← Columns

Straight from the Source

The Source

By Ken Bradbury What’s in a name? Heck, I’m not sure anymore. I was standing in the lobby of the Hotel Lumiere in St. Louis, trying mightily to get the clerk to understand that I indeed had a reservation, when a lady approached me. (Side note: if you give your hotel a French name you can double the price of a room and if you want to charge even more, put the word “Hotel” in front of the name. It can make even a riverside gambling casino seem exotic.) She said, “Are you Ken?” I told her that I was. I thought she was one of our passengers on the riverboat who’d lost her room after too many hours at the bar. (Side note: it’s a really nice hotel if they have actual removable hangers in the closet.) She said, “I thought that was you.” Okay, this meant she didn’t come off the boat. “We read your stuff,” she said. Stuff? That doesn’t narrow it down much. (Side note: Missouri still allows smoking in many hotels, including the Lumiere, but if you allow smoking on alternate floors and all the floors open up to a common atrium, the smoke wafts wherever it darned well pleases.) “Uh…what stuff is that?” I asked. “You know,” she said, “the stuff you write in the paper.” Okay, we were in Missouri and the only papers that carry my columns are in the western part of the state. Hillsboro is across the river. Maybe the lady had been for a swim. (Side note: the loneliest place on earth is the sushi bar of a gambling casino. No one comes to a gambling place to eat sushi. If they’re hungry they want it breaded, fried, and then slathered with ranch dressing. It’s genetic, I think.) “Which paper is that?” I asked. “Oh you know,” she said. “That one newspaper…what’s it called? Okay, I write for 12 newspapers. I quickly ruled out the one in Indiana since that would be a long trip just to throw a pair of dice. “You know,” she said. “What is it?” She was asking me. (Side note: another mark of a really classy hotel like the Lumiere is if they provide a different type of soap for the tub and the sink. I unwrapped both, I smelled both. Side note to side note: If you cut the bath bar in half and repackage it, you can give it a different name.) “Oh, I can never think of the name of it. My sister clips your columns and sends them to me. Okay, this blew my geographical narrowing right out of the water. Heck, her sister could be living in Omaha and I’d be none the wiser…except for the fact that I don’t write for the Omaha paper. “You know,” she said. Okay, this was the fourth time she’d said, “You know” and I still didn’t know. (Side note: The bottle of water in your fridge at the Lumiere costs five bucks. If you take out the bottle to examine it and see that it costs five bucks, a little trigger goes off and you’ve just bought a five buck bottle of water.) “It’s not the big paper, it’s that other one. Okay…it’s a shopper or a small independent or something.” Three of my publishers also print a shopper. I bit the bullet and took a stab. “You live in Sedalia?” She looked at me as if I was an idiot for not knowing where she lived. (Side note: The Lumiere has one neat trick that I absolutely hate. The hotel provides free Internet service until a certain time of the evening, then you pay for it. In other words, the management sends the message, “Get out of this room and start gambling! That’s why you’re here!”) “Oh no, we live where we always have.” This was getting infuriating. If I never knew where you lived to begin with, how in the blazes am I supposed to . . . oh, never mind. “I’m sorry,” I confessed. “I’m not sure where you live now.” She replied, “Still in Alton.” Okay, my guessing was now narrowed down to the four Illinois newspapers. “I write for several papers,” I said. “Which one does she send you?” She looked at me blankly, then, “Oh, I can never think of the name of it.” Argh. I’d been down this road before. After a few more minutes of this guessing game, I ventured, “The Source!” Her eyes brightened. “That’s it! That’s it!” I wonder if someone should consider changing names of this newspaper. (Side note: Really fancy hotels never put that little paper strip across the toilet bowl these days. I guess it’s beneath them.)