Diary of a Wedding Guest: Part 10 - Late Night Snack

After returning to the hotel from our trip to Frankenmuth, we settled in for the night watching a little TV, checking e-mail, and updating our Facebook pages. OUr hotel was a Residence Inn by Marriott. It cam fully equipped with a small kitchenette including a stove, sink and full size refrigerator/freezer. Shortly after we got settled, a very strong thunderstorm roared through Livonia. The power did not go out, but the TV lost its signal and lightning flashes could be seen every few seconds followed by a loud thunderous boom. The time lapse between the lightning strikes and the thunder indicated that the strikes were very close.

We then decided to turn in for the night, however, before retiring I got up to take my pain medicine (for the pinched nerve in my back/hip). My pain medicine has to be taken with food or it will cause an ulcer. I told Lori that I was going to grab something from the vending machines and asked if she wanted anything. She asked for some bottled water.

Our room was located at one end of the hotel, so I proceeded down the hallway towards the other end. There were no signs directing me to the vending machines on our floor and I could not locate them. I figured that they didn't have vending machines on every floor so I headed down to the 2nd floor (we were on the 3rd floor of 5). I walked the length of the second floor and again found no vending machines. I began to get a little irritated because surely a vending area existed. Every hotel has a vending area. And usually one on each floor for convenience. With that I proceedeed down to the first floor. Once again, I walked the length of the first floor and found no vending. I didn't even find an ice machine on any of these floors. This was extremely odd, but I headed back to our room to see if the hotel directory would say anything about the vending area.

When I returned to our room, I saw a note that said there was no need to go out for ice because you could make your own in the freezer of the refrigerator (thus the reason there were no ice machines). Remember, we are at a Residence Inn, an extended stay hotel with a full size refrigerator and a small kitchenette. Once I found the directory, I read that the vending area was located at the front desk. The front desk was located in the Gatehouse. Yes, as you might expect from the sound of the Gatehouse, the front desk is in a completely different building! How absurd to have a five story hotel with onsite vending located across the parking lot in a spearate building. I am guessing that few people take advantage of this service. Once the realize they have to get dressed, and go outside to another building, many will opt to just do without.

On this particular night, the absurdity of this vending system was highlighted even more. There was a torrential downpour outside and lightning striking all around. What idiot in there right mind would go out in this kind of weather just to buy a snack?

Yes, you guess it...the idiot that need to eat something when they take their medicine. To make matters worse, it was not raining when we arrived at the hotel, so we did not bring in the umbrella. It was still lying on the backseat of our rental car.

With that, I got dressed and headed for the Gatehouse. Yes, I had been in my pajamas while roaming the halls a few mintues earlier. Perfectly acceptable at 11:00 PM because no one else is going to be out roaming the halls at that hour, unless of course they too are looking for the vending machines.

Lucky for me by the time I got to the first floor and ready to exit the building, the rain had slackened quite a bit. I ran across the parking lot to the Gatehouse dodging most of the raindrops. When I saw the "vending" area, I could not believe what I saw. The vending area had 3 kinds of soda and 3 types of candy bars. There may have been a bag of chips, I don't remember, but the point was that if you are going to make people leave there building and walk across the parking lot to the vending area, you had better have something there to make it worth the trip. I bought two sodas and a candy bar and headed back to the room to take my medicine. As I left the front desk, I mumbled something to the clerk about the absurdity of the whole vending thing. He stated that the hotel was a franchise and that the layout of the vending was the common practice at the time that this hotel was built. AND ARE WE NOT SUCH AN ADVANCED RACE THAT SINCE THE TIME THE HOTEL HAS BEEN OPEN SOMEONE COULD NOT HAVE FIGURED OUT SOMETHING MORE SENSIBLE??????

Here's your sign!