The Mayor, "You better tell me right now, is Donald Trump at your house?"

We’re going to have to build up to the punchline of this story. Can’t give away the goods right away. Ya’ know? So, grab a cup of covfefe and settle in for a few moments.
We opened for business in 1994 as a B&B. The same year, Tunica, MS, opened the first casino, other than Atlantic City or Vegas. The place was a dive and looked like a blown up version of a cheap mobile home but it didn’t matter. The place was a CASH COW. In fact, the Casino made so much money in the beginning days, they had to close down, to bring in more people, so they had enough time to count all the money.
The people who ran “The Splash Casino” came to see me, as there was no hotel space anywhere close by. They offered to take all my rooms for year, and pay me quite well. Yet, they wanted all the rooms. If I was a contractor and they “owned me”, we would have no independence. Husband had visions of wild gamblers, tearing apart the home we worked so hard to restore. Not what a biz owner wants. We would rather have 100 companies than solely contracted to one. “What are you going to do if they bring in a bunch of hookers?”, he said, “How are you going to tell them, NO?” The realization washed over me. “Hookers….?”, I thought. My eyebrows twitched like the tail of a squirrel. “Grandma Della would disown me……”, of course, I turned them down.
By ’95, we were open about a year and in full swing, but as most small biz owners can relate, I was worried about the NEXT month. The house was pristine, renovated from top to bottom by my new husband, the best historical renovation contractor within 100 miles – and it was his own home. Our banker REALLY wanted me to fail. His wife loved my house. At that point, there was no business I turned down. Pressure was on, I had to be successful, failure was not an option.
Outside of our little town, we had a local printing plant which printed monthly periodicals and magazines for clients all over the world. Their clients would come to visit to negotiate large contracts, or their editors would visit for press-checks. Many of them stayed with us, and the printing company was a terrific client. As we started decorating for Christmas, one local exec asked me if he could host a private luncheon, for new clients they were trying to impress. I took the job. It was lunch, I thought…… easy peasy.
With help from a few overeducated-housewife-girlfriends as my makeshift staff, and Grandma Della washing dishes, the first luncheon was a rousing success. One luncheon melded into 10, then 20. Before long, I was raking in $1500 a day, for high end luncheons, as hundreds of millions of dollars traded hands over my dining room table. Then, the company decided to do long, private dinners, with several courses. Fine entertaining, and the big southern white house. We had to “take it up a notch”. No problem. As the staff said, “Martha Stewart ain’t got shit on us.”
All the activity at our house began to attract attention. I thought, “Hey, if the townspeople were talking about me, maybe they would leave someone else alone.” I brushed it off. Everyone wanted to know what was happening, who was coming, what I was cooking. People began to stop me in the grocery store, picking through items in the basket,  and asking me about recipes. It was a little weird. Yet, I was quiet and secretive about our guests, respecting their privacy.
Pam was a 6th grade teacher at the school next door to the house. Her classroom looked out into our driveway. She was also the spinster sister of my husband’s first wife, and a horrible gossip. At one point, she was convinced she saw a naked man, through lace-covered windows, upstairs in our house (which would have been impossible to discern from her vantage point). Then, she saw the man run out of the house, quickly (executive late for work). He left, ……..then returned, ……with a black bag, “big enough for a weapon” (his briefcase – he forgot the receipt for his expense account), as she would later describe to police. Yes, she called the police, as she explained, because she was worried I had been murdered, “cuz I was alone with that foreign-looking man in a big house”. Four police cars responded, including the Chief, “cuz Miss Daughn was in trouble”.
That’s right, Pam called the police on the President of San Diego Home and Garden.
We were working so hard, we barely had time to breath. At the time, I didn’t even have a car. Everything we had went into the renovation. A buddy lent me his daughter’s car for a little while to run errands. Pam knew the car and wondered who was living at my house (a new rumor she could spread). Pam should have worked for CNN. She would have been wonderful speculating about the Russian Hoax. A few weeks later, I was sitting in the car, in the driveway, making out my bank deposit slip. From the corner of my eye, I spotted Pam, walking our wrought-iron fence line, staring at the windows of our home, straining to see any activity. As she came even with the car, I LAID on the horn and scared the heck out of her. I rolled down the window and said, “Will you PLEASE leave me alone? You’re embarrassing yourself.” As she scurried back to her classroom, the realization hit me, I needed to calm people down and be a little more public. Work within the system, the small town culture, and not cause such a ruckus. Who would have known luncheons and dinners could be so exciting?
My mother-in-law was a perfect press agent for the older ladies. I gave her copies of menus and various recipes and photos of tables. At McDonald’s afternoon covfefe, the ladies had much to discuss. Mother-in-law was happy ….. and the ladies gave me a LOT of handy tips. For the younger women, I relented and told the staff they could talk about what we served, and what we did, but NEVER who was here. For a few weeks, our new plan of information dissemination seemed to be working.
Of course, all that changed when the black limousines arrived and lined up in front of the house, four of them in a row.
It was a Thursday.
The town has cattle auctions on Thursday, and one of my best staff members handled the tickets for the auction. It put us down, one strong staff member, but our printing client really needed to schedule a big luncheon……. that Thursday. The lower-level exec customers spent the night with us. Therefore, by morning, we were all familiar with each other. One guy went for a jog before breakfast and noticed a large “wounded” German Shepard in a neighbor’s yard. I went out to check. No, it was a loose calf….. which is why it didn’t “come when he called it”. We straightened out that problem before 7:00am. The functionaries, who spent the night with me, went off to the plant after breakfast. The big bosses were flying in for lunch on the corporate jet. We would all meet back at our house at noon.
The girls arrived and we whipped into action.
About 11:40am, the sedans with execs from the plant arrived, and they tried to nose their way into the kitchen. Pretty soon, maybe ten minutes later, the limo’s arrived, four of them, one for each big boss, and lined up, the whole breadth of my wrought-iron fence. The bosses filed into the house. I was… you know…. being social and introducing everyone to each other. Hors d’oeuvres were ready, and the kitchen was humming. Everything was perfect, on schedule…… when the phone rang.
A girlfriend rushed out of the kitchen and told me the Mayor was on the phone, demanding to speak with me. I was confused, but okay, fine. I went to the phone, leaving my guests. I was annoyed, a little bit, because he was putting a kink in my schedule. He said, “You better tell me right now, is Donald Trump at your house?” I had no idea what he was talking about but very curious as to how he got the impression the billionaire from New York was at my house in Mississippi. Not willing to let on and sensing an opportunity, out loud, I said, “You know I cannot and will not tell you who is a guest of this house. It’s private.” I hung up on him.
I turned to go back to the guests, but before I left, the phone rang again. It was our good staff member at the cattle auction across town, “Is Donald Trump at your house?” 
“What was she talking about?”, I thought. Something was going on, but I still had no clue. Was Trump supposed to be here?, I wondered. Unwilling to relent, I replied, “Well……, not yet, but ya’ never know who will show up here.” Trying to close the conversation and get back to serving, I told her the big bosses were here and we had to go. She said, “I can’t BELIEVE I’m missing Donald Trump”, which I had neither confirmed nor denied.. at all.
8 minutes to serving time, two staff members filling iced tea and water glasses.
I was still on the phone with girlfriend at the cattle auction, when the Mayor burst through the back door. He had a full head of steam and he was pointing at me. He was 6’4″ and 100% alpha male, “You ARE going to tell me WHO is in that dining room, right now.” and “If Donald Trump is going to put a casino, here, in Tunica, I deserve to know, NOW!” I was blockading the dining room door. I started, “No, you cannot go in there.” We were friendly-arguing with the Mayor, in a too small kitchen, on top of other women who were trying to keep to the schedule – to serve my best client in less than 5 minutes. I noticed my girlfriends, who had all been in the kitchen prior to the big bosses arriving, were whispering to each other, suddenly curious about who was in the front of the house.
The buzzer for the bread went off, …..time, ……ticking away. 4 minutes to serving time, I really needed to be in the dining room. 3 minutes left, but before I could recover, husband burst through the back door. “SHhhhhhhhhhh!”, I insisted, silencing them all. Husband countered, “Is Donald Trump in our fu$king dining room?”
Everyone looked at me like it was 3 minutes to Christmas morning. “No, Donald Trump is not in the dining room.”, I said, disappointing them all…… Finally, “Why do you all think Donald Trump is here?”, as I had no idea how they got the impression in the first place. Lots of grumbles and shuffling of feet. “Stay here”, I said to husband and Mayor. We presented the bread and salads and went back to the kitchen for answers. I caught the Mayor peeking out of the dining room door, confirming Donald Trump was NOT in my dining room.
In the ten minutes between salad and soup, we figured out the mystery. Apparently, no limousine service in Memphis had 4 black Mercedes limousines available at the same time. Thus, they ‘borrowed’ four limousines from the current casino. The license plates all read, Trump 1, Trump 2, Trump 3, and Trump 4.
The rumor spread like a wildfire, “Donald Trump is at Daughn’s house.”
To compound the rumor, we were trying to be nice and fed the limo drivers a lovely lunch. One of the guys helping me that day was a big guy, former Navy. With all the black tuxedoed limo drivers and my big Navy guy – they turned into the “Security Detail” for Donald Trump.
No, it was really just lunch.
Gotta love a small town.