I slept like a baby. It's amazing what a difference emptying your balls makes. I got up later than I'd originally intended, showered and, as this was our last day in the hotel, packed my stuff.
None of the stores were going to open until 9am, making me a little late to the meeting in the conference room.
"Sorry I'm late," I gushed as I entered the room, carrying a plastic bag with a big box in it. "I had a little shopping I needed to do. My phone got broken last night, you see."
This threw out the whole meeting, as a couple of the guys wanted to talk about smart phones now.
Sandy looked at me with disdain.
"You didn't need to come in at all," she said, her voice like ice.
"Wouldn't have missed it for the world," I said, cheerfully. I could tell my cheeriness was grating on her.
"Let me just get my new phone started, and I can leave it restoring its backup while we talk."
Backup. I watched the color drain out of her face. She didn't look so self assured any more.
I put the SIM card in the phone, turned it on and ran through the setup and gave it my username and password.
"There you go," I said, "restoring the latest backup. Now, what did I miss?"
I sat there, looking straight at her as she shuffled her notes and went through her presentation, again, from the beginning. I really wasn't listening that much, I was just staring at her.
When we broke for coffee, two of the guys came over to talk about the phone. Sandy joined them.
"It's got the latest processor, loads of RAM and even more space than my old phone," I said. "It's a really high res screen, and look how bright it is. Let's see, it's got my contacts back, there's my calendar, and here are my documents."
I was going through all of this in real time, showing them.
"Oh good," I said, "it's got all my photos."
I turned the phone to show them the thumbnails in the directory, and from the colored blobs you could tell there was probably a naked woman in some of the pictures there, but the images were too small to see any details, or who it was.
The guys started to jeer, but Sandy said "I think that's enough of that, don't you?"
"Sorry, mom," I said, turning the screen off and putting the phone in my pocket.
We all dispersed back to our desks, and Sandy went back to the front, looking slightly sick.
"Oh," I said, "as my old phone got broken at a work event, I figured the new one would be covered on expenses."
She looked at me with murder in her eyes.
"Probably," she said. "Give me the receipt, and I'll sort it out."
"Only it was pretty damned expensive," I said.
"I'll sort it!" she snapped at me. The others noticed.
When she looked back to the display screen, Jim looked at me, made a face and mouthed "time of the month." I grinned back at him.
When we got to the end of the morning's activities and presentations, Sandy packed her laptop up.
"Don't forget we need to check out by two," she said, "so load your stuff into the cars, and we'll head home after lunch."
We packed up our stuff from our desks, and headed back to our rooms. As I approached my room, I could see housekeeping going through Bob's room, so I knew he'd already left. The pretty housekeeper looked up at me as I approached my room.
"I'm in here," I told her, "and I'm just grabbing my bag and I'll be out of your way."
She smiled at me as I darted in and grabbed my bag. I hooked my laptop bag to the top of my rolling carry-on, then hooked the plastic bag with my new phone box, and the smashed remains of my old phone, over the handle. I gave her a jaunty wave as I left the room, and she smiled again and waved back.
When I got down to reception, I checked out then went and joined the other guys bickering to see who was going to car pool with who. It didn't really matter, as we were all going back to the office so the rest of us could pick up our own cars. I stood by the window with my back to them, looking out at the weather.
"Why don't you ride with me?" I heard Sandy say, and I turned to see she was talking to me.
"I'm good," I said.
I was still pissed, and didn't really want to spend time cooped up alone in a car with her. I figured I'd get in the back of one of the other cars, and sleep all the way home.