Let me preface this post by pointing out that I have stayed in many a hotel and this is by far the most horrible experience I’ve encountered.  Men, take note – think twice before you put your daughters, mothers, sisters, or wives in a similar dump just because you are a cheap ass mother fucker.  If they should never speak to you again, I can’t say I blame them.  Single female travelers, also take note – just don’t do it.

I fell into the latter category.  I made the unfortunate mistake of trying to save a few dollars by booking accommodations at a lower end chain because I would only be away for no more than four days and I figured I could handle a short stay in a dump of a hotel.  Also, it was ideally located in a upscale neighborhood where I could reach various destinations by foot or metro—how bad could it be?

The day of my arrival, after a stellar dinner at Tallulah, a local wine bar, the Old Man and I didn’t make it to the hotel until nine p.m. because I had missed my original flight.  Security at Phoenix Sky Harbor was outrageously dragging on and needless to say, half the people behind me had to make other arrangements, too.  Thankfully, I was able to board the next available flight which put me in Washington around seven p.m.   Famished and beat and anxious for a few glasses of Cabernet, we went straight to dinner.

As soon as we entered the hotel the Old Man handed over his credit card for incidentals.  The clerk seemed to have no problem with it.  We went straight upstairs and…relaxed for a bit.

The next day I awoke around noon to prepare to meet the Old Man for a late lunch.  Parched and eager to hydrate from the three glasses of wine I consumed the previous night, I walked out in the hallway and asked housekeeping for a bottle of Fiji.  Here is what I wrote on the review site Yelp:

First of all, the maids are unable to communicate in English or it seems, their native tongue – Spanish.  I asked for bottled water, each housekeeper would shrug and point to a cart down the hallway. I talked to at least three different housekeepers who all had that dumbfounded look on their face.  I finally went back to my room and brought out two empty containers to show them.  They were still clueless.  I called the front desk and the clerk said to ask the housekeeper.  You understand where I’m going with this, right?

The clerk said he’d send someone up.  An hour and a half and no water later, I went back out to the hallway to exchange towels.  No one had towels.  Not one cart!  One of the housekeepers went downstairs to grab someone. I gave her my room number, attempting to communicate in Spanish but since I know the basics of a few languages I ended up speaking French and German.  DUH on me!  So I just held up my fingers to indicate the room number.

Well, she didn’t show up, either.

No water, no towels.

I went downstairs and the clerk referred me to the general manager.  I wasn’t trying to get anyone in trouble, I just wanted to know the appropriate contact!  You know, like who to ask for water?  Oh, and where are my towels?  I could have just as easily dried off with a hand towel but after the water incident….

Big mistake.  Continuing on -

So this manager named F***k M****y emerges from the back room—his demeanor was of a person who’d just snorted a few bumps of blow—this tweaked out snow white version of Vin Diesel (minus the trademark muscles, just the shaved head, total wannabe) and immediately he jumps on me as if I am in the wrong.  I explained the situation [calmly] and told him the housekeepers were unable to communicate and just “looked at me funny.”  His response?

“Maybe you had a piece of string hanging from your face.”

Now it was my turn to look dumbfounded.

“You said they were laughing at you.  Maybe you had a piece of string hanging from your face.”

I pointed out that I never said they laughed at me, only that they were perplexed.  He then asked for clarification on the definition of perplexed.  To quote:

“What does perplexed mean?”

The crazy fucking mick then asks for identification!  WTF! And then he asks why I was staying at the hotel.  Then he asked what I did for a living, and why my credit card had another address!  I told him it was my boyfriend’s credit card and smartly replied, “Some of us have it good like that.”  Ignoring me,  he kept on and on with the twenty questions.  Finally, he leaves to go upstairs to grab some water and before he jumps on the elevator he asks if he can enter my room to drop it off.  I got the feeling he wanted to check up on me, the question is, why?  I had nothing to hide so I said I didn’t care, go ahead.  By this time I was infuriated and annoyed and insulted.  It  was extremely unprofessional, to say the least.  But – it gets weirder.

As if it couldn’t get any more surreal.

I sit down in front of the only computer in their so called “business center” – right there in the lobby – and log on to several of my email accounts, including Facebook.  I’m a fast typist and fresh correspondence from all accounts was virtually non-existent.  Fifteen minutes may have passed until he reemerges and he lays into me again.  After another tense exchange of words I joke that I don’t blame him for grilling me like a cop as I know I’m a “source of intrigue” and he probably can’t help himself.

Bad, bad choice of words.

I basically told him he needed to learn how to chill, that he was acting like a typical uptight local.  He asked if I thought Washingtonians were “balls to the walls.” I said, “No.  A New Yorker is balls to the walls.  You’re just a typical uptight person [with a chip on your shoulder].”

He was then quick to claim he made conversation with all of his guests, implying he wasn’t singling me out.  Shifting into a neutral gear, he asked what I thought of the his looks. Yes, indeed—because this is what he typically asks his guests.

Interacting with him obviously went on too long so I remarked in a dismissive tone, “I guess you’re not bad.”  And turned my attention back to the computer.

Later that evening I receive a phone call from the Old Man.  He is distressed.  I wrote:

F***K M****y the idiot manager called the police who in turn called my boyfriend who in turn called me and said the manager thought I was turning tricks in the hotel!  He claimed there were men coming and going from my room.

The manager flat out lied, period, as the only man who’d been up in my room was the Old Man and, of course, I wasn’t “turning tricks” in the hotel. Outraged, I rush downstairs and screamed at the two clerks and punish them verbally because of the stupidity of their manager.  Demanding to talk to the fool, one of the clerks excuses himself to the back room and peeps out and warns that special visitors are coming.  Apparently, he called the manager, and the manager called Arlington’s finest.