I make funny jokes about the time I spend on the road, but I hate this. I'm away from my wife and my daughter. I have to sleep in beds with rolls of the dice determining if I get bed bugs. I sleep at hotels on the last exit off I-74 before you hit Indiana. This town is an absolute shithole. Danville is where dreams go to die. Danville is where people from Creve Coeur are all like, "Yeah, but at least we're not living there." I have a 250 mile round trip commute. And it's not like it's exciting. It's corn, plains, white people who don't vote in their best interest, and construction. I get to drive, four days a week, between a city that is honestly attempting to better itself, to a city that gives zero fucks about even appearing to care. It wears me down. So I put up this defense of comedy, I talk to the guys at our store here in town and make fun of the people in this horrible, decrepit piece of our country, but I still have to drive through it, eat at the restaurants, and inhale all of the broken dreams that Danville has to offer.
This is what this blog is going to be. Sometimes fun, sometimes depressing. Welcome to my life.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Monday, September 19, 2016
Night One of the Blog
Night One of My Hotel Blog.
I arrived around 3 PM today. Room was ready, everything was copacetic. A typical mid-range hotel room. Large bed, cheap flat panel television, push button lamps. But let's talk about where that typical room stops. I'm used to a small, plain table for a desk with a lamp that has two outlets for electronic devices. No such luck here. The only outlets in the room are monopolized by a lamp and an alarm clock on the bed side and the refrigerator and another lamp on the work desk side. So already, I'm being asked to make sacrifices. Do I unplug the alarm clock to plug in the CPAP? Of course I do. Because, as I stated in my previous entry, hotel alarm clocks are not to be trusted and are better off without power. So now the CPAP has an outlet to call home. Now I must tackle the the work desk side. I refuse to unplug the refrigerator, because, let's be real here, no one likes room temperature soda except my wife. My personal laptop will provide all the light I need at the desk. Problem solved.
This is where things get tricky. I still have a work laptop and both cell phones to worry about. My Chromebook doesn't have enough USB ports to charge everything. But never mind all of that, because by the time I start worrying about it, I have a man attempting to enter my room with a key card.
This is not the first time during my jaunts in hotels that someone has attempted to use their key card in the wrong room, and due to my experience, I am not alarmed. However, when the man using the key card gains entry into my room, I become alarmed nonetheless.
Chris works for Total Petroleum Services. He has been on the road all day and was given this errant key card by Mary, a delightful woman who works the desk at this mid-range hotel. She is a short woman, rather portly, and has comically short arms. She reminds me of a lazy Tyrannosaurus Rex with dwarfism and an unfortunate bloating issue.
When Chris enters my room to both of our embarrassments, I tell him, "Hey man, no big deal, let's go down to the desk and sort this out." Chris and I take the poorly maintained elevator to the lobby and approach Mary. Mary, being as sweet and wonderful as she is, apologizes to both of profusely and does her damnedest to sort out the confusion. She determines that Chris was given my room in error (NO SHIT) and gives him the proper room, 201. We all have a good laugh about it and go on our merry way. But that is not where this tale ends, my friends. Because Mary, as sweet and kind as she may be, is not the sharpest pencil in the box. Mary has reprogrammed not only Chris' card, but also mine, to be admitted into room 201. I have taken up residence in room 206 since I fucking got here hours ago.
I return to my room and see the dreaded red light when I scan my key card. Thankfully, I have patience approaching infinite and kindness unmatched by Mother Teresa. I return to the lobby, inform Mary of her mistake, get my key card reprogrammed, and take the poorly maintained elevator back to my room, where I get to share my woes with you wonderful people.
Also, this hotel doesn't have laundry service, so I have to wear a dirty shirt tomorrow.
I arrived around 3 PM today. Room was ready, everything was copacetic. A typical mid-range hotel room. Large bed, cheap flat panel television, push button lamps. But let's talk about where that typical room stops. I'm used to a small, plain table for a desk with a lamp that has two outlets for electronic devices. No such luck here. The only outlets in the room are monopolized by a lamp and an alarm clock on the bed side and the refrigerator and another lamp on the work desk side. So already, I'm being asked to make sacrifices. Do I unplug the alarm clock to plug in the CPAP? Of course I do. Because, as I stated in my previous entry, hotel alarm clocks are not to be trusted and are better off without power. So now the CPAP has an outlet to call home. Now I must tackle the the work desk side. I refuse to unplug the refrigerator, because, let's be real here, no one likes room temperature soda except my wife. My personal laptop will provide all the light I need at the desk. Problem solved.
This is where things get tricky. I still have a work laptop and both cell phones to worry about. My Chromebook doesn't have enough USB ports to charge everything. But never mind all of that, because by the time I start worrying about it, I have a man attempting to enter my room with a key card.
This is not the first time during my jaunts in hotels that someone has attempted to use their key card in the wrong room, and due to my experience, I am not alarmed. However, when the man using the key card gains entry into my room, I become alarmed nonetheless.
Chris works for Total Petroleum Services. He has been on the road all day and was given this errant key card by Mary, a delightful woman who works the desk at this mid-range hotel. She is a short woman, rather portly, and has comically short arms. She reminds me of a lazy Tyrannosaurus Rex with dwarfism and an unfortunate bloating issue.
When Chris enters my room to both of our embarrassments, I tell him, "Hey man, no big deal, let's go down to the desk and sort this out." Chris and I take the poorly maintained elevator to the lobby and approach Mary. Mary, being as sweet and wonderful as she is, apologizes to both of profusely and does her damnedest to sort out the confusion. She determines that Chris was given my room in error (NO SHIT) and gives him the proper room, 201. We all have a good laugh about it and go on our merry way. But that is not where this tale ends, my friends. Because Mary, as sweet and kind as she may be, is not the sharpest pencil in the box. Mary has reprogrammed not only Chris' card, but also mine, to be admitted into room 201. I have taken up residence in room 206 since I fucking got here hours ago.
I return to my room and see the dreaded red light when I scan my key card. Thankfully, I have patience approaching infinite and kindness unmatched by Mother Teresa. I return to the lobby, inform Mary of her mistake, get my key card reprogrammed, and take the poorly maintained elevator back to my room, where I get to share my woes with you wonderful people.
Also, this hotel doesn't have laundry service, so I have to wear a dirty shirt tomorrow.
Welcome to the Fold
Many of my friends have told me I should start a blog documenting my myriad nights in hotels ranging in price from $50 to $89 a night before tax. So start a blog I shall. For my first entry, I will detail my survival kit. The things I will not leave home without. Some are obvious to non-travelers, some are not. But I feel it's important that anyone starting a life driving several thousand miles a month and staying in said mid-range hotels at least once a week should know to have. So here it is. The Basic Survival Guide.
- One pair underwear, one undershirt, one pair pants, one shirt, one pair dress socks, one pair casual socks per day. Let's be honest. Most of us don't wear pants only once and wash them, but it's important to err on the side of decency.
- All the normal toiletry stuff. I won't bore you. Anti-perspirant, toothbrush, toothpaste, blah, blah.
- One pair dress shoes.
- One belt, always to match the aforementioned dress shoes. We are road warriors, we are not barbarians.
- One stack of disposable plastic cups. This is the first item that may not seem obvious to most, but it will go miles in making your hotel stay more comfortable. Hotel room cups suck. They are tiny. They are either individually wrapped, small, plastic pieces of crap, or small glasses that may or may not be clean.
- One work laptop
- One personal laptop
- One work phone
- One personal phone
- One power cord for each of these stupid damn electronics you have to carry.
- Headphones. Mid-range hotels have thin walls and no one wants to listen to their neighbor binge watching Stranger Things.
- Cold medicine. Even if you're not sick, the NSAID in Dayquil is fantastic for the headache that you will invariably get from listening all night to the door slamming assholes or the family sharing one room for their ungrateful, stomping children to use the pool.
- Your CPAP machine. (That's for us fat kids who snore and shit.)
- Your own alarm. Never trust a hotel alarm clock. It's like asking Hitler to remind you when Passover starts.
- The following apps: Yelp, Google Maps, Pokemon GO, Sky Guide, Monster, Realtor, Uber, The Weather Channel, Expedia, Choice Hotels, Best Western, Hilton Honors, Club Carlson, stayconnect, the entire Microsoft Office suite, Docusign, TurboScan, SamCard, OpenTable, and Starbucks.
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