Hotel, Sweet Hotel

Our lives have included a fair amount of travel, visiting children who have strayed far from home, business trips for my husband with me joining him on weekends, and on occasion, just for fun. This travel usually involves staying in hotels, an experience that runs the gamut from being treated like royalty to feeling like we've been mistaken for grubby, overgrown urchins who have wandered in off the street to sully their fine establishment. Interestingly, this never happens in the nicer hotels. There the staff is too classy to let you know what they think of you. And they know how to encourage good tips. The one time that our experience was frightening involved a very, and I mean very, tall hotel in a city overseas. The first night, as we were trying to get comfortable on a mattress that rated "slab of concrete" on the firmness scale, we heard creaking. Not the mattress--the walls. It changed volume and pitch and sometimes paused, but never stopped. It was downright creepy. Eventually we fell asleep from pure exhaustion, praying that the place would be upright when we woke up. In the morning, the manager explained with a big smile that it was just the building shifting in the strong wind. Nothing to worry about. Right ... if you say so. Happily, that was the only wind storm during our stay. Back in the good old USA, in an otherwise above-average hotel, we had a foam mattress that sunk a bit in the middle. By which I mean it was like sleeping in a soup bowl. Remember the "I Love Lucy" episode where Lucy, Ricky, Ethel and Fred were driving to California and the only place to stop one night was an old, run-down motel? The bed looked fine with the sheets pulled taut, but when Lucy and Ricky lay down, the mattress sagged to the floor and they tumbled into each other. Okay, our mattress didn't hit the floor, but turning over required multiple awkward moves. And getting out of the bed completely was a gymnastic feat. This hotel was far from ramshackle, but they needed to up their mattress inspections. Just last weekend, we had a long-overdue getaway. When I opened the door to our room I stopped so suddenly that my husband nearly knocked me over. It was without question the ugliest hotel room I'd ever seen. It was black and silver. The wiring was in conduits on the outside of the walls, ending in round metal no-frills switches. The lamps were oddly shaped things that didn't give off much light. Industrial chic? It had no redeeming social value that we could see, except that the mattress was comfortable. I guess you can't have everything. It's experiences like these that make Home Sweeter than ever.