Rudy Tarquin

One may gather from reading some of the posts I have put up here that there is a certain amount of, shall we say, tomfoolery that happens in my world. Oh yes Virginia, we do like to fool around when we can...from quests for the lobster gun and cans of steam to freezing clothing and getting people to eat cardboard...it is about amusing ourselves. Time being a commodity we like to waste ours...when we can.

One summer at the B & B I got an email from Rudy Tarquin. A simple inquiry into room availability, later to be known as the hook. Someone was looking for 4 nights in our suite...you betcha we have space. Off my reply went and I went about my day. In a time before smart phones and synced items, I checked my emails two or three times a day just to stay on top of things while doing the other 118 things that required my attention. Email number two was also quite simple, did we offer a multiple night discount or a seniors discount. Again, quick reply and please feel free to give us a call if we can be of any assistance. Good night Nellie.

The next day the carnage started to unfold. In no particular order since this was ten years or so ago, I received via emails these kind of questions over the next few days. Well worded and thoughtfully structured:

Would there be someone to help with luggage to the third floor?
Would this person be able to help with an oxygen tank as my wife needs this apparatus to breathe at night?
How thick are your walls, my wife has a rather loud phlegm clearing exercise she does every night and we wouldn't want to disturb other guests?
What's the closest synagogue to your establishment?

As each inquiry came in my answers got a little shorter and my response time grew exponentially...I'm now no longer interested in your money or you. I smell trouble if this guest manages to live long enough to darken my door step. And each day I would show Scott these ridiculous emails, sharing a laugh at the sheer lunacy of these Jersey folks. As an aside, when we first opened the B & B I was chatting with a fellow innkeeper and they passed along some observations, one being that if you had an issue at your property it was almost certainly going to be a guest from the Garden State. They weren't wrong.

So on it went for a few days until I guess my sloth like lack of response drove Mr Tarquin to send a vitriolic email condemning me for my anti Semitic tendencies, lack of business acumen and simple stupidity for being in the hospitality business. And as I read through the email with blood boiling it was signed off at the bottom....fuck off see you at 5:00. God damn Scott reading emails over my shoulder trying to keep a straight face as we made fun of the absurdity he had wrote. Well crafted and well done.

I took it to the next level by redirecting Sir Rudy onto a another fellow innkeeper but hitting his buttons even more effectively. He was a sommelier at the time so we wanted to know everything about wine...like could they carry Pennsylvania wines for us. And so on. And while I was content with two and three sentence answers this fellow would write pages of stuff. And when I would pop in on him the next morning running errands he would print things off to show them to me. He killed a small forest to show the world Rudy Tarquin. I kept him on the string for close to two weeks as opposed to the 5 days Scott had me going.

My revenge on Scott was simplistic yet beautiful in it's opportunism. I had a habit of popping in on guests in the dining room to see how their meal was. A bit of small talk and back to the kitchen...Paul Bocuse calls it touching the tables. Call it ego stroking if you want but the guests certainly appreciated it. One evening with only a couple of tables in I stopped at table four to ask how things were. They proceeded to tell me that they were in town to do some genealogical work at the museum. Really? Wow...you know, you should talk to Scott about this. He loves genealogy (he hates it). His mother has gotten into it lately and he has joined her and they have been spending so much time together doing genealogy, not sure how you do genealogy but there you have it. They have bonded so much doing this (no they didn't, he hates genealogy with a passion reserved for RV's and ABBA). Wow...that's awesome they exclaim. I'll mention it to him when I go back to the kitchen. In through the doors, Scott, table four wants to see you buddy. I laughed and I laughed...45 minutes he was stuck with these people...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha "well played" is all he said when he finally extricated himself. My payback was more instantaneous and direct for my Tarquinism....said innkeeper pantsed(??) me as I was leaving his place. In the middle of the day at the busiest intersection of town - haha All is fair in the world of practical jokes.

So beware the Tarquin, you never know when he or his ilk may reappear.

Ciao
D