The Wedding: Part I--The "Hotel"

So the big wedding was last weekend. I'd apologize for not updating about it sooner, but I couldn't be bothered. All in all, it was an outstanding weekend. I had a great time getting to see Kathy and JoAnna again, and I loooooved getting to see Carissa and meet new baby Marin.

Y and I left on Thursday evening to begin the 10 hour drive. We originally planned to stay overnight on the way and finish the drive the next day, but we decided about 3 hours in that we were still young and vibrant and could make the whole drive at once and arrive in Des Moines after 3 a.m. Idiots. I called the "hotel" (you'll understand why the quotes are necessary soon enough) and asked if we could check in a night early (we had already prepaid two nights) and they said yes.

At 3:30 a.m. we rolled up to the Ramada Inn in Clive and checked in. Not so much to our surprise (as the room was only $70/night), it was clear the furnishings had not been updated since the Carter administration. We did not care, though. We were dying from lack of sleep. As my husband lay his head upon his pillow to begin his blissful rest, we discovered it was going to be an interesting stay at this place. His pillow felt, quite literally, like a sack of rags. Upon inserting his hand into the pillowcase and braving the yellow, stained pillow, he discovered it was actually one very thin, lumpy pillow the hotel staff had creatively folded in half and put back in the pillowcase to avoid having to buy a new one. Classy.

We went to sleep, and later in the morning we arose to meet Carissa for lunch. As we were getting ready at around 10:30, we heard someone put a key card into the door and then attempt to burst right in. The only thing keeping him out was the deadbolt I had locked the night before. I gave my husband a "What the F?!" and then followed the man down the corridor. He wasn't wearing any uniform, nametag, or other identification, but he told me he worked for the hotel and that we were supposed to be out of the room. I told him we were paid up until Sunday, actually, and that checkout wasn't until noon anyway, thus meaning he had zero reason to attempt to barge into our room without knocking first at 10:30 in the morning regardless of the circumstances. His response? He walked away. Again, classy.

A couple of minutes later the phone rang. It was the girl at the front desk asking if we were going to check out or if she should charge us for another night. Godddddd. We decided to go down to the front desk and straighten everything out in person, as the girl on the phone seemed to be clueless when I told her we had prepaid through Sunday. My husband grabbed his creepy pillow to exchange it and we left the room. I realized that I had forgotten something I needed, though, and pushed down on the door handle (forgetting momentarily to put the key in the door first). Much to my shock and horror, the door opened right up without the key. After fiddling with it for a minute to confirm that the door did, in fact, NOT lock at all and that the key cards were useless for the door, I decided it was time to put on my business voice.

I made Y stay in the room to guard everything we owned as I went to the front desk to straighted out the bill situation and bust some ass about our busted-ass door lock. I first dealt with the issue of the bill. I'll spare you the details of that one, but do trust me when I say it was a delightful adventure in what I can only imagine was an adventure in illiteracy. Next I turned to the room situation.

Me: "I am HORRIFIED that you guys put us in a room that doesn't lock, and that we slept there last night with literally ANYONE being able to walk in willy nilly. So you're going to put us into a new room now."

Her: "Oh, ok. Are you ok with moving up to the 3rd floor?"

Wow, seriously? Am I the only one who believes she was far too cavalier about this situation, as if, perhaps, this is a rather common complaint at the Ramada Inn of Clive? And how much should we bet they didn't fix it and there is some sucker sleeping in that death trap room right now?

So we moved rooms, but before we left our first room we did notice that our Ramada Inn mattress said Fairfield Inn. My husband and I are still debating whether they bought the Fairfield Inn's old mattresses (charming) OR straight-up stole them from them. Either option is viable, but I lean toward the latter.

So we moved to our new room, which was a palace by comparison. In this room our door actually locked (gasp!) and we didn't have to access it from the outside (yay, interior hallways!), but we did get to have an Easter egg hunt for carpet staples (total tally- 7) and had a precarious toilet whose seat was bolted down on only one side, so imagine the fun and games of that one!

When we were leaving we also delighted in their oh-so-sophisticated "excuse our mess" signs as they "renovated" the hovel...er....excuse me, hotel. I bet they really did regret the "inconvienence" and appreciated our kind "coopertion." Perrrrfect. Just so you know, that hotel has been "under construction" for over a year, so those signs have been up for as long. Let it bloom, friends. Let it bloom.

Coming up next: Part II--Adventures with Pastor Chet

Quote of the day: My husband, as we were driving to Iowa and becoming delirious, began entertaining me with poop jokes. "I dropped so many kids off at the pool it felt like an orphanage!"