When I travel for work, which happens often, they put me up well. I appreciate it; it certainly does take the edge off of all that horrid airport time to curl up at the end of the day in the ample lap of luxury. I mean, I’m not staying in resorts or villas or anything, but when I think about my family’s road-trip travels, and how easily impressed I was by hotels (motels) as a child (well, ok, and through most of my 20s), I feel like I’ve climbed the ladder of capitalism past the Red Roof Inn, and I’m ok with it.
The thing about it is, though, that I’m a bit of a My Fair Lady type (the RAIN in SPAIN…) when it comes to all of this lifestyles of the rich and famous stuff. The soft, soothing, nuanced language of the wealthy is totally lost on me, and most of the time, I don’t know what it is that I’m supposed to be doing, nor what to expect as far as results when I do it.
For example, I’m in Los Angeles right now, which is a hellpit of smog and dissatisfaction anyway, and I’m staying in a very very fancy place. In my bathroom, next to the very fancy paper cups, is a small fancy sign, printed on heavy, fancy cream-colored paper in some kind of swirly font called “Lucinda” or something:
Please touch “O” if you require glassware in your room.
What I’m guessing here is that they’re talking about a phone, right? And by “touch,” they mean “dial,” and by “O”, they mean “0,” and by “require” they mean “want to be a real pain in the ass and demand something totally unnecessary.” Because, really, what would that conversation sound like? Do people really touch O and say things like, “Oh, pardon me, I require some glassware in room 1225 so that I can properly BRUSH MY GODDAMN TEETH?”
There’s a robe in the closet that has a fancy tag with instructions, telling me gently how to put it on. Is luxury really just for imbeciles? Who wouldn’t be able to figure out how to put on a robe? I’m going to touch O and ask about that.
There’s also complicated food stuff. There’s a minibar with some kind of sensors attached to the snickers bar that will know automatically to charge my room millions of dollars if I touch it. And the room service menu has got me totally stumped. Admittedly, I’m a sucker for yuppie food language. Anything that’s “steel cut” or “hand mulled” or “wood fired” sounds immediately worth an extra $20 to me. But the room service menus take it to a whole new level. I believe it to be some kind of genius marketing scam, targeting the lonely and alienated business traveler, who is hungry not only for a $45 dinner, but for some small semblence of human touch or connection. So suddenly, I find myself twelve stories up in the Hyatt watching Universal Studios burn down and ordering things like “coddled potatoes” and “pine nuts nestled in spinach.” Because the room-service menu writers know that I’m unlikely to do any other coddling and nestling, so dammit, I want my vegetables to have snuggly adjectives. I want my entrees to be smart and complicated and have personality. I’m starved for company more than I am for food. That’s why, tonight, I ordered an “uncultivated mushroom tart and petit vegetable.” Who cares what it tastes like? It’s uncultivated, and petit. It comes with hand-cuddled potato kisses. I’m in love with the person that my room service has come to represent.
Clearly, it is time to go home. I CAN NOT WAIT to get out of this luxury hotel and back to my hot, tiny, weird-smelling, super-noisy, peeling-paint shitbox of an apartment. Ahhhh, Brooklyn…just the thought coddles my heart like a potato. One more day!
