Mushrooms and Midnight Letters

Poor Frieda didn’t sleep at all last night, whereas I slept like a baby.  In the middle of the night the bill for the room was slipped under the door, this is quite normal in American hotels, but apparently not something that’s done in Europe, consequently it unnerved Frieda, she thought it was a letter, maybe something was wrong.  Not wanting to wake me she tiptoed stealthily across the room in the dark to pick up the letter then came back to find her glasses so she could read it. The room was pitch black and despite much fumbling around in the dark she was unable to find her glasses, so she lay awake all night worrying about what was in the letter.  In the morning when I was getting out of bed Frieda yelled across to me “quickly put on your shoes, the mushrooms.” I was very confused, and looked across to see if she was kidding, no she wasn’t, her face was deadly serious. “What mushrooms?” I enquired,  “in the carpet, hotel carpets are never clean they have mushrooms”.  I had to laugh, “You mean fungus,” I giggled, quickly grabbing my shoes, not wanting to risk stepping on the mushrooms. 

“Can you imagine, we had a letter in the night!” Frieda said with wide-eyed astonishment, now I was confused again, she continued “someone pushed a letter under the door in the middle of the night, something must be wrong.”  The look of genuine concern on her face stopped me from laughing, “that’s the bill,” I said, “don’t they put the bill under the door in the night in Europe?” “NO” Frieda replied, “why would they do that? I thought something was wrong, who would put a letter under the door in the middle of the night?”  I could see how she would have been worried, and I felt guilty for laughing at her. What with the mushrooms in the carpet, and people pushing letters saying God only knows what under the door in the middle of the night, poor Frieda no wonder she couldn’t sleep.