Saturday, April 19, 2014

Larry, Barry, whatever. He's gonna kill me.

We have a member named Larry. I've referred to him here as Barry to protect him, but truthfully, I need you to know who he is, because when I get shot in the face greeting him at the front desk, I want you to know who did it.
Larry thinks the club is his home. He always has. He sets up shop in the lobby with his laptop and spends every day there. He uses the phone on the wall next to the front desk and even gives out our phone number to people as his "home" number. It's been speculated that he's had trouble with the IRS. Whatever the case, he seems to have very important business to conduct at all times.
For a brief stint, he told us he was homeless and living in the hotel next to the club. Yet, he manages to afford his membership. This is a big mystery.
But what's been even more of a mystery to me is that we allow it. He hovers over us and stares. He makes everyone uncomfortable, and when I offered to say something to him like, "Larry, you have to stay off the phones. These are club lines, and they need to be free for prospective members to call," management has told me not to because, they say, he might be dangerous. He's too creepy, they say, let the General Manager handle it. But alas, the GM doesn't. So we all put up with him.
Now, as we renovate, Larry is a bit lost. He has nowhere to set up shop, and he wanders around aimlessly looking for outlets to plug in his laptop. As we section out and build new walls, he moves. It's like "Where's Waldo."
Last week we found him in the waiting room of the massage office.
Larry has three cats. We know this because his vet calls the club all the time. Apparently they're sick. SGE (he even brings out the mean in her!) speculated that perhaps they are suicidal.
The other day Larry came into the club mumbling to himself. I thought to myself, this guy is going to go postal on us. The shit's gonna hit the fan and he's gonna lose it. And I'm gonna be the first person to go because I haven't been overly friendly to him. That is, I AM friendly, just not overly friendly, I will be the first person he sees when he walks in with his oozy and he's gonna think, "That bitch. She goes first."
Larry's got a very Jewish last name, so I assumed he was Jewish. The other day he brought a loaf of bread into the club (which he does from time to time) and offered us a piece. It was Passover. I lied (because I'm not observant) "Larry, I can't eat that! It's Passover!" He acted like he had never heard of Passover before in his life and looked at me inquisitively. Great, I thought. Now I've accused him of being a Jew, and he's not gonna like that.
I'm fucked.
So this is my public (well, public to my 4 readers) announcement that if I get shot at the front desk, Larry is your guy.

2 comments:

Miffy316 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Miffy316 said...

Oh Larry, Larry, Larry!!! That is just so very strange that your club allows him to "live" there... Anyway, you may want to watch out this guy, he is obviously "different" (and creepy FOR SURE!)!!