Several years ago, one of my relatives had the audacity to be married on New Year’s Eve.

I mean, I can think of all sorts of neat stuff to do on New Year’s Eve, but going to a wedding is definitely not one of them.  And it was out of town.

But just about everyone in our entire little town was invited, so we loaded up the cars and trucks and headed to Austin, en masse.

We got through the wedding and reception, then went to a big party the hotel was having, and then continued the revelry in one of our friends’ room until the wee hours of the morning.

One friend, Harrell, was glad to see us go, I’m sure.  He was really tired.  He and his wife were asleep in no time. Mary is a very heavy sleeper.  Very, very heavy sleeper.

A short while later, nature called and Harrell stumbled into the restroom with his eyes barely open.  He stumbled back towards the bed, and heard the bathroom door click shut behind him.

Bathroom doors don’t click shut behind you.

It slowly sunk in that maybe he had made a wrong turn.  His eyes opened wide in panic … and sure enough he was standing out in the hall.  Naked.

Yep, in the buff, au natural, not a stitch on.

Harrell is kind of a shy guy and this is not something he found amusing.  He knocked softly on the door.

“Mary?  Mary?  It’s me.  Honey, wake up,” he whispered loudly.  No reply.  After several more tries, he finally banged on the door.

“Mary!  Mary!  Open the door!” Nothing.  Heavy, heavy sleeper.

He tried some friends’ door down the hall.  No response.

He looked around for anything … a napkin, an ashtray, a leaf, a piece of bread … anything to cover himself up with.  He couldn’t find a thing.  The ashtrays were bolted to the wall, and the maid service was just way too efficient.

We all have to ask ourselves what we would have done in Harrell’s shoes.

As he was telling the story the next morning, and we were literally rolling on the floor dying of laughter, he said, “Well, what would you have done?”

“We wouldn’t have gone down the elevator!” we all agreed. “Maybe sneak down the stairs or something.”

“Well, I did,” he responded.  “I figured the only way I’d get back into my room was to go down to the front desk and get a key.”

So he hopped on the elevator.  As it opened into the lobby, sure enough, there was a couple standing there when the doors opened.

“Howdy,” Harrell said with a straight face.

The couple strained to keep their eyes on Harrell’s face.  “Hi,” they replied.  They didn’t seem to think it was strange that a naked man was coming off the elevator.

Harrell hurried past them and made a beeline to hide behind the nearest column.  As soon as the coast was clear, he scurried to the next, and the next, until finally he was close enough to the desk for the girls there to hear him.

“Pssst!  Hey, over here!”  The looked up, amused.  “Hey, some buddies played a joke on me a locked me outta my room.  Can you toss me an extra key?!”  They did.

You gotta wonder about a hotel where the clerk will throw a key to a naked man.  I guess asking for his I.D. wouldn’t have done any good.

After Harrell was finished with his tale, and we were trying to pick ourselves up off the ground, he asked for a favor.

“Please don’t tell anyone about this.  I don’t want my mother-in-law to find out.” 

Yeah, right! You know small towns.  The story beat us home.