I didn’t think Harold was capable of pulling off a practical joke, but apparently he is.

Something happened three weeks ago that I thought about sharing, but decided against it. Then today, the urge to share the story kept coming to me. I didn’t understand why. Now I do.

Three weeks ago I was in the lobby of my hotel when another long term guest came up to me waving a folded piece of paper. “I hung this on my refrigerator door, and nothing happened. I wanted it to visit me, and told it to come and see me, but it didn’t.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked him.

“This!” he said. He unfolded the paper. It was the iconic picture of Harold from the Internet. “It’s the doll that haunts the hotel. Everyone’s talking about it! Have you heard about it?”

“I own it,” I told him. He looked shocked and walked away. I’m not sure he believed me.

Like I said that was three weeks ago. Today, he was complaining to me that for the last three weeks, every time he tries to watch a football game (he’s a football fanatic), the game comes on in Spanish! “The pre-game show, and the commercials are in English, but the game’s in Spanish! I don’t get it! It only happens when I’m watching a football game! It’s driving me crazy!”

“Maybe the announcers are using words too big for you to understand,” I suggested.

He finally got one of the housekeepers to look at his remote. Sure enough, the setting was on SAP (Spanish language). “Why in the hell is it only happening when a game comes on?” he wondered out loud.

He asked me if I thought it was Harold. “If it was,” I told him, “you got off easy.”

“Harold can suck my putz,” he said.

The woman at the front desk said, “What will probably end up happening is that you’ll be sucking Harold’s putz!”

I thought the whole incident was really funny. I’m still not letting my guard though.