True room service: sex with the maid

A recent Newsweek survey convinces me I’m missing out on a lot of casual sex. And, yeah, it bums me out.

It’s one thing to let countless professional opportunities slip away, but losing out on sex with strangers, now that hurts.

Conducted in the wake of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape charge, the survey found 8 percent of married men have cheated on their wives while traveling on business.

That’s not surprising. Many men (and women) are mired in loveless marriages and hunger for affection. And many men (and sadly for those many men, way fewer women) will screw anything that moves.

Or, apparently, comes into the room to change the towels.

Three percent of the cheating men say they’ve made a pass at a maid. Of those, 55 percent said they got shut down cold.

But of the randy three percent, 27 percent said the staffer accepted and, hallelujah, they got more than little mint on the pillow.

The numbers, as they always do, make my head nod like a chicken in the rain. If I’m not mistaken, (55 + 27) 82 percent of the 3 percent either got shut down or got laid.

What transpired among the remaining 18 percent?

Did they hold hands? Share poetry? Watch some HBO? Did the maid convince the guy to help her scrub the toilet?

It doesn’t say.

As a travel writer it’s been my privilege to have stayed in some of America’s finest hotels. It’s never once crossed my mind I could have a romp with the cleaning lady. Maybe that mindset is my problem.

I’ve never been one of those guys that gives off the “I want sex!” vibe.

No, the vibe I’m usually giving off when I’m alone in a posh hotel room with a maid is, “I forgot my toothbrush! Please bring me another one!”

The story included an anecdote about a housekeeper who recalled the time when a guest requested she bring him a blanket. She entered a room of an enterprising gent and found him lying buck naked atop the bed.

“He asked me to touch his genital area and offered me money for it. I said, ‘No, my job doesn’t go that far.’ He spent a couple of minutes trying to get me to come closer and tuck him in . . . I eventually dropped the blanket and ran.”

I have to admit, I read that and thought, “You know, I’ll bet that works maybe once every 100 times.”

But that once would be wonderful.

Who knows? Maybe someday if there’s nothing on TV I just might give it a try.

But I doubt it. I’m not like those 3 percenters who spend most of their waking hours panting about sex.

Sure, I pant about sex, too, but I’m always thinking about Consequences, a word I’m capitalizing for deliberate reasons.

“Not a day goes by when a man doesn’t have to choose

“‘tween what he wants and what he’s afraid to lose.”

“Consequences” is 1990 song by the great bluesman Robert Cray.

That’s what the 92 percent of traveling men think about when we’re not cheating on our spouses.

If a housekeeper came into my room and gave me a little leer, I might think, “Hmm, she must she see how hot I look in this posh robe (I find wearing those fancy robes irresistible). Maybe I could score a little action here.”

That’s when I’d start thinking about consequences.

What if she’s using me to get back at her boyfriend Carlos, the bartender who’s good with a knife?

What if she finds my lovemaking so legendary she feels compelled to stalk me at my home? What if my wife, also good with a knife, finds out?

Or what if she winds up disappointed? Not in my lovemaking talents, certainly, but maybe she thinks by being in this fancy hotel I’m some powerful financial executive like the now disgraced Strauss-Kahn.

What if she finds out I’m more about bloggin’ than bankin’?

There are so many painful and humiliating ways this could wind up ruining my life and the lives of the ones I love.

On the other hand, maybe after this she might want to check out my blog. Maybe she’ll like it.

It’s a consequence I’ll have to consider.

What I won’t go through to grow the readership.

Our new purse puppy

I knew we were going to get a dog. I just never dreamed we’d be getting the dog we did.

Surrendering to the inertia of a child pleading for a puppy is inevitable. A 9-year-old girl is so earnest and tells such sweet, convincing lies.

“I’ll be responsible. I’ll take care of it. I promise!”

We’ve had the dog four days and I’ll bet I’ve already spent a combined six pre-dawn hours standing outside encouraging an animal I barely know to move its bowels.

That’s a big part of pet ownership. You stand outside in all kinds of weather urging the dog to poop. And when it does you feel one of the oddest surges of true happiness.

Good doggie!

When the girls and their mom called and said they found a farmer who was giving away really cute puppies, I tried to picture the bright side, the side that didn’t involve hours waiting for a dog to poop or get done sniffing stuff it finds fascinating.

I thought of the companionship, the warmth, the wagging tale when you walk in the room.

I thought of our last dog, Casey, a sweet, loving golden retriever, with whom I spent countless joyful days playing frisbee. That dog could have joined the circus. He was a sturdy fellow and loved to lounge beside us in the front of the fire.

I certainly didn’t think of Snickers.

He’s part pug, part chihuahua, a parental pairing that sounds like the screwball premise for some canine rom-com.

He’s a purse puppie, the kind Paris Hilton uses as a fashion accessory.

This is a dog whose fangs will never seize a soaring frisbee. 

I keep referring to him with female pronouns. I can’t believe we’re the same gender. French poodles could bully lunch money from a dog like this.

Right now, we’re collectively failing at house training. We have the crate, know the ground rules, and are ever vigilant to its every twitch.

The problem is the dog does nothing but twitch. I fear it’s going to be high strung, not the kind to sit by fires, but the kind that starts them.

My wife’s upset the puppy doesn’t seem to be taking to house training. Every accident sends her into a frenzy of wipes, disinfectant and alien admonishments to a dog that still doesn’t really speak dog yet, let alone English.

Me, I practically bark with laughter, “You call that a crap!”

Right now, its tidy little turds and its thimble-sized bladder spills are to me the dog’s most endearing trait.

Everything about it is diminutive. Casey used to bolt from the yard and could be gone for hours.

Snickers could bust loose during the catchy theme to “True Blood” and I wouldn’t bother to pursue her, er, him, until the show’s bloody conclusion.

It would take him 20 minutes at a full sprint to make it to the curb.

I’m sure I’ll grow to love it. I made many of these verbatim complaints about Josie and Lucy when they were born, and I’ve grown to love them very much.

But right now he’s just a nuisance. I can’t stoop low enough to pet him without tipping over. 

He bites our toes. If any hoodlum breaks into house we have to hope he’s barefoot.

He’s so insubstantial I fear I’ll sit on him and confuse his death struggle for a mosquito bite I’m too bored to scratch.

(Another HBO plug: That very thing happened with Christopher Moltisanti on “The Sopranos.” He came home high and crushed the life out of Adrianna’s annoying little dog when he passed out on the couch, an ass-whacking which led to a comical intervention among the mobsters.)

So it’s just another layer on our summer of discontent. Good news has been evasive, we’ve warred over family functions, house projects and have spent this entire, scorching summer without air conditioning.

And now we’ve added a dog to our hot house.

I guess that makes Snickers the perfect fit.

This is one dog that will never be cool.