Saturday, August 13, 2005

Careful. The Mini Bar is Watching.

Somehow, My Ho managed to further cement his status as the Best Boyfriend EVER by booking our Seattle stay in a hotel that can only be described as glorious.

This is where I would like to live for the rest of my life:


And if you can’t find me there, please have my mail forwarded here:


Oh, yeah. That’s marble. I never imagined I was capable of feeling so much love for a bathroom.

In addition to the gorgeous bathroom (which was bigger than my kitchen at home, BTW), our room also had a view of Lake Union, a feather bed that was like sleeping on a cloud, and a silk throw pillow. The mother of all Nordstrom’s was half a block away, and we were within walking distance of Pike Place market and all manner of public transportation to every corner of the city.

The single weird bit about our hotel was the mini bar. The fact that drinking a can of Coke from it would cost $3.75 was scary enough, but even more frightening was the sign hanging on the front of the mini bar, notifying us that there would be a $15 charge if items were removed from the refrigerator for storage of personal items. That’s right. $15 if you take out one of their bottles of Fiji water so that you can try and chill the 79¢ bottle of water you bought at Walgreen’s.

Of course, we discovered this sign AFTER the Walgreen’s water had already been placed in the refrigerator. And when I, in a vain attempt to save ourselves the $15 fee, tried to quick remove our water and replace the Fiji water before anyone noticed, the mini-bar had mysteriously locked itself.

My Ho called down to the front desk and got everything straightened out, and the desk clerk actually sent a mini refrigerator up to our room for us to use during our stay, which was awfully handy. By some black magic, the clerk unlocked the mini bar from the front desk—20 floors below us—but we never touched the thing again. I felt like tiptoeing every time I walked past it.

How did it know? Lasers? Hidden cameras? What?? Can it hear what I’m thinking? Can it see me NAKED??

Anyway, the best part was that our hotel turned out to be the very one in which my beloved Minnesota Twins were also staying. ALL of them. We saw several in the lobby and rode the elevator with Juan Rincon (see numbers 6 and 7 below). My Ho insists that I did not embarrass myself, which, if true, I must credit to the fact that I went all deer-in-the-headlights every time I saw one of their adorable, hunky faces. On Wednesday afternoon, I mustered every ounce of courage and managed to utter to Kyle Lohse in the lobby, “Good luck tonight.” He thanked me very politely on his way out. Then I remembered that he wasn’t even going to be playing that night, further cementing my status as a complete and total DORK.

The best bit of all, though, was another little something I learned in Seattle…

If you’re having a late dinner in the hotel restaurant/bar, and if Mr. Ron Gardenhire happens to come into the very same hotel restaurant/bar after a second straight loss to the freakin’ Mariners, and if he happens to be seated nearby with an entourage of friends… if you ask your server to please bring Mr. Gardenhire another of whatever he is drinking and put it on your bill, the ever gracious Mr. Gardenhire will return the kindness and buy you a drink right back.

Thanks, Gardy!

2 comments:

Jenny said...

OMG. OMG. That's a new one to add to my hotel phobias (like sitting on the bedspread.) Beware minibarspycams.

Meghan said...

Sounds like heaven. Really.