Monday, August 13, 2007

Stardate 61616.12 - Personal Hygene

As I got ready for bed last night I discovered I had forgotten to pack toothpaste. Luckily, I had purchased a pack of gum at the store so I used that as a substitute.

Today it hit 103, so it was a good thing I had not forgotten my deodorant, but I did have to go to the store again after work today to buy new toothpaste. I went into the Rite Aid directly beside the grocery store, thinking the price would be cheaper. It looked like something from a post-apocalyptic disaster movie. Shelves were strewn with debris, items were thrown on the floor, and entire sections were just cleaned out. As I left in disgust with no toiletries, I thought, "Do they know something I don't know?" But then I noticed the giant banner across the front of the store that somehow had eluded me upon my entrance, which read in 4-foot high letters "CLOSING". I guess that is what was going on. So I walked over to the well-stocked grocery store and got my toothpaste, where the woman in front of me in line smelled like she was in a liquor store when it suddenly exploded. But I got my toothpaste during what I thought was my last trip to the store.

I got back to my crappy hotel and realized that when the front desk said "You get room service each day" that "room service" didn't apparently involve cleaning the tub (now with back footprints from my wearing Tivas all day Sunday), or washing the dishes I used for coffee (decaf!) and cereal in the morning. So I looked around the room, and guess what else this hotel doesn't provide! Dish soap!!

So I called the front desk an hour ago to ask for some and was told "we don't have the little packets in the room anymore, but I can get you some." So I waited 30 minutes and no-one had showed up and then the phone rang. Apparently they thought I was coming down to get it. So another 30 minutes later and the front desk person shows up at my door with a bottle in one hand and says, "You got something to put this in?" So I hand her a bowl and she squirts some into it and now I have dish soap.

The staff is very friendly, but the hotel is just awful. Not move out awful, but never staying here again. It is cheap (under $50 / night) but charge me an extra $5 and give me shampoo and dish soap!

Montgomery, AL

I got the toothpaste image from Wikipedia, where it was procured from Image:Toothpaste.jpg, which was released into the public domain by user User:SCEhardt.

Source: derivative of commons:Image:Toothpaste.jpg

3 comments:

JamesF said...

Instead of going to all that rtouble and washing the dishes yourself, couldn't you just request new (clean) dishes?

I ask this as someone that doesn't travel all that often, and usually just gets the continental breakfast when I do.

Curt Sawyer said...

When you stay in a place that is a suite (contains its own kitchen) it comes equipped with plates and bowls and silverware and cooking pots/pans and all that stuff. To save money and watch my waistline, I usually buy cereal and milk and eat breakfast in my room. If I leave the bowl, spoon, coffee cup in the sink most places will either put them into the dishwasher and run it, or occasionally (if the place doesn’t have a dishwasher like this one) they will wash the items for you. You cannot request more dishes to replace the ones you have dirtied. You could, I suppose, continue to pile up dirty dishes until your last day and just leave them all for housekeeping, but to me that is a bit of a dick move (unless you left a nice tip).

Anonymous said...

hygiene