Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The evidence

So back to the awful hotel business.

My aunt (Georgia Aunt P, or GAP) arrived first. I'm sure the facts that she was by herself, exhausted, and hungry upon arrival made the entire experience more traumatizing than amusing. By the time I arrived the next day, things were starting to be funny. What things? Well, for one, the contents of the drawers:

Drawer 1 -

Contents: two cans of Budweiser still attached to the 6-pack ring, and an empty 6-pack ring
Question: Why would you store your beer in a drawer when there's a refrigerator in the room?


Drawer 2 -
Contents: an article of clothing, perhaps a man's shirt?, and an item wrapped in foil
Question: What is the thing wrapped in foil? (We decided it was a joint, which left us wondering how we would explain it to the police when the next tenant in the room reported it and we were the last ones to stay there and why didn't we dispose of that stuff or tell the housekeeper to if it wasn't ours because clearly we were aware of it since our prints were all over the drawer.)

And there were other things.
The bathroom floor was dirty (GAP was trying to tell herself it was stained, but how do you stain tile evenly?), so it was necessary to wear shoes if you wanted to be anywhere other than the bed. The phone hadn't been plugged in when GAP arrived, and the man at the front desk had told her to just move the bed and plug it in. When she did so, she realized that there was no plug - just a hole in the wall where it should have been. I'm sure I'm forgetting other things, but you probably get the picture.

When my aunt and I returned to the room on my first night, she showed me the drawers, and it was still a little tragic and not entirely comical at this point. I was talking to G on the phone and settling into my bed when I found the thing that pushed it over the edge into comedy: my pillow.

Disgusting, right? It looked like old stains that hadn't come out in the wash, and that makes it a little better except that means that they washed it and decided it was okay to use. And that side of the pillow was facing up!

The pillow was the last straw, and GAP and I dissolved into school girl giggles. We put our jackets on over our pajamas and marched to the office, holding the pillow from the corner with two fingertips.

When we showed the pillow to the front desk attendant, she echoed our sentiments exactly: "That's disgusting!" She was kind enough to get me a whole new pillow instead of just replacing the pillowcase, and she promised to leave it where the management would see it.

While we were waiting for a new pillow, we struck up a conversation with a guest who appeared to just be chatting with the night staff. She was wearing a housecoat over what looked like pajamas (GAP and I felt right at home) and was drinking a beer. She asked us what room we were in and then exclaimed, "That's the best one! I just missed it by one day! I'm in 28. That's the one that flooded on us last time."

There were too many problems with this to even address. First, we have the best room? It's a (deleted to keep this polite, but it might rhyme with pitmole). Second, you're staying here again? Third, your room flooded last time? Repeat question number two.

We stayed there (GAP all the time, and me intermittently) for over two weeks. It got better. The next housekeeper appeared to actually clean (the bathroom floor wasn't stained in fact), but we never changed into our pajamas without checking our pillows first.

The beer and marijuana remained with us for the entire stay.


Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Blogoleptic

When I was in college, I was apparently sleep-deprived much of the time. I would imagine most college students who went to class were. Because the only way to make sure you got enough sleep would be to sleep through class, right?

Anyway, I'd be in class, listening to the lecture attentively, and all of a sudden, I'd wake up. Not like I'd realize I was dreaming and I was still in bed*, but like I'd realize I had just fallen asleep in class and then woken up. I was a good student, so this was kind of embarassing. (Or would it have been more embarassing if I wasn't a good student? It would have explained my bad grades, I suppose.)

I would redouble my efforts to pay attention to the lecture, and then I'd wake up again. Mind you, I could never catch myself falling asleep. I only knew I had been sleeping when I woke up. I deemed myself narcoleptic.

The point of this story is that I have been a little blogoleptic recently. For a while I had bigger fish to fry, but lately I've just not realized I forgot to post until I'm driving away from the internet. This happened multiple times last week.

However, I have great pictures to post to illustrate the awful hotel, so I will try to post them tomorrow. I would do it now, but I don't want to shock you with too much information at once after such a long time without any.

* I have always been a good sleeper, and I feel so bad for my mom having to wake me up for school every day. Some days, after she came in to get me up, I would fall back asleep and dream I was getting ready. These were very realistic dreams in which I would put clothes on that I actually owned in real life, eat a normal breakfast, etc. When my mom would come back in to tell me to get up again, I would say, "I am." I'm sure she thought I was being obstinate, but I really did think I had already done all that.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

At least it's cheap

I know you've been concerned about the whole printer business. Have no fear. The day after I typed that entry, I happened to be nosing around in the supply closet, and guess what I found? A toner cartridge that just happens to fit my printer. I know! What luck. Now the new cartridge sits happily inside its box on top of my printer. Perhaps someday soon I will install it.

So I've been out of town, staying in a motel with Georgia Aunt P. And hoo boy, this motel. There are odd things in the drawers (pictures to follow). Our room overlooks a "lake" (which the hotel is named after, evidently) that contains approximately 14 gallons of water. Total. The housekeeping the first day was absolutely terrible - black splotches all over the bathroom floor, a pillowcase that defies decription (picture to follow), and an envelope in which to leave a tip.

The good news? We have the best room in the whole place. That's what they tell us, anyway. I'm headed back there tonight, and I can't wait to see if any new oddities have arisen in my absence.