Welcome back to Blogville. Have you ever had multiple hotel room stays in a short time? Let’s pour ourselves a cup of tea and discuss my experience.
Recently I’ve taken a couple of short trips that involved brief hotel stays. One 5 night trip staying at 4 different hotels, and one 3 day trip staying in 2 different hotels. I’ll tell you, it’s a lot of work remembering where the elevator is and which way to turn when you exit onto your floor when you change hotels a lot in a short time. Turn left? No, left was yesterday’s hotel, turn right at this one. Oddly, when I got to room 310 my darn key would not work despite 3 or 4 attempts. Before storming down to the front desk to complain and have my ‘key powers’ restored, I checked the paper key holder and sheepishly tip-toed to the nearest stairwell. After all, I did not want to be standing helplessly in front of the bank of elevators when the (I’m sure irate) guest from room 310 came out into the hallway to see who was trying to get in their room! I made my way quietly up the stairs to the correct floor and down the hallway quickly, but casually, to room 410 where my key card easily unlocked the door. When I’m finally in the correct room there are so many decisions to make? Decisions like, which side of the bed do I take? If I take the wrong side, I’ll just keep waking up wondering where I am. At home I sleep on the side away from the window. But what if the best side turns out to be the side near the window? By the best side, I mean the side with the most direct path to the bathroom! On a side note, pardon the pun, my side of the bed at home has a bedside clock with the illuminated time. What if I take the wrong side of the bed and keep waking up not only wondering where I am, but what time it is? No, no, that cannot happen. It’s bad enough I cannot figure out how to stop the room telephone’s flashing ‘message’ light, I must be able to see the clock. Move the clock you suggest? Ha! First problem with that is losing the correct time and trying to figure out how to set the time while NOT accidentally setting the alarm for say, 2:00 a.m. Eventually I decide it is worth the risk and unplug the clock. Second problem? Unplugging the clock and getting to the other side of the bed only to discover there is NO actual plug-in socket! I mean, it turned out to be some sort of Ethernet port or LAN port or some other computer b.s. that just looked like a plug-in socket. So now the clock is unplugged, repeatedly flashing 12:00, and likely programmed with some random middle of the night alarm setting. Now I’ll never know how much time I have until morning so I don’t miss the check out time! Well, I can always keep checking the time on my watch, which is currently laying on the dresser. I mean, as I’m in my sixties, I do get up rather frequently through the night because Mother Nature hates me. Therefore, as I make my way frequently to the bathroom throughout the night, I can simply check my watch to keep an eye on the time. That’s a good alternate plan! In the first night’s hotel I had to walk to the left to get into the bathroom, my way led by the dim night light. The next night I walked to the left and still have a small bruise where my face hit the wall. Apparently I needed to go to the right in this hotel room to find the bathroom. Once there, I disrupted the carefully triangle-folded toilet paper. Do you think there is special toilet paper folding training session for housekeeping staff members? It’s a skill, folding those perfect little triangles, just like making those foil swans fancy restaurants on television use to package up leftovers. Another skill they have is being able to work those privacy blinds with beaded chains that I can never open. You know the ones where you end up pulling the side of the blind away from the window frame enough so that you can just manage to see outside and determine what the weather looks like. Then the side of the blind never fits back into the window frame properly. I’m pretty sure there is a special course for the housekeeping staff on opening and closing those blinds quickly and efficiently. But I digress, let me get back to Mother Nature, night lights, and hotel bathroom challenges. So, not wanting to go blind using the fluorescent lights, I negotiate my bathroom duties using only the dim glow of the hotel night light. Now, where is the toilet handle? I swipe uselessly down the front of the tank, feeling for the handle where it was on last night’s toilet. It’s GONE, Oh, wait, tonight’s toilet has the dual flush button system on the tank lid. Left or right for low flush? I apologize to the environment, pick one at random and push down to flush. Still using only the dim night light, I feel around for the teensy bar of soap that I’m sure I left on the right side of the sink. Oh yeah, I suddenly remember, this bathroom has the pump soap dispenser, so I proceed to pump a spray of foam soap straight onto my left wrist, past my elbow and onto the floor. Now I’m a little upset. There I stand, in the dim night light glow with soap up my arm and also coating the floor like a senior citizen’s booby trap. I reach for the wire towel rack on the wall, but it’s gone. Oh wait, this hotel stores the towels on a shelf under the sink. Without ever having to turn on that bright overhead light, I finally got that mess cleaned up and my hands washed. Back to bed I go. Naturally as I make my way back to bed, I bang my hip on the edge of the dresser making the television wobble precariously. I steady it quickly and avoid catastrophe while immediately stubbing my toe on the office chair to my left. That was unexpected, given that in last night’s room, the office chair was located to my right. Oh and can anyone tell me why coffee tables in hotels always seem to match the colour of the flooring underneath them? I call them camouflage tables because though my eyes don’t see them my shins always seem to find them! All these bathroom excursion challenges have created a thirst so I try to grab a bottle of water from the tiny fridge, but the door will not open. ‘Do fridges lock?’ I ask myself. Did you know the little in-room fridges open left handed or right handed depending on the hotel you stay at? Sigh. I mean, all hotels should have to purchase fridges that open consistently either on the left or the right, or with handles on the front of the doors, so one can easily find them in the dark. Finally back in the bed I realized I forgot to check the time on my watch on the dresser. Call me a risk taker, I rolled over and went to sleep without knowing the time. Finally, at one of my last hotel stays, (there were too many to be specific about) I had figured out how to work both the blinds and the clock and was awake in plenty of time to get ready. I quickly hopped in the shower so I would have plenty of time to get dressed and pop by the breakfast room to grab a bite before checking out. Pleased with my brilliant idea, I was just towelling off when I heard a knock at the door, and the dreaded word, “Housekeeping”! Oh no, it was the voice of the only person other than me with a key to my room. My heart started to pound and I yelled “I haven’t checked out yet!!” just as the door started to open. To my relief, as quickly as it began to open, it slammed shut. Apparently at this hotel, checkout was an hour earlier than at the last one. Sigh . . . Happy travels to you! As ever, I welcome your comments here or via email at [email protected]. Thanks for reading.
1 Comment
Loriann
6/9/2023 08:25:51 pm
Amazing hotel story,,,I almost thought of Lynne the first night she walked into the wall in the bathroom must run in the family 😂😂😂😂
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