Oh yes. There will be flies.

Dude!  I’m so sorry, I’ve been totally swamped with work, and my refinance, and some other BIG BIG things we’re working on that I’ll have to tell you about when they’re a little more settled, but the summary of the past week and a half goes a little something like this:

Wednesday the 4^th was Jan’s big surgery (Jan is Stephan’s mother, in case you just started reading this blog.  Jan is also the name of my stepmother, but that just happens to be a coincidence.  It’s Jan Cox my mother in law we’re talking about here).  So, we were up in Palo Alto for a week or so while she was recuperating at Stanford Hospital.  If you’d like to know some more details about the surgery, I’m sure she would be happy to tell you once she’s recovered, and if you need her email address, let me know.  That is probably about all of her business I’m going to be blogging about today.  But yes, this is the same mother in law who just had total knee replacement surgery like two months ago, which does in fact make her a total bionic badass.  

Anyhoo, you know that thing where I’m a total freak and I’m scared to eat food in B-rated restaurants?  Well, I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn that this neurotic behavior also extends to hotels.  I always have to change rooms at least once, I guess because I always figure the room they offer you first is for suckers, or because I “just have to make sure everything is ok” or something like that.  Usually I will change rooms until I am on the top floor, not near an elevator, an ice machine, or the closet where they keep the vacuum cleaner.  Sorry!   I figure I’m traveling for business (or even pleasure), and I’m going to totally bug out if I don’t get enough sleep, and I’m not going to get enough sleep if I’m on the first floor, next to an ice machine and an elevator.  I’ve traveled a lot, ok?  Trust me on these things.  If this makes me high maintenance, then I am high maintenance AND I am more awake at my business meeting.  Of course, I HAVE been much more anxious lately, which makes this tendency much worse.  So, I had already called ahead and told the hotel where we would be staying the LITANY of requirements, as if I was Mariah Carey or some crazy thing.  They were like “yes, that’s fine—we’ll put you in a top floor room in the back, don’t worry.”  So I didn’t.  And we got there, and it was actually nice.

But, that’s when I laid down on the bed, looked up at the ceiling, and saw that it was covered in flies.  No joke.  There were probably 25 flies on that ceiling, but it was so late, and I was so tired, and the surgery was so early the next morning, I actually didn’t have the energy to kick up the Culwell-style fuss you know I was thinking about.   So, we killed them and went to sleep, and the next day we spent the whole entire day at the hospital, and when we came back—MORE FREAKING FLIES.  Again I was too tired to do something about it right then, but I’m sure you can imagine where this is going.  By the time Jan was situated, I was ready.    To kick up.  A ruckus.

Oh, did I forget to mention the dogs barking in the hotel room below ours?   This really only went on during the day so it wasn’t bothering me that much, but by the time I was ready to go in and crack some skulls, I swear to you, without overreaction, I could hear the dogs barking, PLUS there were at least 50 flies in the room again, and we were killing them, and they had blood in them, and….

That’s when Jim Cox (my father in law) and I came up with the theory that there must certainly be a dead body in the room below ours.  Why were the dogs barking?  Why did we never see anyone go in or out of the room below?  WHY WERE THERE A ZILLION BLOODY FLIES?  Clearly it was because there was a corpse below us the whole time.   Also, I would just like to point out that the ONE TIME I DON’T MAKE US MOVE ROOMS, there’s a dead body and a bunch of zombie flies.   I’m not bitter.

So, I took pictures of “FLYMAGGEDEN,” as we started calling it, and I called the manager, and I told her that I knew things about how to work the internets, and I’m sure that everyone I know on Facebook, and my blog, and Hotels.com, and Expedia, and Priceline, and everyone else in the free world would like to see this disgusting photo and to know that there was an alleged dead body in their hotel and that for sure our room was filled with flies that had blood in them when we killed them, and wouldn’t you know, ten minutes later there was a guy there helping us move our luggage to another room, and letting us know that the manager was going to go ahead and give us a half-price rate on the new room.  He didn’t really seem to want to hear about our “dead body being eaten by flies” theory, but I made sure to tell him while we were moving rooms.  Is that wrong?  I thought he should know!

When we got to the new room (which was lovely and totally fly free), there was a gift bag there with a big Snickers bar in it, which is the only reason I’m not going to tell you the name of the hotel.  It’s because of the big Snickers bar, the cut rate, and the hand-written note from the manager.  Pretty cool, I thought.   I even called back this week to yell some more so we could get the discount rate for the whole week, and she was even cool about that.  So, there you go. 

Let this be a lesson to you:  always listen to me when I’m being totally neurotic about hotel rooms and food, or someone could die, man!  My freaky compulsions are here to save you!

Just kidding.  It was a total coincidence, but one that really encourages me to be even more weird, don’t you think?  

OK, now I'm going back to being swamped with work, and preparing the other exciting updates I have under wraps for now. No, I am not having a baby, just to end the suspense there.   Not yet, anyway (that was for you, Shannon!).

Comments

[Shannon]

Hee hee! :)

Can I just say, you are exactly the kind of friend everyone needs at least one of? DUDE! You totally know how to kick ass! I am so in awe of your ass-kicking powers. I need one of you in my pocket at all times.

P.S. You would have absolutely died if you had been in my hotel room in Chicago. The heater made so much noise all night long that I swear I was awake the entire time. Not that it ever occurred to me to call anyone to fix things. It was the middle of the night, I was tired, and I didn't want to wake up Veronica if she was indeed asleep. I don't think she was. I would do things differently next time. My point is, if you had been there, you would have freaked out and then DONE SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

[Jim]

Today's best sentence:

"I actually didn’t have the energy to kick up the Culwell-style fuss you know I was thinking about."

Hee.

[Lori]

Shannon, please feel free to enlist me if you need some ass kicked on your behalf. People do it all the time-- I'm so mean, I'm like the Alec Baldwin character from Glengarry Glen Ross. I can usually get charges reversed, a better room, an apology, and/ or a free Snickers bar. I not afraid to make customer service people cry. I don't know if this is good or bad, but it IS useful for friends and loved ones.