October 10, 2022
We got up before 7:30. My Garmin says i slept for nine and a half hours, which it rated as "Excellent." Everything proceeded pretty well according to plan. I had thought, for some reason, that check out was 10:00, so i was gunning for that, but at breakfast Tammi mentioned that it was actually noon, giving us a little more time.
The continental breakfast, which we'd rushed out of the hotel too early to partake of the last few days, was as you'd expect from a three-star hotel. But there was one notable addition: pumpkin spice waffles. They were ok. I don't really have strong opinions on pumpkin spice, despite what the internet demands of people, so i thought it was just...fine.
As we were packing up the room, Tammi and Jack came up to get their picture taken with Copper before they headed home. Tammi is, after all, Copper's real mom, as far as he and anyone else is concerned. As happy as he is with us, we know that, given the choice, he would go live with Amanda's parents in a heartbeat. (UPDATE, 1/26/2023: Hey it turns out this is false!)
Amanda drove off with her family about 9:00, leaving Alyssa and i to finish evacuation, just as we had been left on our own to load in. Their flight was at noon, so ideally, they wanted to be at the airport by 10.
I was actually feeling really good that morning. I credit the ice bath, 100%. My legs felt like i had run nine miles. So it wasn't too bad. Once things were packed, i once again sent Alyssa to take the dogs outside and stay with them while i brought things out. This time, though, instead of making all those trips via the stairs, i did go get the luggage cart from the lobby and take it down the elevator.
The one, and only, singular, luggage cart.
This hotel is a joke.
I feel like i was lucky to get it. As i was bringing it, completely full and with stuff hanging out beyond the safe width, out of the elevator, a man waved me down and was like, "Ah! I came here looking for that!"
"Well, i'm going to be a few minutes, but you can have it as soon as i'm done. I've just got the one load."
He seemed...dismayed? Like i just told this guy i'll hand it over to him as soon as it's empty, and he just, like, looked full-on disappointed? What the hell were you expecting? That i would just dump all my shit here in the lobby and let you take it?
I pushed it out to the parking lot and staged all of our items in the empty parking stall next to the car, then returned the cart. The guy was nowhere to be seen in the lobby. Hell, there was no one to be seen in the lobby.
I had mused the previous night that, in our entire stay, i had only seen other people at this hotel like, maybe four times, including the lady Amanda tried not to dance past last night, but not including at breakfast. We could hear dogs barking in the other room occasionally, which makes us feel better about leaving our own dogs there, but rarely did we hear humans and rarer did we see them.
In other words.
I do not believe you that the hotel had no vacancy this weekend.
Who the fuck did you give my two queen beds room to? Because i did not see them at this hotel. Your hotel looked empty this weekend.
Hell, at breakfast, i think we only saw half a dozen other people. Our group outnumbered the sum total of every other person who came down for continental breakfast while we were there.
Sketchy.
Anyway.
Loaded the car. I went back up to the room for a final dummy check and did find a few things we left behind. Nothing detrimental to lose, but i do think that the bill from the Long Beach Animal Emergency Vet for a cat would have looked suspicious. If they bothered to look at it before they threw it away, anyway.
Checkout was smooth. Handed her the key cards, she handed me the invoice, and that was that. We left the hotel at 10:15.
Amanda texted us just before we left that she had already made the dropoff at the airport, and her ETA back to Alyssa's house was 11:30. We were looking at an 11:20 arrival back at The Nostromo, our RV. So Amanda was likely to beat us to the apartment.
Everything was going smoothly, though. Traffic was maybe a little fuckier than we expected; Amanda did get to Loosk's apartment before we reached the RV. We dropped D off, and were heading toward the apartment at 11:35.
Alyssa brought the dogs up to the apartment to get them settled while Amanda and i peeled the car top carrier off the roof. Alyssa came back down with her wagon, to pile all the loose items from inside the car into, and we went back up, just carrying the car topper as it was, to sort our things out later.
That was it, though, as far as "responsible adulting" goes at this particular moment. After that, we didn't waste much time.
We got into our swim suits, Amanda and Alyssa each took another edible, i mixed myself the biggest Captain & Coke i could find a cup for, and we beelined it for the hot tub.
It was a hot day. The sun was beating down directly overhead, fully encompassing the entire pool and hot tub area. We were sweating already. But it didn't matter.
I don't know who put the first foot in the hot tub.
But i do know.
That it was lukewarm at best.
We twisted the knob to run the jets. Nothing.
We'd been bamboozled again.
There was crying. There was swearing. We stubbornly sat in yet another lukewarm tub for half an hour, maybe an hour, eating snacks and drinking alcohol, but we were not happy. It was a perfectly consistent ending to a consistently disappointing weekend. Other than the race itself, the race was lovely, just everything around it was...bleh.
After a while, Alyssa called management. She asked the front desk if there was a problem with the hot tub, since it wasn't warm and the jets weren't working.
"Not that i know of. Let me call maintenance," the desk clerk said. She put Alyssa on hold, and did that immediately. She came back a moment later. "He says he turned it off while it was filling, and went to lunch."
"Oh. Well, it's definitely full now," Alyssa said.
"He says he'll turn it back on when he gets back from lunch. In the meantime, he doesn't want anybody in it."
"Well. Okay then," she said, and hung up.
We sat there a little longer, then got out.
We laid there, in the chaise longues by the pool, out in the sun, waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
W a i t i n g .
Seriously where the fuck is this guy?
They both fell asleep.
Two hours after Alyssa had made the initial call, i picked up her phone, and redialed her last-called number.
I got a phone tree, navigated it to speak to the front desk, non-emergency line.
No one answered the phone. So i left a voice message.
"Hi, my name is Trevor, i'm with Alyssa from Apartment [redacted]. She called two hours ago about the hot tub not working, you told us that the maintenance guy would turn it on after he got back from his lunch break. We haven't seen anybody since then, and Alyssa has since fallen asleep out here, hence why i'm calling. We ran a marathon yesterday and would really like to relax in this hot tub. If you could send somebody up to turn it on, that would be great. Thank you!"
I waited another hour and a half. My rum was long gone. My phone battery was getting low. I'd had enough. I woke them up and said we could take naps or use the internet up in the apartment or back at our own house, there was no reason to be sleeping out here by the pool. They were both completely unaware of how much time had passed.
We gathered our things and left.
What a disappointing ending.
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