What's so Super about 8?

So, I’ve had one hell of a week. Mostly because I’ve been as sick as a dog – actually, that’s not true, the dog has been bouncing around healthy as an ox (why do we compare our health states to animals? Something for another day...) At any rate, I’ve been sick. Really sick. Missed two days of work in a row, which is not something that’s ever happened to me before!

But being sick isn’t what has me fuming! Nor is the unexpected drive to Fort St John to have the family cat’s dislocated hip relocated (It was there the whole time, it just looked like a chicken wing, which is why we were all so confused.); nor was the issue the $800 vet bill – though I have to say, youch! I learned a valuable lesson, nobody died – some might claim that it was money well spent. Personally, I think it was money... well... spent.

No, what has my hackles raised in all their magnificence, was the $180 bucks I spent at the Super 8 for what has to be one of the worst nights... I want to say sleep, but that implies that I might have...

Now don’t get me wrong, this is not a one off rant. I didn’t fall off the turnip truck and through the Super 8’s retracting glass doors for the first time last night. No, I stayed there earlier this month on the company dime as well and was seriously not impressed.

Now before you leap to the defense of Super 8, let me say – don’t bother. It’s not just them. I stay at a number of hotels each year, mostly for work and they all seem to be going the same predictably annoying route.

So let’s take a look at my top three biggest bitches about these cookie cutter holes in the wall:

1. Who decided that rather than a central heating and cooling system, that every room needed to be supplied heat and cooling via it’s own industrial meat freezer/dehydrator unit? Have they tried to sleep with one of these damn things howling away all night? I bet not. And do they really need to be located right next to the bed? Okay, I grant you that there isn’t a lot of real estate in a hotel room to have one of the torture devices mounted – but come on!

For those of you who haven’t stayed in a hotel recently picture air quality so stagnant that you can taste the cologne of the last three people who slept there, now imagine if you will laying down next to the sweet sounds of a running diesel engine – the only thing missing is the exhaust smell. They are extremely loud. You can’t change the direction of airflow, so they howl either up and under the curtains, completely negating their usefulness by blowing them up towards the ceiling, or they somehow manage to avoid going under the curtain and you get the joy of sleeping in a gale force wind that hearkens back to the frosty tundra or moisture sapping desert. Either way, when you wake up (which I assure you, you’ll be doing a lot of) expect to have cracked chapped lips and a throat so dry that it will take you until lunch to regain your sense of taste.

2. After a long day of driving, I get out of the truck, stretch and make some rude noises and then curse about how sore my pretty little behind is! So when I get to my room, as I’m sure everyone else does, I’m hoping for furniture that is at least somewhat comfortable enough to relax in. Well, forget it. For your $180 you won’t be seeing anything of the sort!

Hotel furniture essentially comes in let’s say four modes, the stool – usually found near the door, useful for storing your suitcase on, or as a place to stop and put your shoes on or take them off. Not useful for much else.

Next you have what they like to call the ‘sofa’. At first glance, I know what you’re thinking, ‘it’s a sofa, what’s he whining about?’ Sit on it. (No that’s not my Fonzie impersonation, though it was pretty good  ) But seriously – how did the people who bought this thing come to the completely egregious conclusion that it was in any way shape or form comfortable? First off, it needs to be at least one and a half but cheeks wide – I can’t stress that enough. And the front must be higher than the back. Sliding off the sofa and onto the floor because you somehow decided that the average North American only needed a one cheek deep seat is just asking for trouble. Plus it’s not long enough to sleep on, assuming you could sleep on your side for any length of time and somehow manage to not slide off... So to recap, the sofa sucks.

The third torture device that they pass off as furniture is called the chair. A miserable thing, the chair. I know, I know, your thinking – ‘but it’s a chair! How can he attack a chair?’

Well, let me tell you about the average hotel room ‘chair’. Born on the mean streets of Mexico, the average chair is raised in abject poverty where food is a pipe dream and care and nurturing just words that nobody can understand (because they’re chairs!). The learn early to be visciouos, chaffing bottoms and causing back strain in any who encounter them. Then one day they escape the chair ghetto and make it to the big league where they discover nobody likes them. And they get oh so bitter. So they work out a deal with the internet guy, trading hidden camera pictures of the nations bottoms for the most awkward placement of the LAN connection, so that the prisoners, er... I mean guests, have no choice but to use them, thus perpetuating the cycle of chair violence onto the next generation of victims.

Lastly there is the classification that I like to call, the reclining chair. If, and I can’t stress ‘if’ enough, you get lucky enough to have one of these in your room, keep your head down and your mouth shut! It’s as close to decent furniture as you’re going to find and you’d best not brag about it!

3. So now you’ve experienced one of the worst nights of what can only in the most loosely worded of terms be called ‘sleep’. You’re even more tired than you were when you arrived. Your throat hurts, you can’t taste your toothpaste, let alone the freshly made waffle that you just made at the continental breakfast. You’re grouchy and not the least bit looking forward to the long drive/flight home. Now you have to run the guantlet of happy smiling automatons hanging around the hallways acting like cleaning up your crap provides them with the joyful bliss that makes them spring from their beds each morning.

You slog your way to the front desk with your suitcases and lap top, put it all down and let out a long disgusted sigh... ‘So, checking out?’ comes the chipper query of the annoyingly chipper desk jockey, who is clearly only so chipper because they didn’t have to actually sleep at their damn establishment the night before. Do I say what comes to mind? ‘Not at all, I am in the habit of taking my belongs for a walk at this ungodly morning hour, because they burn so easily once the sun is completely up.’ Or perhaps do I go with something a little less subtle? ‘Wow, I can totally see why they promoted you up from midnight urinal cake replacement specialist! You got that without any help at all!’

But no, I settle for ‘Yes’ and allow myself to be subjected to the endless barrage of trivialities that front desk staff are so famous for, so that by the time she slaps the bill down in front of me, I’m thinking I’ll pay twice that if you just shut the hell up lady and let me get out of the rat hole!
And all that for a measly $180! It’s amazing there aren’t more shooting sprees in hotel reception... God I’m glad to be home...

Time for an anti-vent!

I have been a little slow updating the blog of late, my bad – but as everyone knows life has a way of steamrolling the best laid plans of mice and men! And I haven’t been blogging long enough to have it ingrained in my soul like some bloggers – so I am able to still go a day without checking in.

That being said, I thought today I would do something a little different than my stated ‘venting’, let’s call it an anti-vent! And on that note…

My wife rocks!

I say that with enthusiasm and pride and not, as I’m sure some of you might think, in the hopes of somehow getting out of the two months of unrestricted sexual favours I was informed that I owe her as of last night! (After all, why would I even want out of that?)

But back to my main theme here – the wife rocking – She does! I may be the one who brings home the income (only because we both agreed that one of us really aught to raise the children and that giving over an entire salary to a daycare made no sense to us, which is not meant as a knock on those who choose to, or have to.) but she is the glue that holds the family together!

One forgets on occasion just how much work being a full time wife and mother can be! Honestly, I sometimes wonder how she does it.

Let’s just look at the last week or so… Let’s see, she’s dealt with an ear infection in the big kid, chicken pox and conjunctivitis in the little one and my having a cold (which is probably the worst of the lot – I’m suffering damn it!). She’s planned out our meals for a month in advance and done the grocery shopping by herself (well, the baby might claim that she ‘helped’) saving us a lot of time and money in the process. I haven’t had to buy lunch in over a month and at $4-5 a shot, that is a pretty good return on her time investment!

This alone has made life happier for everyone, eliminating the 5 o’clock ‘what’s for dinner’ question! You want to know now, look at the list on the fridge!

And this past weekend it seemed that our dishwasher of 10 or 11 years had finally gone to the soup kitchen in the sky. Now after having to spend a day washing the dishes myself and then having to hear her go on about it for a second day – I came home and said let’s go buy a new one, expense is no object! ($700 is a small price to pay for a happy wife – you married guys know what I’m sayin…) So we go look and she doesn’t like what is available locally. Come home and instead of ordering one off the internet, she sits herself down on the kitchen floor and along with the help of one sick goopy eyes crying baby and an overly curious puppy, fixes the silly thing!

To say I’m impressed is an understatement! It’s clear to me that I made the right decision marrying a handy woman versus a rich one! (Not that I would complain if she suddenly got rich!)

At any rate, her horn does not get tooted enough – so today I’m tooting it for the world to see!

And honey – you really do rock!

Love you!