Hotels...They Aren't Home

Remember when these were all the "hotels" in your life?I travel quite a bit for my job and while it is exciting to see new places and get to know new cities, shopping streets, restaurants and bars, I am finding that I have a love-hate relationship with hotels.

I find it fascinating that Cyril Magnin lived in the penthouse of the Fairmont Hotel for years, or that Jackie Kennedy moved her children and household to the discreet Carlyle Hotel when she left the While House. They, and countless others have chosen to make hotels their homes - real people, mind you, not just Eloise. While this does sound wildly exotic and needlessly expensive, from what I know of hotels (and I've stayed in some fantastic hotels of international reputation over the years that are all frequently enjoyable,) I'm not sure I'm convinced it would be comfortable enough to be home.

It's hard enough to be away from home when you're working long hours and all you want during your "alone" time is to be comfortable and find some freedom. All you want to be able to do is walk to Walgreens, buy a bottle of water and some Advil or eyedrops... Yet even these mundane errands are beyond reach. The hotels try to do all they can to let you know you're a "special guest" but some of these gestures are beyond strange.

First of all, what is "turn-down service"? Like I can't climb into bed without someone dimming the lights for me? The weirdest part of this for me is the way the maids turn on the clock radio to the local soft-rock station. Why do they do this? Is it because statistics show that hotel guests have this Danielle Steel-romantic ideal that every hotel room should be set for seduction? I think it's because people can't stand silence, especially the silence and loneliness faced by an empty, foreign hotel room. Therefore this music is meant to be "soothing" white noise to lull you into sleep. What the heck is soothing about barely laudable bad radio? It creeps me out - the whole thing makes me feel like one of the Three Bears: someone's been doing things in my room...

I also cannot understand why things are so posed. Why put the bathrobe on the bed and artistically arrange it so that the sleeve tucks inside the lapel just so? What's the point? Why line up all the little bottles of soap and lotion, or roll and stack the washclothes five-high? I don't need five, I just need one. And while you're offering five washclothes, don't ask me wether or not I want my sheets changed every day. Hell yeah I want my sheets changed! The only time I get fresh sheets every day is when I'm in a hotel - you think this happens at home?

Why offer every television station except the ones people watch? Seriously. I don't need MSNBC, FOX News, and CNN. Just one news station is fine - why not a good movie station instead? Or the Food Network or Spike TV? At least then I'd be able to watch a re-run of CSI. But no, I get Cartoon Network and the Disney Channel to go with my news. Apparently it's only businessmen or kids who leave home for the evening. God, how many times have I been in a hotel room praying to find an old film noir on my TV? Why is this impossible?

And don't even get me started on the oddity of folding the toilet paper into a triangle point. Why is this necessary in life? To let people know that yet another hand has touched the TP? This is reassuring how, exactly? 

Don't get me wrong, I love hotels. They're exotic, luxurious, and every one is different. You can be decadent and order room service, or just hang the "do not disturb" and do absolutely nothing but sleep all day. (For some reason, I never let myself do this at home but in a hotel it seems to be permissable for some reason.)  Then, you can order a wake-up call AND have them call you back in person 15 minutes later as your personal snooze button.

At hotels, you can ask for things from perfect strangers and they do your bidding with no argument. That is really cool.

The whole stay is all about your comfort and relaxation, yet both of these things seem just out of reach during a hotel stay - one can never really relax, and it's never really all that comfortable. I'm not quite sure why, but I do know that for as excited I am to stay in a hotel, I'm more excited to come home and sleep in my own bed.