Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus (30 page)

This was Hyatt’s polite way of saying, “If you steal our towels, we’ll charge you 75 bucks.”

So I stole the sign.

Really. I kept it in my guest bathroom for a couple of years, to amuse guests. When I told the
Oprah
producer about this, she decided it was perfect, but there was a problem:
She said it was “essential” that I bring the sign to the show, so I could deposit it, on the air, in a big “give-back” crate, where they’d be collecting all the stuff that people had stolen. Unfortunately, I was in St. Louis on a book tour, and the sign was back in my guest bathroom in Miami.

So I called my fiancée, Michelle, and asked her to send the sign, via Federal Express, to the
Oprah
show in Chicago. But with only one day to go, I was desperately afraid that the sign wouldn’t get there on time, and at the last minute they’d cancel my appearance and put on some diet-book author who had confessed to the O.J. slayings, and my big chance would be gone forever.

I spent several anxious hours sitting in my St. Louis hotel room, fretting about this. And then, suddenly, a thought struck me:
The hotel was a Hyatt
. So I looked around, and sure enough, there was a little plastic sign, very similar to the one I’d stolen. It was actually a no-smoking sign, but I figured that the TV viewers would never know the difference.

So I stole it.

So at this point, I had stolen a SECOND hotel sign, plus I was planning to lie on the air, all so I could get on an
Oprah
show that was supposed to be about confessing your sins.

As it turned out, when I got to Chicago, the first sign had arrived, and I was able to deposit it in the “give-back” crate. Also I had a nice chat with Oprah, who is—and this is my honest, candid assessment, in no way influenced by any hope that she will have me back on her show—the most perfect human being in world history.

So everything worked out for the best, except I still have a stolen Hyatt “no-smoking” sign. My concern is that the Hotel Theft Police will brand me as a repeat offender and
throw me into Hotel Prison, where there’s nothing to eat but pillow chocolates and you never get any sleep because every ten minutes somebody knocks on your cell door and yells “HOUSEKEEPING!”

Actually, that sounds a lot like a book tour.