A Traveling Poem

This bed is all wrong.
This bed's not for me.
This bed has a bump
Where a hollow should be.

The sheets are wrong, too.
They're stiff and they're starchy,
And make my pajama pants
Crackly and sparkly.

The pillows are wrong --
I use only one.
The maniac making this bed
Used a ton!

There's two pillows here,
And two pillows there.
In case that's too little
There's even a spare!

The blanket's wrong, too.
It stops at my hips.
And, because of my snacks,
Smells like chocolate and chips.

The headboard's too short.
There's no footboard at all.
And I'm sure I can hear people
Out in the hall.

The clock ticks past midnight.
It tocks half past one.
By the time I start sleeping
It's time to be done.

Truth be it known
The room is just fine.
If a problem exists
It's entirely mine.

The mattress is comfy.
The pillows are fluffly.
The TV works well,
And the room isn't stuffy.

I prefer my own bed.
It's the best bed for me.
Because when I reach out
You're where you should be.




© 2015 Mark Feggeler

Glamu the Pajama Man

First things first: Our trip to Atlanta was awesome!

We had visited the city fourteen years ago and really hadn't been all that impressed. Mind you, My Lovely Wife was raucously nauseated that entire trip due to morning sickness that mistakenly thought morning lasted from dawn to dusk, with a few extra hours thrown in just for good measure. Much of that trip was spent with her violently ill at the hotel while I scoured the area for baked potatoes with cheese sauce.

When your pregnant wife tells you that melted, processed, cheese-flavored plastic is the only thing she can eat without vomiting, then that's what you bring her.

This latest trip to ATL got off to a rocky start when we checked into our first hotel around 10:00pm on Friday. We weren't supposed to have a "first" hotel. The plan was to have "a" hotel, but quality and poor service sometimes have a way of changing your plans.

Entering our suite was reminiscent of opening an oven door. Apparently, keeping the air-conditioning unit off when rooms are unoccupied is a great way to save a few pennies. Any potential savings were surely lost after we cranked the unit into power-sucking overdrive. By morning, we had created distinct temperate zones in which some of us were simply freezing and others (meaning the kids who were closer to the window) were chipping ice off their toes.

The beds were an issue, as well.

Although the king bed mattress was comfortable, our feet came to rest sightly higher than our heads, which might explain my many bizarre dreams about falling off ladders and skydiving. But the kids really had it much worse. The rollaway on which Our Daughter slept looked like an animal had torn through the bottom to nest in the box spring, and the main support bar of the boys' sleeper sofa was so bent it nearly touched the floor.

After canceling the remainder of our stay and booking family suite at the lovely Hilton Suites in the Perimeter neighborhood, we spent the weekend visiting the Atlanta Zoo, the World of Coca Cola, and the Georgia Aquarium. The latter is home to the most amazing single tank I've ever seen. At 6.3 million gallons, with a viewing window taller and wider than most upscale homes, the tank holds an impressive variety of sea life, including several giants of the sea such as whale sharks and giant manta rays.

As memorable as the big wall was, however, it paled in comparison to the unforgettable distinctness of the Georgia Aquarium's dolphin show.

Here's a hint for any future writers out there: When you need a narrator to spend the first five minutes of the show explaining what the show is going to be about, it's exceedlingly likely your story is too contrived.

In this case, the narrator prattled on about a mythical figure who creates stars (that don't really factor into the story of the show), who is attacked by monstrous sea creatures (that never make an appearance in the show), who leads the audience in a trippy song to raise his sunken ship (that you only see in cartoon form on a giant screen), and who wears what look like silk pajamas and a robe stolen from the wardrobe department of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat."

Occasionally, there are dolphins.

The Italian jokingly referred to the show's protagonist as "Glamu," which I thought was a pretty clever spin on Shamu, so we spent the rest of the day laughing about Glamu the Pajama Man.

Of course, no trip to any city would be complete without a food-driven purpose. In this case, we made a special side trip to Flip Burger, a gourmet burger joint affiliated with recent Top Chef winner Richard Blais. The burgers were amazing, but the even bigger hit was the milk shakes topped with liquid nitrogen.

I can live without the coolness factor of the nitrogen, but you can bet I'll spend way too much time this summer trying to replicate the Cap'n Crunch milkshake with peanut butter foam.




© 2011 Mark Feggeler

HB Oh Forget It

I am old enough to remember when there was only one HBO.

Who am I kidding?

I'm old enough to remember when "remote control" meant my brothers telling me to get up and change the channel for them. I'm old enough to remember not having a color television. I'm old enough to remember the Brady Bunch going off the air, the introduction of the Big Wheel, banana seat bikes, Romper Room, and one-foot tall GI Joe action figures who always stole Barbie's heart away from that pretty boy Ken.

Back to the point, we got our first taste of HBO when our family joined the great Cable-TV Nation in the early 1980s. Almost immediately, I was disappointed. I took the name Home Box Office literally.

When did you ever go to the movie theater to see a boxing match? When did you go to the movie theater to see original made-for-TV movies? When did you go to the movie theater to watch back-to-back episodes of Fraggle Rock?

When they finally did clear their programming of all their homemade piffle, the movies they did show were mostly crap. And, Lord help us if they actually got the rights to a decent film, it would be featured every other night for the entire month in which it premiered, sandwiched between the 400th showings of "Beastmaster" and "Zapped!"

But that was thirty years ago. Surely HBO has changed for the better since then. Right? There are, like, one-hundred-eighty-seven different HBO channels now. I find myself thinking, every now and then, that maybe I should break down and give it another try. Then I stay in a hotel.

Doesn't matter what hotel, either, since most of them offer the same limited selection of channels that always seems to include HBO1 and HBO2. You'd think these channels would vary their programming a little to offer some variety and get people interested in purchasing HBO for their home systems. You'd be wrong.

Every time I travel, no matter what city I find myself in, HBO1 and HBO2 are broadcasting the same shows, usually an hour apart from each other. First HBO1 shows Real Time With Bill Maher, then HBO2. First HBO1 shows a sports talk show about boxing, then HBO2. First HBO1 shows Deadwood, or Big Love, or True Blood, or any of its other simplistically awful soap operas that everybody but me seems to go crazy over, then HBO2.

I'm wondering how many more decades it will take before HBO decides to show a movie during primetime.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

A Lesson In Poor Service

Earlier this month, during a trip to Washington DC, I received a lesson in the importance of good service. Not that I felt I needed it, mind you. It's just so easy to forget how big an impression poor service can make that it's healthy to experience it once in a while. It started straight away upon reaching a full-service hotel in downtown DC just two blocks south of the Smithsonian Castle at the National Mall.

No Trash Cans!

Here we travel five to six hours through heavy traffic and fast food drive-throughs and when we get to the hotel there are no trash cans outside the building. Do they think we're just going to let all the garbage from our trip sit in the van for the next three days? Eventually this crap is making it into their waste disposal program, so the least they could do is position some heavy-duty, deluxe-size, aesthetically pleasing trash cans under the porte cochere to keep us from having to schlep it up to the room with our luggage.

As we checked in, my lovely wife handed across a half-empty soda cup and a Wendy's bag full of sandwich wrappers to the front desk clerk who stared at it like we had bare-handed her a pile of dog poop. Instead of pitching it in the trash can under the front desk, she placed it on the counter next to her. A few seconds later she was muttering angrily because she knocked over the cup and spilled the remains of the soda all over her keyboard. Do you know what would have helped her avoid this problem? Trash cans outside the building, that's what.

Then our room wasn't ready for us to check in, so we had to stick all our belongings in the bellman's closet while our vehicle remained outside because the valet attendants were too busy to park it in the garage. Our van stayed in front of the hotel well into the evening. However, this did offer the advantage of easy retrieval of forgotten items, so I really shouldn't complain.

Also, complaining about the condition of the facilities isn't really necessary. A busy, downtown hotel is entitled to show a few bumps, bruises and scrapes. Of course, it would be nice if the carpets were cleaned once in a while. My home carpets might not always be the cleanest but at least the soles of my feet don't turn black when I walk around barefoot on them.

On our first evening in DC, we decided not to brave the Metro and opted instead for the lobby restaurant. The food may have been over-priced but thank goodness its utter mediocrity made it easy for us to justify avoiding future dining in the hotel. The lackluster food paled, however, in comparison to the complete disregard of the wait staff to whether or not we enjoyed our dining experience.

All these issues aside, one person stands above them all. One person sealed the deal and helped put me over the edge -- the pool lifeguard.

This particular hotel boasts a year-round, rooftop pool, and our children were very excited at the idea of swimming in a pool so many stories up. Our first night at the hotel, immediately following our under-impressive dinner, we headed up to the pool. First problem? No towels. How did we find out? The lifeguard sat in his plastic chair next to his plastic table and said "No towels." I went down to the front desk and complained and, within fifteen minutes, a housekeeper entered with a stack of towels. I suspect, at this point, the lifeguard started disliking me.

The next night, same thing: no towels. This time, the front desk proved unhelpful and we made due without them.

On the third evening, I took the children to the pool following a quick dinner at Subway. With two half-filled paper cups in my hands, I entered the pool deck and the lifeguard immediately motioned to me. When I reached him, he pointed over my shoulder and asked "Do you see that sign?"

I knew which sign he meant. "You mean the pool rules sign?" I asked without turning around.

"Did you read it?" he asked. "Read the sign."

"Does it say 'No Drinks,'" I asked, still looking directly at him.

"Yes," he said.

"Well all you had to say was 'no drinks.' You don't have to be an ass about it."

I walked away, threw the cups in the trash and sat near my children who were playing in the water. Once settled into my seat, I took out the camera and snapped the shot included here, showing the lifeguard at his table with a glass bottle of Arizona Tea.

Some people might have complained to the manager but that's not typically my way. It's much too confrontational. No, instead I chose to silently seethe, vowing never to return.

When completing the e-survey that arrived the following week, I detailed my experiences and highlighted the poor service we received. From the front desk, to the lifeguard, to the bellman who couldn't be bothered to move aside when my family and I exited the elevator, the entire experience could not have been less satisfactory. The general manager apparently cares so much that I have not received a response.

Where will I stay next time I go to DC? At the Red Roof Inn in Chinatown. I've never had a problem there, the front desk always seems happy to see me, and the Irish Channel Pub off the lobby has really good food and friendly service -- even live music some evenings. The best thing about the Red Roof? No pool.