Watts Line: What’s in a (hotel) name? | Columnists | Summerville Journal Scene

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Watts Line: What’s in a (hotel) name?

Published Tuesday, June 29, 2010 1:25 PM

By Judy Watts
Summerville Journal Scene ®

You’d think that all hotels within a given chain would be created equally – or at least I the same approximate reality.

We stayed at a bunch of hotels from the same chains during our recent “find the boat” trips. (See The Watts Line, 6/23/10.)

As the project to find a boat that isn’t a project unwound, my only job was to show up with a suitcase, get in the car and wait to be driven either to a destination or an airport and have a good time. This was his project and it was fun to tag along.

My guy decided early on to choose one hotel chain and go with it, no matter what state we were traveling in. Sounded fine to me since we would be spending virtually no time at the hotel anyway.

The first few trips to Florida were fine, and the one to Connecticut, too – great deals on the lodgings, the rooms more than adequate in comfort and location. (Actually, one had a police substation in the lobby, which was cause for reflection. But we had a mission and we were focused on that.)

About four trips into the saga (or was it five?) we found ourselves in Atlantic City. We were there to see a boat that was in a rural area about an hour away from the big A.C.

We flew in late on Friday night, picked up the rental car, and soon were amid the glitz and glam of the East Coast version of Vegas. But that wasn’t our mission.

We drove around for a while, trying to get our bearings and looking for the street on which the latest incarnation of our hotel was located.

After circling around we seemed to be lost and away from the tourist side of town. That’s when we saw it. Our hotel.

We didn’t say a lot to each other. We pulled in and my guy went in and checked us in. It was after 11 p.m. and we were tired and just wanted to get some sleep.

We grabbed our suitcases (only one carryon each in our traveling-light mode) and made our way to the elevator.

It was a step back in time as we went down a hall, turned left, then another hall, and right and another hall and then another and another. The final hallway was just wide enough to drag a suitcase through. We decided it had been an outdoor walkway before being walled in to form the narrow tunnel in which we now found ourselves.

Inside were the room were the usual small refrigerator, microwave, TV and coffee maker.

On the bed was literature positioned to be noticed. I picked it up. It was a list of safety precautions in fairly large print.

• PLEASE USE THE PEEP HOLE TO IDENTIFY ANYONE WHO COMES TO YOUR DOOR.

• DO NOT OPEN YOUR DOOR FOR ANYONE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHO IT IS.

• IF SOMEONE KNOCKS ON YOUR DOOR AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHO IT IS CALL THE FRONT DESK IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR.

• DO NOT LEAVE YOUR BELONGINGS IN THE ROOM. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING LEFT IN THE ROOM.

The list went on and on.

So we were a little uneasy about a trip to the ice machine. Both of us went, took wallets and anything else we didn’t want to lose. But like I said, we were tired and within an hour we were settled in for the night.

Or so I thought.

I was about to doze off when the Hubster hopped out of bed and started tinkering with the refrigerator lodged in the cabinet across from the bed.

I didn’t ask at first as he pulled the cabinet away from the wall, and unplugged the refrigerator.

I didn’t say anything when he started pulling the refrigerator out of its cozy hotel room cabinet.

But when he started dragging it across the floor…

“Uhh, what you doing sweetie?”

“Moving the refrigerator.”

“I see that. Any chance you’d like to fill me in?” At this point I was halfway wondering if he was having some kind of unique sleepwalking episode.

He didn’t answer, but soon it occurred to me that he was moving the refrigerator toward the door.

“A little anxious about the surroundings?” I asked.

“Yep.” He pushed the refrigerator against the door and crawled back into bed.

“Now I can get some sleep.”

And he did. And I did.

And the next morning we packed up all our stuff and went to look at “the boat.”

Contact Judy Watts at 873-9424 or jwatts@journalscene.com

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