Pillaging the Ritz
When I’m checked into a hotel, I like to take home the little mini toiletries they provide. At the nicer places, they usually give you around three bars of soap- one for each sink and one for the shower. I just use the very smallest bar for both the sink and shower so I can leave the big bar and other small bar unused.
Or if they provide a body wash lotion in addition to the soap bars, I’ll use that and keep all three unwrapped bars of soap. I also sometimes don’t use the shampoo. I’ll just wash my hair with the soap or the body wash so I can keep the shampoo bottle brand new.
Every morning, I take all the unused mini toiletries and tuck them away in my bag so that they are not visible to the housekeeping staff. They must wonder how one traveller can go through three bars of soap, a bottle of shampoo, a bottle of lotion, and eight Q-Tips every single day.
Despite the obvious doubts they must have, housekeeping never fails to restock my room every day when they see that all the toiletries are gone. Sometimes, if I’m feeling obnoxious, I’ll ask for more toiletries when they come in for turn down service. And if I’m feeling super duper obnoxious, I’ll call housekeeping and ask for extra soap and shampoo. Because, you know, I “ran out”.
I’ll only take the toiletries if they’re sorta fancy. Hopefully with some fancy packaging (”Lavender Hand Milled Soap in Recycled Natural Fiber Packaging” … made by some 14 year old in some Asian sweatshop I’m sure.) Call me a soap snob if you will. Well, cheap and snobby. That’s the best combination because you are always too cheap to achieve your snob goals.
I once also took a box of Kleenex. I had to pry it out of the built-in Kleenex box holder in the marble and wood countertop (don’t worry, I didn’t damage anything). I also once took a new roll of toilet paper. I really liked how they folded the end of the roll into a pointy tip and fastened it with a shiny gold sticker featuring the hotel’s crest.
I don’t take towels, robes, slippers, furnishings or fixtures though. That’s crossing the line. And you’re liable to be billed for it.
When I get home, I take all my winnings out of my bag and place them in neatly organized shoe boxes underneath my sink. Then I wash up with the Suave shampoo and Dove soap that I bought at the supermarket.
And why do I spring for the hotel room, but not the soap? Penny wise and pound foolish, my friend.
So I still have this giant accumulating stash of unused mini soaps, mini shampoos, and mini lotions. Just in case some Lilliputian houseguests ever need to shower. One million times.
tags :: humor : hotels : toiletries : soap : pilfering
I went to school with a legend. No, it’s not Michael Jordan, Martin Scorsese, or Pee Wee Herman. His name is Gary C. Back in the day, Gary was the ultimate master of mischief. In the suburban town where I went to school, his reputation precedes him.
In fourth grade, Gary took a hot dog and carved one end of it to resemble a penis. He then stuck it part-way into his fly and zipped back up to hold it in place. He ran around at recess with his makeshift weiner-cock hanging out of his pants, dangling and bouncing around everywhere. His teacher nearly fainted.
In middle school, he would tie a headband on (we grew up in a post-Rambo era), strap himself up with the brat’s weapons of choice (Super Soaker, water balloons, rolls of toilet paper, and bottle rockets), and set traps for little old ladies driving around the neighborhood. He was like a teenage TP ninja.
One day, Gary decided to play a prank on our classmate Caroline. Caroline lived across the street, and had this dog named Baryshnikov (she was a dancer- can you tell?). So Gary took a sausage, two meatballs, and some red tomato sauce and put them all into a clear plastic bag. He then made a sign that said “Baryshnikov” and nailed the bag and sign to Caroline’s front door with his Rambo hunting knife.
Ever take a pee at a public bathroom urinal? A gold star for the ladies who have, for inhuman hoo ha control. The guys of course get nothing, since I know from personal experience that you all miss the target.
Perhaps some giant factory in China will find this post, start making these items, and distribute them to U.S. retailers. And then monkeys will fly out of my butt and the Devil will burrow out of the ground because it was too cold in Hell.
I am sure this item has already been marketed in some specialty stores in Japan or other parts of Asia, but they probably don’t have the materials or marketing right.
To visit an emporium of manufactured goods that perform curiously strange functions, there’s no need to leave the comfort of your living room. All those late night TV commercials sell so many strange things. And in my half-awake state late at night, some of them actually seem worth buying. Good thing I lock up my credit cards.
Once Operation Credit Card was accomplished, I went and ordered myself The Sauna Belt. Yes, you read it right. It’s a sauna. In a belt. Incroyable, I know. Because (excerpt from ad copy) “Now you won’t need to leave the house to work up a sweat, with Sauna Belt you can just relax in the comfort of your own home.”
Just think about the possibilities. Finns everywhere in Finland will venture forth into the vast unknown reaches of the un-sauna’d world. Perhaps they’ll pack their Sauna Belts and cross entire oceans to exotic lands where non-Nokia mobile phones abound (*gasp*).
They should come up with a battery-powered version. So that on your next plane flight, you can be flanked by Sauna Belt-wearing passengers, beads of sweat trickling down their faces just inches from your shoulders. Just hope that your fellow passengers didn’t eat anything stinky prior to boarding. Unless you prefer the fine scent of Eau de Garlic, of course.
Publications like BusinessWeek and Fortune often come up with lists of best companies to work for. P&G, Genentech, whatever. Screw ‘em. They don’t know what they’re talking about.
Design a new car every nine years. Spend the rest of the time fielding a company soccer team to play fellow Swedish car maker Volvo’s company team. Winner gets to make the world’s ugliest car. Loser gets to make the world’s boxiest car.
I’m a movie fan. I really like Star Wars. I even made a feeble attempt to break it down in a 
And as to why she’s named after a shampoo: I’m very vague on the the details, but what I heard is that it involves a yellow dress, a raffle ticket, and a wild night at a strip club in White River Junction, Vermont. Perhaps they should make a movie out of that.
When evil is sooooo evil and good is sticky sweet, I get bored. Again, with “insulting my intelligence”. I don’t want cookie-cutter characters. Give me dimension, flaws, humility, honesty, “un-categorizable” people if you will. Let me digress a little here: Take a good look at “The Hunt for Red October” again. Not a phenomenal film, but a great action flick nonetheless. You’ll see that there’s no evil senator, no bad-ass general, etc. It’s a battle of wits so to speak. They forgot about this kind of subtlety when they made “Patriot Games”. Oooo, it’s a mean, volatile, greasy-haired bad Columbian drug lord. Gee, do you think he’s the bad guy?
That is each and every actor is spot-on no matter the size of their role. They don’t have to scream and yell to make themselves believable. Once again, subtlety is key. That’s why Pacino is so goddamn good in Parts I & II (closing the door in Diane Keaton’s face, twice.) and soooooooo shitty in Part III. Parts I & II were made before Al started screaming all his lines. He should take a page from the Ralph Fiennes book on How to Act. How can we forget the German Commandant Amon Goeth (Schindler’s List)? “Whatcha doing with that rifle, Amon? Um…Amon, why don’t you put the gun down and finish your coffee? Um, you’re not really going to shoot… OH MY GOD!! YOU BASTARD!!” With one swift yet apathetic act Ralph Fiennes’ character was able to epitomize the evil of the Third Reich. More noteworthy performances: The interaction between Gene Hackman and Sir Richard Harris’ characters in The Unforgiven…I suggest watching the jail scene again.
And of course there are movies that are great indies (Lost In Translation, Magnolia), great comedies (When Harry Met Sally), great action adventures (Raiders of the Lost Ark), great love stories, (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) great thrillers (Sixth Sense) and great guilty pleasures (Ocean’s Eleven, Showgirls).
But physics- well, that was even worse. In a failing effort to teach me relativity theory equations, one of my physics professors (whom I had driven to his wits’ end) came up with a special physics problem just for me involving an X-Wing Fighter flying past the Death Star at the speed of light. He hoped that my dense brain would finally wrap itself around the problem if the challenge appealed to my geeky nature.
After hearing this audible anomaly a few times, one of the more experienced doctors decides to sit in on the new intern’s next physical, in case she had overlooked a step.
Guessers:
Guessers:
Light bulb!
Huh?
Blogs are so varied. Some blogs I’ve come across include carefully crafted original graphics and pictures, and are written in a very polished manner. Some are more conversational. Others are spazzy. And then there are the incomprehensible ones that look like the bloggers type with their toes while watching “Cops” and eating Chinese take-out.
I’m probably somewhere in the middle. I don’t know anything about the technical aspects of good writing, and I don’t have the design skills to achieve high production values. But, I do care about not having my posts look like I barfed them out and didn’t bother to clean them up. So I write several posts simultaneously, well in advance of publishing them. I then re-read, re-phrase, re-arrange, re-write, correct, edit, and proofread each of them over several days.
In his despair and anxiety, he passed out and cracked his head on the keyboard while writing this post. When he came to, he tried to slit his wrists. Thankfully he was unable to find an actual razor blade and didn’t get very far with his electric shaver.
He also swallowed an entire bottle of pills. Luckily the only pills in our medicine cabinet were laxatives. It’s causing unpleasant bouts of nitrogen-laden green diarrhea every half hour. So now some of his tighty whiteys are discarded stinky greeneys. But he’ll live and that’s what matters.
We have him on an Alprazolam drip and a strict diet of 7-UP and Saltine crackers.