Home again

It feels so good to be sitting here at my desk. My bed is going to feel even better whenever I get there. I really, really, really hate hotel rooms. No matter how nice the place is, it just always feels like the backseat floorboard of a taxi cab to me in regard to comfort and sanitation. The first thing I do after I drop my b toss my bag on the desk (floor is out of the question) is strip the comforter off the bed and wad it up with my feet in an out of view corner for housekeeping to find the next day. This is why: Hotel/Motel bed comforters are never washed. Since I've sort of gotten off topic and now on an unexpected roll, I'll tell you how I know this. My job is to condition water to prevent corrosion and scale build-up (Calcium, Magnesium) in domestic plumbing systems (potable). Since the tendencies of water can change at any time, I have to run various water tests on every property every time I am there, which is once a month. Almost half of our accounts are hotels and motels. For convenience I run my water samples in the housekeeping area. This is where everything gets washed, dried and sanitized for your protection. In the fourteen years I have been doing this I have never once seen a single comforter in housekeeping. If they actually do get washed it can only be about once a year and on a day I am not there. If you were to inspect one with a black light it's possible that you would never stay at another hotel for the rest of your life. I do it because I have no choice. There is so much more to this but I'm not in the mood to discuss all my other "OCD" phobias about lodging. It might even lead to food service issues which trouble me even more.

But since I brought that up- I was so disappointed in my favorite restaurant in San San Antonio last night. The amount of time I stood at the hostess station was torture on my lower back. I actually started to read my paper while standing there. When she showed up she led me to a small table in a corner of the room (which I prefer because I hate restaurants too). I sat there for over half an hour before I was even offered a glass of water. In fact, I never was. There was a waitress and a waiter buzzing around me taking care of other tables but I couldn't get their attention. At times they were only five feet away. I realized that I was invisible and needed to decide whether to leave or become hostile. I was starving my ass off. Suddenly, I had an idea. I flipped the menu over and called the number on the back underneath the address of the place right from my table. I don't know who it was that answered but when I told him what I just told you, what I was wearing and where I was, I had an f'n waitress before I was able to get my phone back in my pocket. I ordered my tea, plus a margarita (which I never do but I wasn't expecting to see her again for a long time) and before my drinks got to the table my carne guisada was brought to me by what appeared to be a manager or owner mere seconds later. Yeah, you know that came right off the flame just for me. As if you haven't already guessed, it sucked. I'd bet that it had been sitting under a warmer for almost an hour. They didn't even offer to comp that margarita.