . as they huddle together to give each other “high fives.”
After the volleyball game our group makes its way to a buffet all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant where there are over forty oriental delicacies to choose from and where Asian waitresses . . . dressed in traditional Chinese apparel . . . patrol the dining room floor. And our group has a feast.
It is now onto the theater where our group of twenty-six travelers enjoys the musical comedy “My House, My Rules.” It is the story of two . . . over-trusting . . . parents who leave their three teenage daughters in charge of their home while they embark on a three week vacation. The industrious girls immediately open up a bed and breakfast resort where a succession of memorable and comical characters comes to stay. Due to a flight rescheduling, Mom and Dad arrive home early and find their house fully occupied with paying guests . . . and so are forced to take a room at a nearby hotel. The audience is treated to a steady stream of laughs and some hilarious moments.
Back at the hotel now, the cots . . . courtesy of the hotel . . . and the air mattresses . . . courtesy of Barclay’s . . . are made up. The girls take the extra mattress from Mr. Hendersen’s room and drag it down the hall into one of their rooms . . . and it is already made up.
The games are brought out. It becomes quite a comical scene . . . with some girls playing Chutes and Ladders, some checkers . . . while badminton birdies fly back and forth overhead and other “cowboy” girls chase each other around their connected rooms shooting plastic darts at one another.
It is around midnight now, and two hotel employees are talking by the hotel’s indoor swimming pool.
Employee #1: It’s not often that we’re asked to work this late.
Employee #2: It’s not often that the hotel gets a special request like this.
The hotel’s indoor pool area has the traditional built-in swimming pool, but it also has an in-house water ride that guests at the hotel are free to use.
It’s a long winding indoor “canal” and the guests are given inflated inner tubes to sit on. They then float their way along this waterway . . . bouncing over rapids and getting drenched when they pass under waterfalls . . . until they reach the end of the ride where this “river” empties out into a heated swimming pool.
And it is this very same water ride that our intrepid group has in mind as they step off the elevators and stroll through the hotel lobby . . . in swimsuits and flip-flops . . . and on into the pool area.
The “Midnight Pool Adventure” . . . as it would become known in the annals of Barclay folklore . . . lasts about and hour and a half before everyone heads back up to their rooms. Shortly after that there is a knock on the door.
No, it is not hotel security . . . though perhaps it should be . . . it’s a porter.
“Room service.” he says to Missy when she opens the door. “Twenty-six milkshakes?” The cart is wheeled into the room and Mr. Hendersen gives the porter a “tenner” for his trouble.
After the milkshakes are consumed the girls all run out of steam . . . finally . . . and as Mr. Hendersen walks down to his room, they sort-of collapse onto beds, cots, and air mattresses . . . and conk out.
Check out time at this hotel is noon, and our wayfaring group barely eke in under that deadline. The bus then makes tracks for IHOP (The International House of Pancakes) so everyone can have their morning nourishment (or, we should say, their afternoon nourishment). There is one more stop on this senior excursion and it is a girls’ interscholastic college softball game where, up in the stands, Mr. Hendersen is a concession stand of sorts, as he has brought an Igloo cooler filled with soft drinks to the game.
Laurie needs a juice, and it goes from the cooler to Mr. Hendersen to Sandy to Carol . . . and on up to Laurie.
It’s a good softball game, with pitching that is . . . as Missy says . . .
“Really fast.” But there is no shortage of hitting, as it is a high-scoring game in which two of the players even “go yard” (hit a homerun).
After the game, it is the bus ride back home to the school, where these twenty-five seniors will be Barclay girls for only a few weeks more.