DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I booked my room for Etech at the Westin several weeks ago. As previously noted, the price was ridiculous ($215/night including tax), but I thought it would be important to stay at the site of the conference so I wouldn’t lose any schmooze time commuting to a cheaper hotel or that dry spot beneath the overpass.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay at the Westin for the entire conference, because the Wednesday night of that week was already sold out. I booked a room at a Best Western that charged a third less even though it included breakfast and in-room Wifi. (To my dismay it smelled strongly of disenfectant, about which the only nice thing I can say is that at least it didn’t still smell like whatever it smelled like before being hosed down with Lysol.)

On the final day of the conference, I cabbed back to the Westin with my 1000-lb duffle in tow. I dragged it painfully to the bell desk and asked to stow it for the day. “Only for hotel guests, sir,” said the bellperson with an irritatingly dismissive air. I explained that I had, until very recently, been a hotel guest, that in fact I’d checked out the day prior against my will and was returning for the final day of a conference on the second floor. Exercising iron-fisted control over his domain (by which I mean the luggage closet) the bellperson refused, citing the extreme number of check-ins and check-outs that day, although how that was relevant he didn’t deign to elucidate.

At that point the front-desk clerk, sensing conflict, came over to see if she should help with the public rejection of what I thought was a pretty reasonable customer-service request. The bellperson said something along the lines of “He says he stayed here the previous night.” I didn’t see him roll his eyes but it wouldn’t have surprised me. The clerk then returned to her terminal to do something I found both fascinating and insulting: to verify whether I’d really been a guest! As if people who attend expensive conferences and spend $200+/night on hotel rooms routinely lie about it to the staff.

But, hell, maybe they do. This is only my first conference. Who knows what fun I’ve been missing?