Vacation season will soon be upon us and I'm reluctant to go farther than a twohour drive in any direction. Why is that, you ask? Well, I'll tell ya, and if you didn't ask I'll tell ya anyway.
We seem to have the worst luck when we stay in hotels. It started several years ago when we checked into a hotel in southern Houston that David's company booked for a work thing. We drove about 12 hours in the pouring rain, ending up in not the nicest area of town. Exhausted, we were barely able to drag ourselves and our luggage into the lobby.
I'm sure we looked like two wet cats drug in from the rain. I know I felt like it. Anyway, we checked in and I noticed that this late at night there was no one else stirring.
We shuffled slowly to the room where David, the lucky duck, passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow. Just because he drove all day in a monsoon is no excuse. No sooner had I gotten comfortable when the room phone rang. Now, nobody would call us on that phone so I wondered who in the heck it could be. The phone was (in)conveniently located across the room so I had to get up to answer it. By now, David wouldn't hear it even if it were next to his ear.
Unbelievably, it was the desk clerk informing me that the people on the floor below were complaining about the noise. Noise, I asked. I told her I didn't hear anything and hung up. No sooner did I get all snug in bed when it rang again. This time the other clerk was on the line. Really? They had just checked us in. Did they really think two oldies like us would be making any noise? I politely (almost) pointed out their error of disturbing us and they didn't bother us again.
Another time, David and I traveled to Missouri for our great-niece's wedding. After spending hours of fun in the car with my lousy sense of direction and David's lousy ability to hear (this was prenew hearing aids) we finally arrived at our destination hotel.
Can someone please explain why, when the bride tells the hotel she needs X amount of rooms for her wedding, the Mensa members running the reservation system never, ever book the rooms together? Or at least on the same floor? Or county? I've never understood this. Maybe this is why the trouble started when we checked in.
Silly me, I requested a room at least in the same zip code as anyone else attending the wedding. We got checked in, stowed our luggage and were ready to meet a few of the others for drinks and food.
After a couple of hours we called it a night. The rest had come the night before so they were game for staying up until the wee hours. We headed to our room and settled in.
No sooner had we gotten to sleep when I was rudely awakened in the middle of the night.
(David never hears anything or pretends not to.) I swear the next hotel we stay in, I'm unplugging the phone. Again, no one would be calling us on the room phone. It rang and by the time I got up and answered it on the other side of the bed, they hung up. I lay down, it rang, I ran to answer, and they hung up. Now I'm really upset. A few minutes later some Goober was pounding on our door like he was conducting a raid. He informed me that no one was supposed to be in the room which explains the noise I thought I'd heard from someone trying to open the door. He told me how to call the front desk (the instructions were nowhere in the room) and they got an earful. The next morning there was an envelope slid under our door with a letter apologizing for bothering us and coupons for free breakfast for our entire stay.
I remember another time when David and I got a room in Oklahoma City for his early morning flight. He left and while I was waiting for my sister to pick me up to go shopping, I put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and got ready for the day. I sat on the couch reading and I heard someone open the door! The dang housekeeper came barging in. What if David and I were still in the room and got caught in a compromising position? This is why I prefer to stay home. I have no luck with hotels.