I was enjoying a shower in my Super8 cube when the hilarity of hotels came to mind.
Now granted, the Super8 isn’t top of the line. But I’ve also spent time in some amazing five star luxury resorts and the story always seems to be the same.
As we enter the room, we invariably say, “Well, this is nice.” And even if it’s a total dive, we try to justify it in homey terms: “My, this is spacious,” “What a view,” “OMG, it has a mini fridge and a microwave,” “What a cozy little home away from home.”
And therein lies the oddity of hotels. We could live in a 5,000 square foot house but when we’re away from it, we can manage to do well in 325 square feet. That’s the size of the average hotel room in the U.S., by the way — 325 square feet. Somehow through the miracles of modern hoteling, they have managed to cram a queen or king sized bed, a desk, a chair or two, a fridge and micro combo, a small table and even a bathroom into a space no bigger than some walk-in closets.
Yet we insist on calling it homey. But it’s nothing like home, and you really know it. I liken it to being in Canada. It looks like the United States, but deep down you know it’s not. But hey, you’re already there, so why not make the most of it.
As I look around the hotel room here, there is nothing that I would have had even in my first apartment, let along my current house. The bed is rock hard, the TV can’t be over 27″ wide and the carpet looks like it came from a factory floor in China somewhere.
But we so desperately overlook these shortcomings wanting to feel “at home” that we overcompensate by changing our behavior.
Case in point. At home, I don’t take out new towels every morning. I use the same towel over and over again. I also don’t change the bed linens every day. In fact, there are days when I don’t even make the bed.
I also don’t let total strangers come into my home when I’m away. Yet at a hotel, we expect them to. We want a maid we’ve never met to violate our personal space just so that we can get fresh sheets and linens that we’d never need in our own house. Yet, we never ponder whether they’re busy going through all of our personal possessions at the same time or lifting some cash out of the stash you so carefully hid in the same place that everyone hides money in a hotel room.
When it’s time for breakfast, we get excited about the fact that they have continental breakfast “for free!”. It’s rarely something we would eat at home. Stale danish, equally stale bread, orange colored water, perhaps a couple pieces of fruit, Fruit Loops and Raisin Brand and if you’re really lucky, malt waffles cooked up in those flip over waffle makers that you can now have in your own home. Imagine that! I can now buy a waffle maker that I fell in love with at the Holiday Inn while I was scaring up some substance after an all-night bender.
I do have something here at the Super8 I don’t have at home: HBO. But what I have at home is a 50″ big screen TV with 300 channels or so, so I don’t need HBO.
And yet, I still desperately want this to be my surrogate home, even though the coffee pot makes coffee colored water instead of a real cup of joe. I have a phone next to me that says, “Self Wake Up Dial 56 – Then Military Time” on the handset. Like I know what the F**K military time even is.
I have six hangers that can’t be stolen, but I can take the ironing board and iron if I’d like, which would be good because I don’t have these things at home. I also have some shampoos to use in the shower that I’m not even sure are soap. They smell kind of chemically. But chances are real good that I will still take them with me at checkout just because they came with the room and I’m entitled. Why not just take the coffeemaker as well, as something to remember my stay here? Oh wait, no need! I can get the malt waffle maker instead at Wal-Mart.
I can’t really complain. I’ve stayed in hotels where the TV was bolted down, along with the alarm clock and the remote (which doesn’t make if very remote, by the way). And just to make sure you didn’t take the lamp, it was wired directly into the wall without a plug. I’ve also stayed in places where the AC/heater sounded like a 747 ramping up to take off on a very short runway. Who hasn’t stayed in hotels where the walls are so thin that you can hear the people speaking, not loudly mind you, but in whispers. I can’t imagine what it would sound like with a good roll in the hay.
And when it comes 11 a.m., I dutifully leave my home away from home. I don’t bother emptying the trash or washing the towels or even putting them into a thoughtful pile. I just leave it a mess. Say, that does make it sound a lot like home.
It reminds me of the last lines of an old Steve Goodman song:
Uh this ol’ hotel’s all right with me
They pay the postage if you lose the key
This hotel room’s gotta lot of stuff
But I do believe I’ve had enough
I for one am looking forward to returning to my home tonight. This hotel room’s gotta lot of stuff, but it’s not my stuff, and I’ve had enough.
Somewhere in West Palm, looking for the Do Not Disturb sign,
— Robb