Some Hotels Aren't So Hot

 


There is nothing hot about the hottest of hotels.

From the polished brass and marble floors in the ones that shouldn’t cost as much as they do, to the ones where the desk clerk is ensconced behind bulletproof glass and the lobby air is circulated by a 30-year-old fan that looks like it hasn’t been dusted for 35.

The type of people that check in to each aren’t separated by much more than what country made their clothing and accessories. If there is any difference between ultimately shoddy couture made in Pakistan or Vietnam, the differences are non-excitant. 

Labels are the only difference between someone that has an American Express black card and someone that pays in wadded up cash and donated loose change.

Do you think security is a factor?

Let me ask you this. Which would you rather have in charge in case there is a decision to be made if there is a life and death situation?

A passive, well-dressed dandy that is trained to hit a button summoning police that could take precious minutes to arrive and plan on how to mitigate the suspect without traumatizing the clientele or a half-crazed loner that has seen it all after spending the best years of their lives being trained by the military and the school of hard-knocks armed with a sawed-off shotgun and a recently stone sharpened Bowie knife?

The service staff in both places sure aren’t much different. The maids and porters at a five-star hotel derive from the same south of the border locales that others from a no-star fleabag flophouse. They have in common that they are escaping a politically corrupt, depressed economically, fiduciary unbalanced, socially repressed, drought plagued, borderline authoritarian place for a place that is exactly the same except people here have better credit scores and can make their monthly interest payments.

The same people that won’t accept a used mattress unless they pay $650+ a night at a place that still has a bedbug problem and requires $30 a day for a resort fee even if the resort hasn’t been used for anything that deserves a fee.

It’s a place where you’re going to be unconscious for a few hours. A place where your stuff will be lodged and kept dry. 

That’s all it’s for. 

Unless your luggage gets disagreeable at the thought of spending time in a common accommodation there really is no reason to overpay for the privilege. 

When I used to take road trips with my dad, he’d always choose the lowest rate crappy roadside serial killer motels he could find. Whenever my mom came along, we’d stay at the best place in town wherever we were. That’s how I learned to know the difference. I also learned that traveling with mom made everything better.



Photo by Oswald Elsaboath on Unsplash

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