LaughAtlantis

I just looked closely at my last entry. It contains within it a grievous grammatical error. If I had just made the entry hours ago I would edit it, but now it's been days; anyone could have read it and thought me grammatically inept. Typos I can stand, but this... this is unacceptable.

To every English teacher I ever had, I apologize wholeheartedly.

Came across these random things while blogjumping. Thought I'd make a post out of 'em, just because. I know nobody actually cares about such things but they sort of entertain me.

I say... and you think....
1. Miss America:: crown
2. Cherubs:: wings
3. Shark Week:: chum
4. Sunflowers:: seeds
5. Sorority:: drinking
6. Grilled chicken:: caesar salad
7. 100:: years
8. Tickle monster:: most effective way to upset Rod
9. Veronica:: Elvis Costello
10. Slurpee:: 7-11

1. What food could you eat practically every day? Risotto!
2. What is your least favorite food? Mushrooms, I think. Asparagus isn't particularly high on my list either.
3. How often do you eat out? Fairly frequently - once every other week for diiners, plus lunches at work.
4. What does the inside of your refrigerator look like (i.e., well stocked with fresh food, lots of left-overs that have been there for a while or looks like Mother Hubbard's cupboard)? A fair amount of leftovers, plus Slimfast and cheese. Lots of cheese.
5. Is there a combination of food you like that other people may think is gross? I've talked about this before, but I think tuna fish and chow mein noodles are fabulous together. I also like Reese's pieces with pretzels.

This little bit:
4. Sunflowers:: seeds
... reminded me of my eleventh grade Italian teacher.

In ninth and tenth grade, we had Mrs Rabaiotti. She was a fabulous Italian teacher and any Italian that I still speak I can attribute directly to her teaching. But after my tenth grade year, her husband bought a store and she left teaching to work there or some ridiculous thing, and we got Miss Markowski instead.

Miss Markowski was actually a guidance counselor - and not a particularly good one, at that. But she was hopeless as an Italian teacher. She would bring in random Italian movies for us to watch whenever we had long lunch classes. Her accent was awful. And she just lacked common sense.

I can remember her sitting on her desk talking about something not remotely related to the study of the Italian language. She was eating sunflower seeds and she stopped midsentence and stared at the seeds. She then said, "I wonder where sunflower seeds come from."

In a tone that was tinged with the word, "DUH!" the class proclaimed, "Sunflowers."

Miss Markowski actually looked surprised. "Oh. Yeah. I guess that makes sense."

Intellectual giant, huh?

I was in Toronto this weekend for Blackout 2003 - well, actually, I was there for the Toronto Improv Festival 2003, but close enough. They had to cancel two nights of shows - lost a lot of money as a result, no doubt - but the festival was fabulous anyway. I saw twelve shows, took six workshops, and went to two kick-ass parties.

(Looooooong ranting vent ahead)
That being said, there was some stress too. Our bus there got canceled so our options were somewhat limited - book a flight for a $1088 apiece or rent a car for $42 a day. Not surprisingly, we picked the car. But that meant Rod had to drive. Rod hasn't driven in four years and, more importantly, has never driven in this COUNTRY. So I spent the whole ten hour trip making sure he was traveling at a reasonable speed limit and sticking to the right side of the road.

Renting a car also meant we had to extend our hotel stay an extra night. When we attempted to book it at the hotel front desk, we were quoted $199 Canadian, which is about $40 American over what we had paid for the first two nights. We booked those on the internet and figured, rather than pay through the nose, why not go to a cyber-cafe and book another night there? We did exactly that, but went by the front desk on Saturday night to make sure that our reservation had been extended. We were informed that thereservation office was closed for the night, but that the information was probably in there and we should come by the next morning. At 8:30 on Sunday morning they didn't have the info yet, and told us to come back at ten. We had to leave for our improv stuff before then, so we arranged to call at noon. We were told, however, not to worry about the situation, that it shouldn't be a problem. When Rod called at noon, the reservation office had yet to figure out the inner workings of our reservation. Still no info. Called at 2, still nothing. Called at 3, and finally, absolutely everything was A-OK!

Of course, that turned out to be bullshit.

Rod & I had an afternoon workshop, dinner, SIX shows that evening, and a HUGE party, and didn't get back to the hotel until 2:30 in the morning. We went to our room and our key cards didn't work. Okay, we thought, maybe they were only coded to give us entry for those two days and we have to recharge them. So off we went to the front desk where we were met by one Richard Cringle, incompetent hotel desk clerk, who will henceforth be known as Dick, as it suits him.

Dick informed us that whoever had told us that we were all set had been mistaken. Because the reservation was made via the internet, the hotel apparently had no knowledge of it or some such thing. The conversation that followed went something like this:
Dick: "This certainly is strange."
Rod: "Yes… but it should be fine, right? I mean, our luggage in still in our room, yes?"
Dick: "I certainly hope not, as we have another guest in there now."
Rod: "Excuse me?? Well, where is our stuff?"
Dick: "It's probably in Lost & Found."
Rod: "So we can get another room and our things can just be retrieved from there?"
Dick: "Oh no, I don't have access to Lost & Found."
Rod: "WHAT??"
Dick: "Well, I would during normal hotel hours, but it is very late, sir."
Rod: "So what are we supposed to do?"
Dick: "Well, is there anything you really need in there tonight? Because I am sure we could solve it all in the morning."
Rod: (starting to laugh at this point) "Oh, this is just ridiculous."
Dick: "Yes, it certainly is strange."
Rod: (still laughing a little bit) "I don't believe this."
Joy: (PISSED) "Okay, you may find this funny but that's probably because..."
Rod: "...because I've been drinking for the last five hours..."
Joy: "Yes, whereas I have been drinking water and am perfectly sober. This is just insane. We called here three times; we were assured before we left this morning that there wouldn't be a problem, and as of three this afternoon there wasn't. And we come in here now and you tell us that you've given away our room and can't give us our luggage and you stand there and DON'T EVEN APOLOGIZE for the situation. I evaluate customer service for a living, sir, and this is REPREHENSIBLE. Just AWFUL."

Apparently, when it counts, I'm kind of a bitch, huh?

Dick apologized (too little and too late, as far as I was concerned), gave us a room and told us he'd call up with fifteen minutes to let us know what he could do. As a parting shot, I mentioned my need to get my epilepsy medication. In reality, I had one type of medication in my purse, but the other was in my suitcase. The one in my purse was the more important of the two, but still... I wasn't too thrilled about skipping a dose of anything in that I'd had a seizure the week before.

They brought the chief of security in and still couldn't find our luggage. They suggested that "maybe the people in your room didn't notice it was there." Yeah, right. Unless they were guests that needed to have a guide dog with them, it was going to be pretty evident that there were open suitcases on the suitcase rack and in the chair. They then determined that the person who had checked in had a very similar last name to Rod, and that's why they'd been given the room. The security guy checked Lost & Found. He called up to our room and asked us to describe our luggage. That didn't bode well - and our luggage wasn't there. He then checked the chambermaid's closets - again, no luggage. AGAIN they asked if there was anything we really needed in our belongings. They informed me that there was a hotel doctor on staff who could probably get me my prescription if need be. Finally they asked, "Do you want us to go knock on the door of the room to wake the other guests up, just to see if your luggage is still there?" Rod looked at me and it was as if a light dawned in his eyes that said we were screwed. "I'm in America on a work visa. If I don't have my passport, I can't get back into the country. And... and... our car keys are in there, so we couldn't leave anyway. And your epilepsy medication... I don't want to be a dick, but yeah, I do want to knock on the door. I just feel like we need to know."

So Dick and Mr. Security Man went and opened up the door. And lo and behold, there was no other guest. Our luggage was sitting there, just as we left it. It was 4:30 in the morning by the time we got back into our original room. We'd spent two very tired and frustrating hours pursuing our phantom luggage, and I was so pissed by the end of it that I just couldn't wait to get out of there in the morning. The security came to our room to offer us a complimentary breakfast for our troubles. Dick then came back to our room to apologize for not apologizing earlier. Whatever.

When we checked out the next morning, we walked up to the front desk and told them we were checking out. The woman asked for our room number. We said 1503. She said, "1503?" and then visibly blanched. "1503, yes. We want to apologize again for the inconvenience from last night." Apparently my reputation as a she-devil preceded me. We did not partake of our complimentary breakfast, but instead just left to trek back to Boston, secure in the knowledge that ten hours of highway were preferable to twenty more minutes of time in that hotel, even if those minutes did include bacon.

So, let me just say to all the folks out there who might be vacationing in Toronto, steer clear of the Metropolitan Hotel. They're unprofessional, impolite, and incompetent. Idiots.