P.U.

Considering I am in a small town, the Hampton Inn I am staying at is always full.

I was in denial about having to spend another week here, so I never made my reservations for this week until last Thursday evening. By then, the number of available rooms was slim. The only rooms left were the smoking rooms.

First, I thought Ohio had gone no smoking. Why are there still smoking rooms? I was told the hotel is allowed to keep 10 smoking rooms available. Sucks to be me, I’m telling you. And, that’s a rotten loop hole.

The hotel will do what they call ionization on the room. It’s supposed to help with the smell. Let me tell you, it doesn’t. In my humble opinion, I think someone just goes through the room with a no name brand cheap Lysol type spray and does a little spritzing. It’s close to useless.

When I checked in last night, I walked into the room and was about knocked over backwards. The smell was horrendous. The front desk stated the ionization had taken place during the day but if I needed another one, she’d do it if I was leaving for dinner or she would put in a request for one to be done today while I was gone. I decided to forgo her suggestion and take matters in my own hand.

First things first. I went through my ritual of wiping down the room with my disinfectant wipes. I unpacked my bag, washed my hands and I was ready for dinner. I headed to the other side of town (a whole five miles away!) and had a pleasant dinner at Applebee’s. From there, it was across the street to the Super Walmart.

I bought some Oust spray (supposed to take out odors) and I was looking for some candles.

I was hoping for some pleasant smelling candles, but it seems that Walmart forgot to order those. The good news here is that they at least had a plethora of cheap candles. Instead of grabbing a couple of single candles, they had a gift set of five candles. There were three small ones, maybe two inches high in a glass holder and then two of the bigger ones in glass canisters with the glass tops.

I made my way back to the hotel. I had left the bathroom fan on hoping that might clear some of the smell. It didn’t smell like it did. I went to the window and figured it wasn’t very secure. Somehow, the little thingie on the top of the window that was supposed to prevent the window from opening just happened to pop off. Go figure! With that gone, I was able to open the window wide and at least let some semi fresh air into the room. I wish I’d have thought of that before I went to dinner!

So, keeping the window open for an hour or so did help. After that, I went through the room spraying my Oust all over. I gave the curtains a good dose as well as the bed and parts of the carpet. Yes, I was a crazy woman. Once the window was shut, I lit the candles. (Thanks, Ron! I’m glad you left your lighter in my car!) Ok, I only lit the three little ones; for now. I had one on each bed side table and one on the table next to the dresser with the television.

With all of that, the room was a little more livable. Before I went to bed, I blew the candles out and gave the room another good spraying of the Oust. I know, I’m probably killing myself with the fluorocarbons or something but geez, it was hard to breathe in there. This morning, I gave another good spray with the Oust and here’s hoping the room will be more pleasant when I get there tonight. Maybe I won’t need the passion fruit scented candles tonight!

Um, if someone gets a slightly used gift box of five passion fruit scented candles for Christmas, at least you’ll know they were pre-used for a good cause!