Hotel Life

I spend a lot of time in hotels...
Good hotels... Sheraton, Marriott, Westin, W...
Probably some of the best hotels I've stayed in were the Hotel Oceana in Santa Monica and the Four Seasons Chinzanso (which is no longer a Four Seasons..more's the pity).
Shitty hotels- Hotel Louis in Kowloon, Howard Johnson in Downtown LA come to mind...
Basic accommodations like LaQuintas all over the US, and a handful of Mom & Pop hotels throughout the South. They are always an adventure.


I've seen and heard almost every weird thing possible...
I've lost count of the number of times I've heard the folks next door to mine having noisy wallthumping coitus at various times of the night or early morning.
I've heard arguing couples, screaming children (often the same thing), and wild parties.
I've had the hotel give my room to someone else, while I was in it, asleep...
(And you can imagine how badly that ended...)

I was checking out of the Detroit Westin to catch an early flight once and as I was at the counter a woman in bra and panties walked up and in a very matter of fact tone just said "I locked myself out. 1253."
The woman that was checking me out looked once, slapped a keycard through the encoder and passed it to her in 4 seconds... Se took the card and purposefully strode back to the elevator.
Granted- it was 4:00am, and as a rule 2 to 5 am is the oddball-shit-happens window...

At the Hilton last June, there was the incident where there were two (quite obvious) hookers walking through the lobby at 3am. A man wrapped in a towel bolted out of the elevator and grabbed one of the hookers by the hair. The other sprayed him with pepper spray. It escalated...quickly.

The hotel I'm in here in Indy is arguably the worst Sheraton I've ever been in.
Seriously.
For most of the week there has only been one elevator working...
In a 20 story hotel.
Needless to day, the elevator usually stops on every floor, and at times it's packed.
I do love seeing peoples faces when a really crowded elevator stops and the door opens...
The see me and everyone does the math on square footage needed inside the very full box, and what my entrance would do to the critical mass of the elevator.
"I'll take the next one..."
And a huge sigh of relief from everyone within...
More than half of the television channels don't work.
The housekeepers miss at least one or two elements during daily service...
Never replaced the used towels, bed mostly made - left the pillows on the floor... Stuff like that.
There is construction going on in the parking garage, and there are chunks falling out of the ceiling, several of them landing on my car...

And the fun one this morning...
As I waited for elevator, a maintenance man knocked at a guest room door near the elevator lobby...
Knock knock knock...
"Maintenance!"
Knock knock.
"Maintenance. Is anyone there?"
Knock knock.
"Maintenance! Hello?"
Maintenance guy taps his keycard on the door and opens it up.
From inside the room:
"DUDE! WHAT THE FUCK!!" from an angry guest.
"Sorrysorrysorry..." Maintenance guy closes the door shaking his head...
"Damnit. I hate it when that happens." he says.

'When that happens'? Like it happens all the time?

And the lesson a prudent Constant Reader should learn?:
Always use the deadbolt, and doorchain/latch on hotel room doors.

Every fucking time.
(I do, ever since the hotel gave my room to another guest and someone tried to move in to my room at 1am and got a very rude greeting by a marginally clothed angry ogre...
I doubt he ever got over that image.)

TBG - - [Exit - Pursued by a disgusted hotel housekeeper]