Let's BLOG Hotel Hell

I am in HOTEL HELL.

You see our oldest is on an all-star softball team.  2^nd string that is.  Meaning she’s the best striker outer our league’s got.  But I will say she is the cutest centerfielder and the best breakdancer in the dugout.

This weekend the all-star team sets off to a tournament.  IN DOVER.  Which might as well be Canada.  And worst yet, the first game on a SATURDAY, MY DAY OFF is at 9am.  We were notified to be at the field at 8am.  IN DOVER. 

I took that like the news of a colonoscopy gone bad.  Right up the asshole. I have been riding a runaway train for the last three weeks really, between school and softball and back again, averaging a whopping five hours of sleep a night.  I didn’t even buy a ticket for this flipping train but I can’t get off and by the looks of me, you’d think I was in some sort of a TRAIN WRECK.

So alarm set.  Saturday morning, SIX AM.  I’m all packed, I lug two zombie girls to the car, and my handwritten google map directions to every softball field in Dover BUT the one we’re supposed to report to by 8am.  

I know, I know, I should have set the GPS.  The husband did give it to me.  You see, I’m a bit old fashioned.  There’s something REALLY creepy about a little gadget that speaks to you like a female robot, but more like a credit collector that could not reach you by phone so she broke into your car. And she has her period. 

 I am also well aware my husband is in Boston til 11am, in a production studio of COMPUTERS.  He can google map his ass off.  So when Mommy’s on a trip, she’s got her very own LIVE GPS: Daddy.  I might add that each and every time I call him SCREAMING MY HEAD OFF that I’m in freaking Boonieville or downtown ShitStain instead of my destination, he falls more and more in love with me.

We hit 93, then 101, onward to 125 and things are going well other than the girls complaining about foot space and the leftover jelly munchkin in the back seat.    Route 155 is when it all turns sour and I’m forced to call my Human GPS and tell him since I can’t find the actual field, I am going to host my OWN flipping softball tournament.   And at this point, it’s 7:35 on a Saturday morning, MY DAY OFF, and I don’t care if have it in a cow pasture.  We’re gonna’ GET R’ DONE!

On any other given day or time, I would have enjoyed the drive.  It was very scenic.  New Hampshire hills, dairy farms, and freshly manured dung mounds. Everything I love.  But when I’m in a big ass hurry, I can’t enjoy anything but  the mindboggling,  sadistic game playing tactics of google maps.com.   

I swear there are little google NASA men up there in a satellite getting their jollies sending we earthlings on these deadend expeditions watching us flip out because you know they’ve been stuck up in space since the internet gave birth and we are their only entertainment.

I’m 10 minutes late.   Not bad for a girl that fancies her lack of punctuality.  That’s after freaking out with my Human GPS from towns I’ve never heard of like Lee and Madbury. 

One game, two games, three games later, I’m spent.  I decide to take my youngest daughter to HOTEL HELL to check in, clean up, and fumigate the room.  

You see, not only did I make the mistake of volunteering my day OFF to go to DOVER, I let the GPS Guy, Robert, choose the hotel.  Or should I say HOSTEL.  

And there’s Robert, one week before our Disney trip, with two bucks to our name, trying to save  few pennies.  He chooses a certain INN.   Right there on MAIN STREET, America. 

 I’m all alone with my eight year old remember, and since my husband has joined us at the game, I am forced to submit to the REAL GPS.  Unfortunately for me, her cramps are even worse and she has no chocolate to spare.

Feeling courageous, I enter the address of the inn into the GPS and for the next forty minutes  I participate in a reanactment of Chevy Chase’s European Vacation.   

There’s the  INN.   On Main Street, America.  As well as twelve forks in the road, fourteen thousand one way streets, and a GPS that keeps demanding a take a U-TURN as soon as readily possible.  I could SEE the sign, right there in front of me, but I just could NOT get to the parking lot. I swear the hotel clerk was laughing her ass off at me, passing the hotel  10, 12 times as I announced, “LOOK, KIDS! Big Ben! Parliament!”  

Let’s back up here. Robert picked the hotel.  He tried to LURE me in with “it’s 7 out of 10 good reviews” and its TWO STAR status, and it’s two story ‘RESORT’ with its own inground pool, hot tub, in downtown DOVER five minutes from the softball field.  That’s about when I pull out of my freaking LOOK, KIDS! BIG BEN! PARLIAMENT! nightmare  and into HOTEL HELL.

First thing I notice is that adjacent to the INN is a Studio Apartment complex that shares the same parking lot and spa.   Then I soak it all in.  The two story structure, straight out of 1975, looking like Mike Brady designed it himself.  It also looked like many a teenage girl spent their junior PROM night in said resort.

Now Robert and I don’t exactly live in the lap of luxury.  Fayville doesn’t even have upstairs plumbing at the moment and the only thing FIVE STAR about it, is Grampa Bob’s inlaw apartment and his boombox.  When we get away, it’s usually to the family camp and the occasional Hilton hotel.  This INN, on Main Street, America did not look like it was worthy of two stars, seven good reviews, and it’s own brand of toothpaste.

Nevertheless, we check in.  With two golden girl ladies wearing NECKTIES.   

Everything goes smoothly and we are given our room keys.   You know you’re dealing with “LUXURY” when they tell you not to put your room keys near your cell phone or it will deactivate them and you have to fill out a PARKING PASS for your vehicle so it does not get towed.  

I reassured “Bea Arthur” of the INN that my very angry GPS lady who has run out of Midol will not allow any vandalism to my vehicle. After all, she’s there to collect my outstanding balance from my ten year old JCPenney account.

Next I take my parking pass and plastic room keys to the room, the balcony suite, and my daughter and I settle our luggage.  Even she’s not impressed and she’s never even been to a junior prom suite.

First off, I notice the display of authentic New Hampshire artistry: FLAPPING WINGED DUCKS on an OCTOBER MORNING POND.

The room seems clean enough and it does come equipped with its own iron.  Which by the way, I don’t care WHAT vacation I am EVER on, I REFUSE,and I repeat, I REFUSE to participate in any IRONING.  Luckily, the room also housed a SAFE in case you want to lock up your juice boxes and Gatorade since the room didn’t have a mini-refrigerator.

Two double beds, a night table,  bureau, a desk and chair, and a room with a view of the parking lot. That’s so you can watch your vehicle get towed away just in case you forgot your parking pass. 

The bathroom was big enough for one if you don’t mind pissing with your knees on a wall.  It also came with this sign that I was very impressed with, you know, because I am all about ‘saving the earth and all.’

However, this sign had me thinking I should have brought along my own linens.  Or at least a portable dry cleaning device.  When Robert arrived, he pointed out that the pillowcases also had a similar sign, encouraging you to use them more than once.

I know you might be shuddering of the thought of one sharing a leftover pillowcase, but that’s only because you are wasteful and don’t give a shit about our great planet or the survival of the head lice population.

Now you can go ahead and itch.

When our oldest was finally rested, we visited the inn’s pool and spa: a  20 foot long hole in a concrete floor shaped like a jellybean and a hot tub equipped with some of Dover’s finest plus-sized models enjoying a relaxing bubble dip. I’m assuming they resided in the apartment suites and probably frequent the tub with their illegitimate children each and every Saturday.

There were six chairs, all reserved by the local  apartment residents so I stood poolside watching my girls dip in and out of the jellybean while I counted the minutes before I could scrub them in the shower.   What was lovely was the hot tub ladies summoning Bea Arthur toward them, so they could recommend some ideas for the suggestion box.  One being that they actually MAKE a suggestion box and the other that the hotel offers a complimentary dinner with steak tips and lobster.

You can’t make this shit up but you CAN make your daughters simmer in a tub of bleach before you hit the sack.  Or at least have them down a 10oz bottle of amoxycillin.

So here I am, 11pm on a Saturday, MY DAY OFF,  in HOTEL HELL.  Hard to sleep due to the air conditioning unit that is controlled by the thermostat.  Sometimes I feel like I'm sleeping on an air strip and other moments I'm in a time capsule of doom.

 I’ll be honest.  I am not here because I needed to ‘get away.’   I am here because I am flipping tired and I’d rather spend the night here in HOTEL HELL than get up at the crack of dawn on SUNDAY MORNING, my next day OFF, to go watch another  seven rounds of softball. 

My human GPS of a husband is snoring away, probably prideful of his choice in hotel chains and satisfied that he saved thirty two dollars and twelve cents.  And he's most likely going to dream about the free two star continental breakfast.

If Bea Arthur does ever make a suggestion box,  I’d only have a few comments.  First being, the LOOK, KIDS! BIG BEN! PARLIAMENT! gig is really not that funny unless you ARE, in fact, riding shotgun to Chevy Chase.   And second being, their PRE-PASTED toothbrushes are so convenient that I am stealing more than my share.  They should probably keep those in the safe.

And lastly,this comment addressed to the HOTEL HELL CHAIN themselves: 

I don’t care if your toilet paper has a fancy triangle fold.  Or your pillowcases.  Or even your bath towels.   You can triangle that place up the asshole, and it will still be three stars short of a Hilton.

half-a-mom