Pittcon, The Final Day: An Evening With Perry President

So... it's 11:45 p.m. last night, and I'm not about to drink a warm can of Coke. I snatch my room key, and as I'm heading out the hotel door I have a brief thought: "Y'know, maybe you should just throw the flip-flops on." I pause for a second.

"Naaaaah. I got my key, what could go wrong?"

So I get my ice, head back, slide my card in, aaaaaaand... nothing. It's not working. And I don't mean like, flashing-red not-working... I mean, NO LIGHTS FLASHING AT ALL not-working.

Faaaaaaaack.

So it's down to the lobby with no shoes or socks on. The night security manager sees this and already knows exactly what the problem is. "Locked out your room, sir?" Yes... yes, I am. I explain the no-lights thing, and they make me a new key. "Do you have ID, sir?" No, no I don't. I have ice. See? Here's the bucket. No ID.

So the security manager, whose name is Perry President (awesome) accompanies me upstairs with the new room card, to let me in, double-check my ID and be on his way. He slides the new key into the door, aaaaaaand.... no lights. I see a look on Perry President's face that concerns me greatly. He says, half to himself, "This is gon' be bad."

Yes.... yes, it is.

So for the next 45 minutes, me and Mr. President shoot the sh*t while maintenance comes up and DRILLS THE HINGES OFF MY DOOR. I learned about his time in the post office ("They had a military mentality in there, man, half the employees were ex-military, and a bunch of them guys were in Vietnam... they were some loose cannons, man, that's why so many of them went 'postal'..."), his impressions of Atlanta ("I'm from New York City, man, and here... I don't know, it seems like they're just tryin' to be New York") and other lovely nuggets of wisdom, and soon enough I was back in my room.

Never so happy to go to sleep....