Hotel Hell

For some possibly crazed reason, I have always thought that hotels and motels, being in the business of renting folks a place to sleep, should be expert at anything to do with beds.

Silly me.

I have spent the last two weekends at resorts. High-dollar, fancy-dancy, expensive resorts. (Not my choice, business trips with the Engineer both times.) If hotels and motels should know about beds, resorts should excel at providing their clients with sybaritic beds and sleeping environs.

Right.

In common with the cheapest fleabag flop house, the powers that be at these resorts had no idea of how to properly make a bed.

Last weekend it was the flat sheet on the bottom syndrome. The bed is made with a flat sheet that is tucked under at the head and on the sides. It's not tucked under at the foot because it's not long enough. The sheet is not centered on the bed, so one side is stuffed well under the mattress while the other is barely tucked under the edge. Then, just to make things more interesting, the top sheet and blanket are tucked snuggly under the mattress along both sides and the bottom. In order to get into the bed to sleep, one must pull the top sheet and blanket out from under the mattress. Which also pulls the bottom sheet out from under the mattress. The bottom sheet must then be tucked back under the mattress. Unless one pulls all of the sheets off the bed and remakes it from scratch, the bottom sheet is still on unevenly. The short side of the sheet inevitably comes untucked as soon as the sleeper rolls over the first time and bunches up underneath him, leaving him sleeping on the bare mattress. How happy for him.

Last night, at a ski resort which shall remain nameless, the bed was made with a fitted sheet. Of course, the top sheet and blanket were still tucked in rendering the bed unusable until they were untucked, but at least the bed was made with a fitted sheet.

Kind of...

If you've bought a new mattress lately, you will discover that they are making them thicker than they used to, which means that none of your old fitted sheets are deep enough. This $200 a night ski resort had not bothered to get new deep-dish fitted sheets to go with their new pillow top mattresses. The bed itself was comfy, but every time either the Engineer or I moved, the top corner of the sheet popped off. Again leaving the would be sleeper in intimate contact with the bare mattress.

Why doesn't the hospitality industry understand how to make a bed? My mother taught me how when I was in grade school. Neither concept nor execution is that difficult.

Ah well, I guess I should be thankful there were no bed bugs.