In Which I Narrowly Escape a Melt-Down; or A Tattle-Tale Housekeeper Gets No Tip

The road to sanctification is rutted and rocky...and sometimes a lesson must be re learned or, at least, re tested.

We've been on vacation in Bellingham this past week. I was sitting in the Las Vegas airport, waiting for our connecting flight back to El Paso, while composing most of this post. The visit was wonderful, but this post isn't about those details. It's about how God graciously helped me avoid total melt-down on our last morning.

As we were on holiday I decided to treat myself to a salon hair color - something I never do at home - it's been about three years since the last such luxury. I went to a nice place, was treated very kindly by the stylists and was quite pleased with the result.

The color was advertised as 'permanent', but after the first shower, I noticed the color bleeding on to the hotel towels. I showered every day since Friday with the same 'red' color coming off on the drying towel. Everyday the soiled linen was picked up by housekeeping, with me none the wiser about what was happening in the front office...

Long story short, when we checked out I gave my room number to the desk clerk. She stepped into a side office and immediately another woman - presumably a manager - emerged, holding a baggie with a 'red' towel wrapped inside. She informed me that because they couldn't get the hair dye out, I'd have to pay for the ruined hand towel - at a cost of $4. Further, she asked me if I'd like to take the towel with me, since I now 'owned' it. Unless you knew me back in the day, you won't believe how hard it was for me NOT to fly into an indignant fit of rage. Unbelievably and uncharacteristically, I said, 'Yes, I'll take the towel.' I even made a joke about suggesting to my hair stylist that she should pay for the ruined item.

I went back to the room and told Rick the story. I felt more upset than I let on. In fact, I realized I could have avoided the entire incident by not using the motel towel once I saw my color was washing out. I made a faulty assumption that the strong bleach and hot water used in the motel laundry would be able to wash anything out.

The other thing is that I kind of dodged the bullet. As I said, I'd showered at least 3 times and used the motel towels to dry my hair. I suspect that #1 the regular housekeeper was 'off' and someone else cleaned our room - finding the 'red' towel and alerting the manager. OR #2, the regular person just had enough of my daily abuse and decided to roll over on me to her boss...I mean, I could have owed more for all the laundry I probably ruined and the trouble I caused.

I brought home the motel's 'comment' card which I intend to complete and submit to the company office. I don't know if I'll mention the hair-dye incident - they may still have my credit card number lying around and I don't want to send up a 'red' (pun intended) flag that might prompt them to add more charges.

I do want them to consider having their webmaster look up the meaning of the word 'adjacent'...One of the reasons we chose that motel was for its close proximity to a Denny's restaurant. The website described several amenities we were interested in: reasonable (cheap) price; wireless internet, and the fact that Denny's was noted as being 'adjacent' to the property.

I hardly think a brisk, 1/4 mile walk under the freeway overpass qualifies as 'adjacent' in anyone's dictionary.