Can I Jump Now?

I had a few issues checking into my hotel last night.

We all left work at the end of the day and went to the hotel. The plan was to get checked in, drop off our bags and then head out to dinner. I originally was assigned to a room on the 11th floor. Cool, I like the view from up high. Unfortunately, when I opened the door to my room, I see the room was never cleaned. The bed was unmade and there were dirty towels on the bathroom floor. I don’t ask too much from my hotel room, but I really must insist on a clean room.

Downstairs I went for a half hearted apology from the front desk and a reassignment to another room. Now I’m down on the 4th floor. As long as it’s clean, I’m good with it. I open the door to my new room to find the bed made, the towels hung up; all should be good with my world. I do notice however that the room is very warm. I don’t like a warm room. Hey, at my age, I’m generating enough heat on my own; I sort of like to be in a cool room to help counteract the internal heat! I thought I turned down the heat in my room to 50 degrees and headed downstairs to meet the rest of the team.

Dinner was an event as my boss was in rare form. Being filled with testosterone as he is, he needed to be the one to drive us all to dinner. That part went ok. The way back to the hotel was another story. I’m not sure which part was worse. Him driving through a red light, almost blowing through a stop sign (until I screamed at him to stop), trying to ram a car that turned in front of him in the parking lot, or the car he tried to hit in the parking ramp for having the audacity to honk his horn at him while he stopped in the middle of everything trying to decide which way he wanted to go to park. Yeah, what a guy; what an exciting ride back to the hotel.

I get back to the relative safety of my hotel room only to discover that it is now hotter than heck in my room! Holy cow, I would have passed out if I had to stay in there long! I tried to open a window but alas, it is screwed shut. I turned off the offending heat and called the front desk. I was told that they would send maintenance right up. Mike the maintenance guy may be my new best buddy now!

He walked into the room and said “holy cow!” And I replied “no kidding!” He checked the setting on the thermostat and announced that at least the heat works! Unfortunately, it’s an old building and the heating system is funky as they (the management) can only turn on the heat or the air conditioning. You can’t have both options. And, since there is snow on the ground, they have the heat going. My room for some reason gets an extra dose of it. He made sure the heat was in the “off” position and he said he’s try to get the window open. Hey, that works for me. Before he’d take out the screws in the window however, I had to promise that I wouldn’t jump out of it! Ok, I had a bad night, but I wasn’t exactly ready to go splat on downtown Buffalo! I said ok, I’d promise not to jump!

As my new buddy Mike was unscrewing the screws on the window, I also had to promise not to throw water balloons out the window. Ok, that thought had not crossed my mind until he put it in there, but now it sounded like a good idea! Mike was on the last screw when he stopped and made me promise on the water balloons. Dang it! That could have been fun! But alas, this man is holding my life in that last window screw. I promised no jumping out and no water balloons. Finally, the window was open and semi-fresh air was flowing in. Wow. What a difference! In maybe five minutes, the room was 100% better. Mike said at least if I got too cold, I could turn the heat back on!

I left the window open about a half hour until I got chilly, then I shut it. The room stayed fine all night long without putting the heat back on. That open window was a lifesaver. And, I didn’t jump!