There really is no correlation between hotel stays and puking dingoes, I just wanted to see how many of you will envision a puking dingo next time you check into a hotel.
I just spent the weekend at Mammoth cave in Kentucky with my sons, my son’s girlfriend, my mother, sister and her two kids. Randy backed out because he doesn’t really like climbing through caves. He decided to stay home and do yard work. He actually got more done than he planned. I will explain why at the end of this post.
As much as I enjoyed this trip, this post isn’t really about the cave tours. By the way, cave tours are exhausting. My calves are still pouting.
This post is about hotel etiquette.
What the fuck is wrong with people? Are they always this rude or is there something about hotels that make them forget about common courtesy?
First of all, I get it. When a kid sees a long hallway, of course they want to run down the hallway screaming. I kind of want to run down the hallway screaming, but I don’t because there are people behind all those doors. Sometimes, they are exhausted people who spent hours climbing through caves and they are busy trying to sleep while ignoring nagging thoughts about how out of shape they are.
Someone on twitter described kids in hotels as drunken Vikings. I can’t think of a more accurate description.
Here’s a thought, be prepared for the temptation of the long hallways and tell your kids “Don’t run down the hallway and no screaming”. If it’s after midnight, I suggest wrapping them in duct tape and a ball gag just to be on the safe side.
After spending a day hiking in woods and climbing through caves, I was positive I would sleep like the dead. I forgot my sleeping pills, but I was sure I wouldn’t need them. It was close to midnight when Joey and I finally wound down enough to turn off the TV and the lights and try to recuperate enough to head to a zoo in the morning.
There was random door slamming, but that always happens. Ohhh, another suggestion here. We all know the hotel doors are going to slam. It’s very simple to ensure they close without the violence of an angry woman who just found a thong stuffed in the back seat of her husband’s car.
It wasn’t the door slamming that kept me up. It was the person in the room above me. The floors were creaky. Like haunted house creaky. This person paced back and forth for an hour. AN HOUR. There isn’t anywhere to go in a hotel room. It’s small, you can explore it while sitting on the bed.
They explored their room extensively at least once an hour all night long. When the floor wasn’t creaking, I could actually hear them snoring. That’s some professional level snoring right there.
I understand that people cannot hover over their floors in a hotel room, but if you are going to spend your entire night pacing, perhaps asking for a ground level room would be more considerate than keeping me up all motherfucking night.
I was more than tired when we got to Kentucky Down Under yesterday. It’s a nice little park. You can pet kangaroos and milk a cow and feed colorful birds. It’s also where I saw the puking dingo. That was the first thing I saw when we got there. Also, Puking Dingoes would be a good name for a band. Or a really bad one. I’m too tired to decide.
We left yesterday afternoon and decided to stop for lunch before making the three and half hour car trip home. We took our time.
I called Randy when we left the restaurant. No answer. I called him from the road a few times and got no answer. We stopped and picked up my son’s dog and I hauled my exhausted ass into the house around 7:30 yesterday evening.
I did notice that the front yard had been cleaned up. The dead stuff from last year was finally cut away and the new green stalks were showing through. This made me happy. It was yard work I had been putting off for weeks.
I yelled for Randy and got no answer. I checked his office and he wasn’t there. Then I heard a faint voice call my name.
Is he in the basement? What’s he doing down there?
No. He was on the deck. He had locked himself out of the house at 2:30 that afternoon. No shoes, no socks and no beer. There was nothing to do but yard work. For 5 hours.
I felt bad for him, I really did….but my yard looks great.
I lived in hotels for years as I did long contracts as a resident singer in various international business hotel chains, so I hear you, some guests have no thought for anyone but themselves.
>
With me however, it was usually housekeeping and not the guests that drove me to distraction. Do Not Disturb signs seemed to mean please ring me and wake me up instead of knocking. Trying to get it through their skulls was like plaiting fog and I’m not at my most pleasant when I’ve got to bed at 5 am and been woken at 9 by someone wanting to know if I want my room cleaned, or attempting to deliver fruit!
Yeah, what the hell?? Do not disturb should be sacred!!
It’s rare that I’m in a room during the day..but if that happened, I would be really mad.
This story nearly brought me to tears. No beer for 5 hours, while doing yard work, on a weekend is a nightmare I don’t wish on my worst enemy. Tell him I am deeply sorry he had to endure that.
I really did feel bad for him. I was so worried when he wasn’t answering his phone…and we learned we need to hide a spare key outside somewhere..
Just not under a rock or a mat. That’s where everyone hides them
Randy would never make it easy…He’s safety minded. 🙂
Must be going around. We had a similar experience at dinner over the weekend. I just posted about that, and then saw THIS. Hilarious!
I think a lack of COMMON EFFING COURTESY is what’s going on. Hotels? Forget it. If it not the drunken Viking kids, it’s the drunken spring break/college volleyballteam rampaging up and down, having what sounds like a hazing IN THE HALLWAY. And slamming all the doors. And don’t forget the yelling from one end of the hall to the other, “DID YOU GET THE ROOM KEY??”
Snoring would be a blessing.
It makes you want to have hotel doors that open *out*, so you could have the option to swing the door OPEN right as the thundering running sounds approach from the other side. WHAM. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t even see you running down the hall right there. At 2 a.m. Can I get you some ice for that bruise?”
PS–love the yard work story. Tell Randy, there’s way more than 5 hours of work to do here, and I’d be happy to lock him out if it would help. 😀
Thanks for the laugh–I needed it!
Yeah..it’s frustrating. There were a shit ton of kids there for a test and I heard a lot of that noise. And I will let Randy know that his suffering at least brought a smile to someone.
I love that you speak in familiar (to me) colloquialisms like “all motherfucking night” and “what the fuck is wrong with people?”. Though I can’t answer those questions because the general lack of etiquette and LOGIC baffles me every day to no end… :/
Hahahah! Thank you. I just write it the way it comes out of my brain. 🙂
Michelle,
I don’t know where to start. I laughed out loud several times while reading this blog. Drinken Vikings is also a great band name. My husband and I have a list of them. Puking Dingoes is so an Aussie punk band.
I’m with Randy. I’d rather be trapped outside doing yard work in my bare feet than explore caves or stay in a hotel.
I hope your calves have stopped pouting.
Ciao,
Lisa
They haven’t even come CLOSE to stopping being mad at me. I’m shuffling around like a little old lady today. 🙂
We used to tell Madelyn that there are sleeping babies and she has to be really quiet walking down the hotel hall. This stuck with her. She gets angry when Danny and I talk (or whisper) while walking to our hotel room.
Awwww…that’s my sweetie pie….she takes after her Gaga.
Heh heh… Has it been over 3 yrs since we squeezed in a visit to “Inner Space” cavern, a modest tourist trap which has the benefit of being on the frontage rd of I-35?!?!? (It was discovered in 1960 when the highway crews were drilling) Yes, the regular tour was exhausting, but I promised my boy a trip back for their “Wild Cavern” tour – a 3-hr off-the-beaten-path adventure… (min age was 13 which is why I didn’t “get it over with” when Z was 12 😉
Oh man..good luck with that! I thought I was going to have to just live in one of the caves with the bats…
There actually is a band called Puking Dingos.
OK I lied but I agree it should be the name of a band.
Picturing Puking Dingos would be a lot better than the images that pop into my head when I check into a hotel room. So, thanks for replacing those images with puking dingos. I’m forever in your debt.
Puking Dingoes is a great name for a punk rock band. And Puking Gringos would be a great name for a Mexican rock band. But neither are good names to have on my mind while eating dinner, so I’ll be back later to fully discuss.
Ha! Yeah, you don’t want to think about it. That was the FIRST thing I saw after walking in the park…it was disgusting.
I had this open on my PC and Sheldon came walking down the hall and said, “Hey Dingo girl! Do you need anything?”
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Thanks for that. :-
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I once spent the night under the Romanian tumbling team who practiced ALL FUCKING NIGHT by jumping from bed to chair to hassock. When I ‘casually’ mentioned it whilst checking out the next day the desk person said, “You should have called us! That’s one of the reasons we are here!”
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Why don’t they mention that shit when you check in, or are we supposed to know that automatically?
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Shithead people. This is why I stay home. I trip Sheldon if he tries any of that dancing around crap here.
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HAHAHAHA…dingo girl! Maybe it won’t stick?
Yeah, it seems they could have mentioned it. What the hell? I have no patience for this shit anymore..not at all
I can’t tell you how much I laughed at this. I love your stories. Your wit pleases me (why am I talking like a King?) hahaha
The vision of your husband locked out is the funniest thing ever. LOL awesome that he got some yard work done. You should lock him out all the time. Imagine the garden you’d have!
We are quite happy that you are pleased. (we’re still talking all royal, right?)
I did feel bad for him…poor guy…but you’re right..it does help with the yard work. Maybe I’ll lock him in the hall bathroom next.
Don’t blame the hotel staff. It’s the rotten kids. Sometimes while they’re running down the hall they turn all the “Do Not Disturb” signs over or just take them. (Another hotel tip – don’t get a room by the elevator. We did once when there was a convention, and the bonging nearly drove us batshit.)
Did you get to see the room in Mammoth Cave with the dirty snowball ceiling?
Nah…not the staff’s fault..And sometimes kids are gonna run, I get that. But not at Midnight..
We did not see that one. We saw the star chamber and the frozen Niagra and then the cave at Kentucky Down Under, which was definitely the most treacherous of the three. I really loved the star chamber one…very cool.
At least you know for sure that the dingo hadn’t been eating babies…
Well…I don’t know for SURE…
HAHAHAHA! That’s awesome. I mean, not awesome that he locked himself out of the house. But awesome that more yard work got done. And that you have a great story to tell.
P.S., I always carry duct tape and a ball gag in my purse–definitely comes in handy.
I appreciate a woman who is prepared..
That is the most hilarious thing I’ve read all day. Thank you. That is all.
Thank you, gorgeous!!!
Could not agree with you more about people in hotels! They are THE WORST! While I am sorry that your hubby got locked out, I am happy your yard looks so fabulous! :)-Ashley
Gotta look for that silver lining..
When I was traveling, I would almost always end up in a room next to the two beer-swilling, foul-mouthed, loud-talking idiots that would insist on staying up until the wee hours of the morning. Add to this the fact that I would have to get up at the crack of dawn to run around a factory with loud, dangerous equipment.
Puking Dingoes is my Men at Work cover band.
Damn…so they followed you around?
And yes, perfect cover band name!
PMSL – about your stay in Kentucky and Randy locking himself out the house – sorry but I couldn’t help it !!!!
Have a great weekend !
Me
hahahaha…poor guy…and thank you!! You have a great weekend, too!
Right now I am just pissed at myself for never thinking of locking my husband out of the house to get more yard work done. It’s genius.
On the other hand we are walking distance from the brewery… the move might backfire.
Ohhh yeah…that might blow up on you. Haha.