Part of me wants to paraphrase. Part of me wants to elaborate as much as possible. So I’ll do something in between:
Friday
I work until 11:30. I leave and head to the airport, cashing my check on the way. Epic story once I get on my plane. The plane is set like this: X_XX, where X is a seat and _ is the aisle. However, the front of the plane looks like this:
X_**
X_**
X_3X
X_XX
X_5X
And why is this significant? Because when I get on the plane, I sit in the seat labeled 5b (indicated with a 5). My actual seat is 3b (indicated with—that’s right—a 3). Why was I confused? Because those *’s aren’t seats, but the cutout for storage of drinks and peanuts. I didn’t see the above-seat labels (as they were on the A-side of the aisle, and no labels were on my side). I sat down and—well, whatever. So long story short we all get kicked off the plane because the person sitting in 4C put his bag in the overhead storage bin and broke it. So they had us on the plane, ready to go, all set, doors closed, and we get told we need to go back inside. Lovely.
Sada is quite obviously less than pleased due to my delay—as am I, but what can you do—and so we get back on the plane. I sit back in “my” seat at 5b. And within a few minutes, someone comes up to me. “I believe you’re in the wrong seat.” The man looks disheveled and is immediately asked by those around him “where were you before?” He was late and therefore benefited from this situation. So I kindly get up out of his seat, apologize to him and go to seat 3B. “Excuse me, you’re in my seat.” I’m speaking to a mid-20s to early-30s incredibly attractive, fit woman who gets up quickly but immediately has a verbal argument with the flight attendants. She was basically an airline VIP and did not have a ticket, but knew the flight wasn’t entirely booked. Therefore she was sitting in the one empty seat which, she thought, was 3B. Well, it wasn’t. It was actually 4A. I sit down and get settled into my seat next to a man about 50 years of age—he was graying at least—and he immediately said to me “Hey man, no offense, but I’d rather be sitting next to her than you.”
I laughed. I thought that was funny. “Hey man, me too! I don’t blame you!” I laughed and went back to listening to my iPod. Within a minute he looks at me and says “No, seriously, switch seats with her.” I said “Yearright.” and went back to listening to my iPod. I look at his hand and he’s got on a wedding band. This dude cannot be serious. And then, the awesome part of this whole thing kicks in. He mutters something. I ignore him as I assume it was to himself or someone else. He then forcefully elbows—not the nudge needed to get someone’s attention, but rather multiple times that amount of force— and I reply with “What?!”
“Did you shower today?”
“YES.” And I put in my other headphone in my ear. If he had said anything else, I was going to loudly exclaim to him that he was by far the most rude individual with whom I was ever forced to tolerate for an extended period of time and request that he shut up before I have the stewardesses move him. Where did I want him to move? Into 4A, of course. Then I could just smile at him the whole flight :)
Saturday – Sunday
I’m going to explain all of this with the email I have sent to the General Manager of the Charlotte Westin Hotel. Sorry for its length…
Mr. Reed:
From the 14th to the 15th of July, my girlfriend, Sada, and I stayed at the Charlotte Westin overnight. I am from New Jersey visiting for the weekend and my girlfriend is from High Point, NC. We wanted to spend a day at Carowinds before spending a relaxing night at your hotel. That, unfortunately, did not happen in the least. Nearly every facet of our stay was, in some way, impacted by slip-ups created by or in some way caused by hotel staff, housekeeping or security.
Check-in went very smoothly. As we were unfamiliar with the hotel’s parking structure, we pulled into standard parking in the deck—after taking a ticket from the gate as we were unaware that our parking would be charged to our room bill—and walked to the desk to check in. We were given our room, 1230, and the parking situation was explained, with which neither of us had any quarrels. We then headed up to our room and began to settle in. The room was very nicely decorated and outfitted, and neither of us had any issues with its appearance, either. We planned to relax for a little while, shower and then head off to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at the Southpark Mall.
After an hour or so of the aforementioned relaxation, we got showered and realized that there was only one bathrobe. While obviously not a necessity, Sada informed me that while booking this reservation she specifically noted that there were two people to be staying in the room. We both personally found it strange that the room’s preparation left us one robe for two people to use. Aside from assuming that those two people would be showering multiple hours apart, this was incredibly inconvenient and not very well thought out on Housekeeping’s part. If, in fact, housekeeping is instructed to leave one robe, no matter how many people are staying in a given room, perhaps that decision should be reevaluated.
We then got ready and left our room to go to the Cheesecake Factory. As I am unfamiliar with the area I assumed that Sada would either have directions or knew where to go, however she informed me that she forgot to print those from online, and we asked the Concierge, Andrew (I believe was his name). He was incredibly helpful—he also checked us in and explained the parking situation to us just a few hours earlier and was incredibly helpful then as well—and gave us a small card with instructions to Phillip’s Place, and very explicitly explained that these were not directions to the Mall, and that if we got to Phillip’s Place, we had gone too far and would need to turn around. He also explained that the return directions were on the back and, as I explained earlier, was incredibly helpful. If our entire stay was as well catered to as the parts we were helped by Andrew, we would have had a very good and incredibly commendable time.
It is now around 9:00 and we headed to get our car. In a rush to eat after a long day and both of us growing hungrier by the minute, we get in our car and start to leave the structure. One of the valet attendants informed us of a problem; he was pointing to the rear of Sada’s Rav4 and saying “there’s something on your car. there’s something on your car.” Sada could turn around from the driver’s seat to see what was the matter, but I got out of the car and looked. A child’s bike lock was through the rim—not just the hub cap—of her rear left tire. Upon inquiry as to the security system in the garage, we were told that cameras were only focused on the doors of each car and the entrance and exit.
So before we address the resolution of this problem, why is the security so lax? Apparently the goal of this security system is to see who is getting into a car to either leave with it or steal it, and when they came and went. I’d think you’d have a much larger problem on your hands if someone came into the garage and slashed every single rear left tire of every car in a row, leaving you with ten to twenty incredibly upset and very immobile customers. And, theoretically, this could all be done without being seen by a camera at all. And no cars would have left the garage in the wrong hands, either. It’s not so much to child’s bike lock on our car, as the principle of what else could be happening in your “secure” garage without anyone ever knowing.
One of the other valet attendants got a hacksaw—and I wasn’t about to be picky in this situation, but I had a strange feeling that this wasn’t going to work—while Sada went inside to inquire as to why such a thing could happen. The hacksaw obviously didn’t work and while speculation could help in some instances, the resounding “I’ve never seen anything like it” from multiple employees and the police officer in the area didn’t exactly expedite our situation at all. I had a “brilliant” idea—or at least too brilliant for anyone else to come up with. “I know hacksawing a metal link is fun and all, but… hell, my Middle School even had wire cutters, and they could go through a gym lock. This metal is 1/3 as thick, you can’t tell me that someone on the premises doesn’t have a pair of wire cutters.” And as though it was something no one had thought of, they made a quick call on the walkie talkie, the wire cutters arrived, and off came the chain. I have kept it was a souvenir as I am curious as to the combination.
It is now 10:00—we lost an hour due to our car having a lock placed on one of its tires–and Sada was upgraded to valet parking for free. In my opinion, this was a very kind and necessary gesture and, for the most part, resolves the issue of what happened to our car, but not the issue of lax security or that hour of our time which cannot be returned. Off we went to the Cheesecake Factory for a dinner we now both desperately needed. En route, Sada asked me to reread her a part of the directions. I said “turn left” and then started to laugh. “Correction: turn ‘lift.’”
The card actually had a spelling error. $170 a night, and our directions had a spelling error. Now I thought left/lift was bad, but there was another spelling error. “Rosd.” Whomever typed these out was apparently not doing what I’m doing—using a program with spell-checking—because while I don’t know how to spell with 100% certainty the word “Souvenir” which I used to end the previous paragraph, you’d never know that because I checked to be sure that I sounded professional and intelligent. Additionally, I at first thought you were using a program which had spell-check since “lift” is still a word and would not be caught. Spell-checking or not, there is no excuse for the “word” Rosd. I suggest you spell-check each and every directions card thoroughly so as not to offend anyone else—yes, someone taking my money who is unable to spell actually makes me feel used—and I can start you off with this: The Phillip’s Place card is spelled correctly, front and back, with the exception of “lift” and “Rosd.” It scares me that someone can know how to spell “approximately” correctly, but doesn’t think that they should reread their own work. I have included an attached photo of this directions card and have already made it the laughing stock of my friends and coworkers.
Dinner was good and the directions home were as well. We got to our room and Sada wanted to be sure that our next morning was a little smoother than our day had been. We called Express Service. Well, okay, correction, we tried to call Express Service. The handset on the cordless phone next to our bed was dead. I hit the “Line 1″ button on the base station and the Speaker button lit up and a loud dial tone emanated from the phone. I pressed the “0″ key which, in every hotel I’ve ever been in, sends you to the front desk. No one answered. I hung up, pressed “Line 1″ again and pressed the Express Service button. No one picked up. I don’t know if I was using the phone incorrectly or if no one was answering, but either way, the handset should have been operational and someone should have answered if I was in fact calling the selected numbers correctly. We didn’t notice the second, corded phone across the room, so I gave Sada the hotel number and told her to call from her phone. We got our bathrobe as requested in an acceptable amount of time with some extra towels for our next morning’s shower as well.
And so, Sunday morning, as our stay comes to a close, one more unacceptable event occurs. Excited at the generous inclusion of Starbucks Coffee and Tea, I open the Westin WakeCup coffee maker. In it was a used Coffee Filter. While not unsanitary—well, while not necessarily unsanitary—this was still a remnant from another visitor who stayed in the room before us and is entirely not welcomed. I promptly discarded of it, cleaned the cup as best I could and made myself some tea. Regardless, this ignorance of housekeeping—whose responsibility it may or may not have been to leave us another robe or verify that the phones in the room worked correctly—is disgusting and made us each question the sanitation or lack thereof in the rest of the room. I expect the carpet to be a little dirty since vacuum cleaners only do so much. But something as simple as removing someone’s used coffee filter? Entirely unacceptable.
We checked out at 12:45—we had 2:00 checkout—and before long I realized that I left three very valuable rings in my room. We called and left a message for housekeeping—not the faintest as to why they did not pick up—and called back again after lunch and were told they had been found in the room. This was very nice, helpful and expedient service, and I now have my rings back, however I still wonder why we never got a call back from the message we left for them nearly two hours prior.
On our express checkout card we clearly wrote that we would be writing you an email. You may have expected glowing reviews, or maybe something a little less lengthy, but I feel that this hour of your life spent reading and hopefully writing a satisfactory and personal response will compensate for the hour of our lives spent standing around, tired and hungry at the back tire of a car which we left in your parking garage under the impression that it would be kept relatively safe. I’m not writing of fake travesties to get complimentary weekend in your hotel. I’m not complaining about little things for fun—believe me, I’ve got better things to be doing than retelling this story seriously (since I’ve already told it for comedic purposes to numerous friends).
You know very well that not every single person who walks through your doors or stays a night in your hotel is going to leave completely satisfied. Some of those people are asking a bit much, and some of those people just had a bad day. I don’t think that’s the case here; I think rather, we came expecting little and got even less. We expected a nice looking room, and got that. But when I park my car, I don’t expect to come back to it any differently than when I left it. When I pick up a phone, I expect it to work. When I am not answered or sent to voice mail three times out of the seven times I call a hotel, I am left to wonder. When I get out of what is touted as a “heavenly shower,” I don’t want to have a quarrel over whose “Heavenly Robe” it is, since we only have one. Oh, and when I want to feel better about a very stressful weekend, I don’t expect to have to throw out someone else’s used coffee filter first.
-Alexander Bradley & Sada Spangle
Sunday Afternoon
I am told that I have a surprise. I navigate with google maps to an unnamed place to get lunch.
We arrive at the Penguin Diner. Now this is significant because Sada and I call ourselves each other’s penguins. Nerdy or stupid, perhaps, but here’s the origin. So anyway, when Sada finds a place called the fucking Penguin, we go. The back of the menu explains how it is affectionately referred to as the bird and that’s why I said about how the penguin “gets all the chicks” which Sada didn’t find funny. If you’re ever in Charleston, NC, go to this freaking place. The cheese fries are ridiculous and I had the best Bacon Cheeseburger of my life. Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. “i can has bakn cheezburgr.” Anyway, my penguin and I ate at the penguin and it was amazing. Go if you can. I bought a shirt, too. It’s awesome!
Sunday Night
Sada and I attended a Drive In Movie theatre almost an hour away to see Harry Potter 5. It’s an amazing system. They have poles in place in the ground to keep people from parking directly in front of another car, the concession stand is in the back and tickets are $5 per person for a double feature—we left before Oceans 13 due to tiredness (see above.) It was awesome to be able to watch a movie in public in my boxers—it was hot—and also see the film. Not as good as the fourth movie, which is my favorite, but go see it. It’s a Harry Potter movie, so it can’t be bad. You’ll enjoy it.
Monday
Monday was a day of resting and relaxation before I went home. I wrote the message to Mr. Reed above, and was a little sick in the morning, but it was a fun morning of quality time and relaxing. Sada and I have an incredible amount of fun just being ourselves with each other and we never really lose the ability to just lie next to each other and smile. It’s honestly adorable and something I’ve never found before. I also got to eat at the Liberty again and have a not-quite-the-penguin’s quality bacon cheeseburger, but the real highlight of my day was just that: my day. Finishing off an amazing weekend with an amazing girl, the love of my life.
I have finally finished this post and posted for the first time in over a week. I’ll get back to regular posting tomorrow :)