And let me tell you why.

I hope as you are reading this, those of you that know me and some who don’t, please feel free to laugh as I am sharing all of this with you. I can assure you, I was not laughing at the time these events were happening, but we have to have a sense of humor in our lives, don’t we? And as I’ve told some people, they couldn’t help but laugh and that’s ok!

Last week, I was very happy, I believe I shared the one night that I cooked dinner and did laundry! Does that mean my life is so sad that laundry and cooking,which is a chore for most people is a treat for me? Ha ha. A little bit of normalcy is nice. Sometimes, things like this make me forget that I live in a hotel.

So, I was happy at the Homewood Suites, when I found out I was going to be in the same location the next week, I got right onto our travel port so I could book the next week at the same hotel, no dice. Every Hilton hotel within a 25 minute drive from the client site was sold out, seriously! And no one seems to know why! So…on a recommendation I went into Wisconsin, which this hotel was 23 minutes in the other direction from the client site. This is fine, I have no problem being a short drive away.

Now, where I was staying was near an outlet mall, great for shopping, but…there is nothing else in the area. At the outlet mall, there was a food court with minimal options, I was happy to have that one night and it wasn’t great. The rest of the area, fast food, pizza and sit down restaurants that had not a thing for me. Even the restaurant at the hotel, the best they could do was take stuff off their salads, leaving me with, um, lettuce and maybe radishes. Fun…

So, when I looked online for delivery, I found something and it had four restaurants it was associated with, either pizza, sandwiches or Olive Garden. Ok, I can do Olive Garden, it’s safe and who doesn’t like salad and bread sticks!

It said delivery, but couldn’t figure out how to do that, so I called. Nope, well, they do deliver for a minimum of $100, what? Then you need to contact this delivery service to have your restaurant removed. I think that night I ended up eating cereal. Ugh…

I had gone to the grocery store the first day for lunch and got things that I could have for breakfast and snack on at the hotel and during the day. Once night I ate cereal and fake bologna and cheese! No, not a sandwich, well,maybe a bologna and hand sandwich! Ha ha.

The reason for all of this, is there are some nights I do not feel like going out to dinner or driving to pick it up, please just make it appear in front of me! I hope laughter is happening right now!

I had checked with the front desk, ‘um, I’m not sure, we have pizza delivery’ ‘oh wait, there is a grocery store, almost like an oversized farmers market, they should have things you can eat’ great! I went, it was ginormous and surprisingly, had some amazing vegan options. Even vegan bento boxes, I was saved! I would have food for the week! Wahoo! I get this healthy basket of food, and by that, yes, healthier options, but a nicely filled basket. See that use of healthy, ooh.

I get to the register, self scan all my items and what? They don’t take credit cards? Debit and cash only?! Seriously!? There is a cash machine in the lobby, but I don’t carry an ATM card with me, it’s in my bag, in the hotel. grrrr Maybe she could have mentioned that?

I ended up at Noodle & Co, it was fine, not what I was looking for, but it was edible and I was hungry. At this point, I am on the phone with PSM just not a happy camper. “It took me frizzle, frazzle, frick, frack, to find food” and a few more choice expletives. He was very sweet, thought being empathetic would be helpful. Um…I do love that he tried.

So, that was the food saga. I’m so glad I bought food at the grocery store earlier in the week.

Now, the room…it was a nice room, a suite. It had a living room with a sofa, desk and tv, the vanity was in the middle on the right, toilet and shower on the left, then a separate bedroom.

All fine, pleasant, clean, just what I expected. What I didn’t expect was that when I turned the heat on and yes, I needed the heat, that didn’t mean when I turned it on, I expected to get an arctic blast, nope, didn’t expect that at all!

I thought it was odd, so I turned up the heat, eventually, I just turned it off. That was fun. Finally, on Wednesday evening, I called the front desk. The less than confidence inducing front desk guy came upstairs, suit too big unkempt looking and all he did was tell me to turn the heat off and let the hotel heat the room.

He told me that the maintenance guys come in at 7am and I can send them up. I informed him that I didn’t want anyone coming to my room at 7am, but I would be gone at 8am and they had free reign to it. Guess what didn’t happen…

When I got back to the hotel last night, I called the front desk, she saw the note, but said no one had been up there and sent up one of the housekeeping staff. His suggestion was to turn the heat up to 90 and leave it there, um…

Next thing I realized that every morning, the tv would turn on about 4am, what? There must have been an alarm set for it to turn on. It didn’t click until this morning, the morning I am checking out. Who does that?!

Not staying there again, we can agree on that.

Then…my flight tonight was delayed, not a problem, I wasn’t connecting anywhere, so no worries if we were late. But, that wasn’t the case for some of the other passengers. One in particular, the guy behind me. Talked the flight attendant’s ear off, as if she could make us get there sooner.

His frustration also included pushing my chair a fair amount and when I glanced back, he finally realized, stopped and apologized. Then, we land, the pilot had to tell people to stay seated, we weren’t even at the gate yet. Um, that was a good three or four times. Then, we’re at the gate and he is up and out of his seat.

This was a rather unkempt person, I was destined to meet a few this week apparently. He was up, out of his seat and practically pushing people out of the way. You could hear him, first on his phone talking to someone, that they had better have his bags wherever he was going, he had f’ing interviews and f’ing this and that.

He kept saying he had a connection and a few of our fellow passengers said they did too, but I guess his was more important than anyone else’s. It went on like this, him bouncing and complaining for a good five minutes, at least, then he almost pushed people down as he made his way to the exit. Fun, huh?

So, needless to say, this was not the most fun week I have had on the road, but I managed to get a lot of work done and a lot of good work done, so there is a plus and when you are out in the middle of nowhere, less interruptions.

Oh, my week did include holiday movies in the background and no one could say boo!

Here’s to a great weekend and next week, a new week and guess what is going to happen? I’m going spend the holiday with family and friends in Boston. Yeah me!