Cheapskates rejoice! It’s Read Free Sunday (RFS) at The Diary.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, July 9
Busy tonite…All the arrivals were in but we had several walk-ins…Front Desk Manager Brandon was on duty when I arrived and there were still rooms to rent and Brandon said the “rock-bottom” rate was $222.
All right…Brandon’s good for rates like this, and we have some zero clue how he arrives at them…Probably via some top-secret formula learned at front desk manager school…As it is, yours truly doesn’t see the point to rates that end in 2s, so we upped the rock-bottom rate to $225, and actually, had Brandon not given me a rock-bottom rate, we probably would’ve gone as low as $200, but when the boss goes thru the hassle of giving you a rock bottom figure, it’s best to stick with that.
There was strong walk-in traffic tonite…Most of the walk-ins were hippies, part of the Rainbow Gathering that was celebrating its 50th anniversary in the woods north of here…They smelled and more than one said they were looking forward to one of those hoity-toity showers they’d heard about, not to mention first-class mattresses and linens…Part of you wonders if they’ll try to stuff a hundred or so of their closest friends in the room, too, but unless they’re foaming at the mouth you don’t want to look for trouble and there were no problems with them, tho they sure dress funny and they were all in their 20s, too.
Boy, 141 was tedious from the start…On the phone, after I’d had the audacity to quote her $225, plus tax, she asked if we “price matched” and, typical of cheapskates, asked why it was so high when she was only going to be in there for a few hours…Well, because you need a place to sleep and you’ll pay it, that’s why…As we’ve noted here occasionally, hotel rooms are the classic supply and demand commodity…It’s a Saturday nite in a tourist trap during summer so you should expect to take it in the shorts…Offers to haggle are rejected out of hand because we don’t need to haggle, you need a place to sleep.
She also asked for a late checkout, which we denied, and like a snot she noted most hotels said yes to this, making it sound like this was the first late checkout denial in the history of lodging…She took her key graciously, tho, but we weren’t done with her; a few minutes later she comes by 1) to ask how she could get some of the apple juice at the sundry stand, and, 2) to inform me there was a bear outside when she tried to go to her car…What a dumb broad…The key to success in the apple juice acquisition racket is to purchase it: you take it from the cooler, bring it to the front desk, and pay money for it…A shocker, I know…And like some others, her tone implied Bear Removal was my responsibility as if they were neighborhood rapscallions who could be told to scoot and not wild animals looking for food…Bear Removal, of course, is not our responsibility; Bear Avoidance is my responsibility, and hers, too actually, after I told her there was nothing to be done about the bear, except staying out of its way.
Still later she called me to advise she found an ad on Google that stated she could extend her stay for just $169…Yours truly still has some zero clue where the hell she was looking, and we advised her if she could book Saturday nite here at that rate, then by all means do it, because there was no way The System would match that rate…She said “That’s just it, I’m not sure if I can book it or not” and she said she would stop by the front desk to show me, but she never did.
There’s more: around 0300 she gave up; she called and asked if she could extend at the member rate of $262…Fair enuff…That’s only a few bucks off what we were going to ask and, besides, it was the best way to get her out of my hair…She also asked if I could deliver some ice to her room because she was feeling nauseous and we said sure, we’d leave it by the door and knock, and on arrival at 141 there was a five-dollar bill on the floor outside.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0900 Saturday until 1900 Saturday…10.0 hours for the day and 49.5 hours for the week, a lusty total in the old days, but a rather pedestrian total in the era of regular 50-hour sleep weeks.
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The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!
