how to: work the system with bodily fluids
23 August 2007
While in LA, I took a weekend trip to San Diego. I found my life in LA to be too hectic, what with all the sunshine and tan/fake breasted women, so my second weekend on the west coast I escaped to lovely San Diego to try to recharge my batteries and work on my stuff. Also, by that point I was out of my LA hotel and staying with my buddy Dan and longed to get myself into a hotel robe as quickly as possible.
(If I learned anything during my time in LA, it’s that I’m a much better person when wearing a robe, especially sexually-speaking. How can you not think you’re an incredible lover while making love in a robe? And by "making love" I mean "masturbating in the empty fitness room at 5am.")
It was a very unplanned thing; I didn’t decide I wanted to do it until the day before I left, and had no idea where I’d stay. I didn’t think finding a place to stay would be a problem, thanks to Priceline. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with it, but the name your own price function of Priceline is pretty solid when it comes to hotels. Back when I was writing my book, I had such trouble concentrating in my apartment that on a Friday afternoon at about 3pm, I’d go to Priceline and name my own price of $110 a night for a three or four star hotel in NYC. Since it was already 3pm, my price would be accepted and I was often given the option to get two nights for that price. So I’d hole myself up in an anonymous four star hotel somewhere in midtown Manhattan, buy about six bottles of wine, put on a robe, shut off my phone, and write until I physically couldn’t type anymore, too drunk from the wine. I’m not gonna lie – it was totally fucking awesome.
Naturally, I figured that I’d do the same for my weekend jaunt to San Diego. I wanted something luxurious, since in my book luxury = productivity. Also, this was a vacation in a vacation in a city that I had never been before, so I wanted something nice and centrally located.
So on Friday afternoon, as I had done numerous times while in NYC, I named my own price of $120 a night and searched for four star hotels in San Diego. This price was roundly and immediately rejected. Usually, if your price is rejected, a little note appears asking you to bump up your price a little bit or change your criteria to include areas outside the main part of the city, to increase the chances of your price being accepted. However, my price was so thoroughly rejected that a prompt came up basically saying, "Dude, you’ve gotta be kidding. Take that price and shove it up your cheap ass, fatty."
I won’t get into the downward spiral that this reject spun me into, but I was so insulted that my price was so extremely rejected that Priceline wound up winning and I wound up paying an egregious amount to stay at a nice hotel right on the water in San Diego. Weekend of luxury, here I come. Whatever.
Because of late meetings and traffic, I didn’t get check into the hotel until 10pm on Friday night. Though I was paying an arm and a leg, the hotel was indeed nice, with my room looking out onto the Pacific Ocean and the harbor (or marina or whatever) below, the boats bobbing to the rhythm of the ocean in their docks. I put on my robe, ordered a gigantic room service meal, and popped open one of the bottles of wine I had bought before leaving LA. I was asleep, passed out with contentness with a belly full of wine and room service, by midnight.
The next morning I awoke fairly early, determined to make the most of the weekend. I had decided, however, that for the rest of my stay I was going to live as cheaply as possible. Having splurged not only on the hotel but also the room service meal, I planned on drinking my cheap wine, cheap beer and eating nothing but doritos all day Saturday to help ease the financial burden of the weekend. All this thinking about how much money I was spending got me nervous and I did what I always do when I’m nervous: poop.
One thing I often do while pooping at hotels is remove the roll of toilet paper from its dispenser thingee. I don’t like reaching back and forth to rip different sheets of when wiping, and so I prefer to have it sitting in my lap when I’m wrapping up the process. This hotel, like most hotels, had a double toilet paper holder, so I grabbed the nearest one when I sensed that the fun was about to end.
As I let out the last vestiges of the previous night’s steak, I turned the toilet paper roll around in my hands. Only seconds after my last big push did I make my horrifying discovery. There was a "substance" on the side of the roll of toilet paper I was holding, splattered in various spots on the roll around the tube. It wasn’t poop, though. It was blood.
This…this was disappointing on a number of levels. I am, for better or worse, more comfortable with feces than almost anyone I know. I don’t exactly celebrate it, but I know it, and I know it well. I can even handle blood, growing up as I did watching my friends beat each other to pieces and now enjoying myriad murder shows. But a stranger’s blood – and not a small amount of a stranger’s blood – completely grossed me the F out. There I was, sitting on a toilet, wearing a robe, having just pooped, holding a bloodied roll of toilet paper in my hand. This was not the luxury I had hoped for when I planned my weekend.
Fortunately, the other roll of TP did not have any blood on it, so I was able to successfully use that. I washed my hands thoroughly after the poo, even though I had never directed touched the blood. Once finished, I had to decide what I was going to do.
I am typically not one to ruffle feathers. The surest way to never go on another date with me again is to send something back to the kitchen or be a dick to the waiter or otherwise make a big fuss out of something that does not meet your standards. However, I am not a pussy. And after thinking it over, I decided that I had to tell the hotel about this – blood on a toilet paper roll at a four star hotel warranted a complaint, I thought.
So I called down to the front desk and said I wasn’t sure who to speak to, but that I found something gross in my room. I could tell that the woman I spoke to was more than mildly terrified of what I had found and so she didn’t ask any follow up questions. She said she’d send someone up shortly.
A solid ten minutes later, there was a knock at my door. A dude who looked about 23 years old introduced himself to me as the head of housekeeping at the hotel. He looked like your typical SoCal surfer dude, except that I was sure he was the most effeminate of his surfer friends. I looked down, expecting him to extend his hand for a handshake, but he did not do so because he was wearing rubber gloves.
He tried to be jovial about the situation, saying he had heard that I had found something unpleasant in the room. He, like the woman who took my call, was terrified and tentative with his words and movements. I smiled, said "Well…" and walked into the bathroom, returning to produce the bloody toilet paper roll.
He looked it for too long without speaking I thought, and so I said, "There’s blood on this toilet paper." At that point, he let out a little shriek and gingerly took the toilet paper in his hands and put it into a bag he’d left just outside the room. When he returned to the room, he took a deep breath to compose himself, then apologized profusely, saying that that was one of the grossest things he’d ever seen. I said that it was no problem, that I just wanted to let someone know. He then said, "I noticed that you’re paying for the room yourself this weekend [it's a big convention hotel] and that you had ordered room service last night. We’ll take care of that room service for you, as well as one night of your stay, and really, if there’s anything else we can do, just let me know."
This was more like the luxury I had hoped for when I planned my weekend. A free meal and free night at a hotel, saving me a substantial amount of money, all because of some blood on a roll of toilet paper. Jackpot.
(Needless to say, I know what I’m doing during my next hotel stay. I wonder what a blood soaked robe could get me? I need to start drinking fluids now.)
(If I learned anything during my time in LA, it’s that I’m a much better person when wearing a robe, especially sexually-speaking. How can you not think you’re an incredible lover while making love in a robe? And by "making love" I mean "masturbating in the empty fitness room at 5am.")
It was a very unplanned thing; I didn’t decide I wanted to do it until the day before I left, and had no idea where I’d stay. I didn’t think finding a place to stay would be a problem, thanks to Priceline. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with it, but the name your own price function of Priceline is pretty solid when it comes to hotels. Back when I was writing my book, I had such trouble concentrating in my apartment that on a Friday afternoon at about 3pm, I’d go to Priceline and name my own price of $110 a night for a three or four star hotel in NYC. Since it was already 3pm, my price would be accepted and I was often given the option to get two nights for that price. So I’d hole myself up in an anonymous four star hotel somewhere in midtown Manhattan, buy about six bottles of wine, put on a robe, shut off my phone, and write until I physically couldn’t type anymore, too drunk from the wine. I’m not gonna lie – it was totally fucking awesome.
Naturally, I figured that I’d do the same for my weekend jaunt to San Diego. I wanted something luxurious, since in my book luxury = productivity. Also, this was a vacation in a vacation in a city that I had never been before, so I wanted something nice and centrally located.
So on Friday afternoon, as I had done numerous times while in NYC, I named my own price of $120 a night and searched for four star hotels in San Diego. This price was roundly and immediately rejected. Usually, if your price is rejected, a little note appears asking you to bump up your price a little bit or change your criteria to include areas outside the main part of the city, to increase the chances of your price being accepted. However, my price was so thoroughly rejected that a prompt came up basically saying, "Dude, you’ve gotta be kidding. Take that price and shove it up your cheap ass, fatty."
I won’t get into the downward spiral that this reject spun me into, but I was so insulted that my price was so extremely rejected that Priceline wound up winning and I wound up paying an egregious amount to stay at a nice hotel right on the water in San Diego. Weekend of luxury, here I come. Whatever.
Because of late meetings and traffic, I didn’t get check into the hotel until 10pm on Friday night. Though I was paying an arm and a leg, the hotel was indeed nice, with my room looking out onto the Pacific Ocean and the harbor (or marina or whatever) below, the boats bobbing to the rhythm of the ocean in their docks. I put on my robe, ordered a gigantic room service meal, and popped open one of the bottles of wine I had bought before leaving LA. I was asleep, passed out with contentness with a belly full of wine and room service, by midnight.
The next morning I awoke fairly early, determined to make the most of the weekend. I had decided, however, that for the rest of my stay I was going to live as cheaply as possible. Having splurged not only on the hotel but also the room service meal, I planned on drinking my cheap wine, cheap beer and eating nothing but doritos all day Saturday to help ease the financial burden of the weekend. All this thinking about how much money I was spending got me nervous and I did what I always do when I’m nervous: poop.
One thing I often do while pooping at hotels is remove the roll of toilet paper from its dispenser thingee. I don’t like reaching back and forth to rip different sheets of when wiping, and so I prefer to have it sitting in my lap when I’m wrapping up the process. This hotel, like most hotels, had a double toilet paper holder, so I grabbed the nearest one when I sensed that the fun was about to end.
As I let out the last vestiges of the previous night’s steak, I turned the toilet paper roll around in my hands. Only seconds after my last big push did I make my horrifying discovery. There was a "substance" on the side of the roll of toilet paper I was holding, splattered in various spots on the roll around the tube. It wasn’t poop, though. It was blood.
This…this was disappointing on a number of levels. I am, for better or worse, more comfortable with feces than almost anyone I know. I don’t exactly celebrate it, but I know it, and I know it well. I can even handle blood, growing up as I did watching my friends beat each other to pieces and now enjoying myriad murder shows. But a stranger’s blood – and not a small amount of a stranger’s blood – completely grossed me the F out. There I was, sitting on a toilet, wearing a robe, having just pooped, holding a bloodied roll of toilet paper in my hand. This was not the luxury I had hoped for when I planned my weekend.
Fortunately, the other roll of TP did not have any blood on it, so I was able to successfully use that. I washed my hands thoroughly after the poo, even though I had never directed touched the blood. Once finished, I had to decide what I was going to do.
I am typically not one to ruffle feathers. The surest way to never go on another date with me again is to send something back to the kitchen or be a dick to the waiter or otherwise make a big fuss out of something that does not meet your standards. However, I am not a pussy. And after thinking it over, I decided that I had to tell the hotel about this – blood on a toilet paper roll at a four star hotel warranted a complaint, I thought.
So I called down to the front desk and said I wasn’t sure who to speak to, but that I found something gross in my room. I could tell that the woman I spoke to was more than mildly terrified of what I had found and so she didn’t ask any follow up questions. She said she’d send someone up shortly.
A solid ten minutes later, there was a knock at my door. A dude who looked about 23 years old introduced himself to me as the head of housekeeping at the hotel. He looked like your typical SoCal surfer dude, except that I was sure he was the most effeminate of his surfer friends. I looked down, expecting him to extend his hand for a handshake, but he did not do so because he was wearing rubber gloves.
He tried to be jovial about the situation, saying he had heard that I had found something unpleasant in the room. He, like the woman who took my call, was terrified and tentative with his words and movements. I smiled, said "Well…" and walked into the bathroom, returning to produce the bloody toilet paper roll.
He looked it for too long without speaking I thought, and so I said, "There’s blood on this toilet paper." At that point, he let out a little shriek and gingerly took the toilet paper in his hands and put it into a bag he’d left just outside the room. When he returned to the room, he took a deep breath to compose himself, then apologized profusely, saying that that was one of the grossest things he’d ever seen. I said that it was no problem, that I just wanted to let someone know. He then said, "I noticed that you’re paying for the room yourself this weekend [it's a big convention hotel] and that you had ordered room service last night. We’ll take care of that room service for you, as well as one night of your stay, and really, if there’s anything else we can do, just let me know."
This was more like the luxury I had hoped for when I planned my weekend. A free meal and free night at a hotel, saving me a substantial amount of money, all because of some blood on a roll of toilet paper. Jackpot.
(Needless to say, I know what I’m doing during my next hotel stay. I wonder what a blood soaked robe could get me? I need to start drinking fluids now.)
