Reno travel blues

Checked in to Eldorado casino hotel at the Row in Reno. Prepaid $110 through reservations dot kahm thought inclusive. Wasn’t so. Neglected to read fine print so they served up a $40 resort charge on top.

My bad I didn’t read and I booked it from playa via phone on Starlink at the 11th hour. Was gonna eat it. 

Bathroom lightbulb was busted - turned it on and it was strobing, so I put my hat back on and my glo-vest and danced a little jig before calling the desk and asking a non-seizure bulb be installed.

No problemo Doctor Teeth bulb en route.

Cool.

Ok TV time - haven’t seen this manner of screen in nigh a fortnight - perplexed when the only buttons working on the remote were the channel up and volume down. 

Ok. Call #2 to the desk can I get a matching remote to the TV?

(I’ve worked in hotels before and when hardware gets upgraded or replaced it’s far from an ideal system resulting in mismatched equipment as a common gripe received from guests - universal remotes are the standard but if you’ve got like LGs on the first 8 floors and Samsungs 9-19 and Sony to the penthouse, you’ll find some bugs…wait don’t misunderstand I’m not referring to insects, rather electronic hiccups in accessibility, not that bugs bugs aren’t a regular concern…. But I digress)

We’ll send someone up to show you how to work the TV.

K. Good. Taking a shower so gimme like 25.

Shower…huh. The shower head seems to be appropriate for smaller humanoids. 

I mean a gnome, dwarf, halfling wouldn’t be able to reach the head but surely an elf would be comfy. 

As a smaller but full-sized human, I was hunched over to get my hair wet - still meh I mean I would have bathed in pool water at this point… but the drain was also clogged. 

I checked the plug - wide open - so I unscrewed the washer and cap and employed the hand-plunger technique with no improvement. 

Stood up, hit my head and promptly went both feet in the air to land compromisingly on my right hip in the standing sudsy dust water, which was a frothy amber color. 

Ok. Anger now. With some pain.

Called the desk again. Apologies but I’ll take the night manager as this is my third call inside of 2 hours of checkin. 

I basically told her exactly what I typed here, acknowledging my ineptitude around the booking fees but asking if something could be done about the tub as I needed to spend more time in there.

She upgraded me and asked me to come down to swap keys - done 

Now in my new room I was looking at the pool schedule and found I had ten mins left to grab a dip - so into dusty trunks with dusty towel and jogging to the 5th floor pool.

I arrived as security was locking up. Womp womp. 

The guy locking the door told me to go to the neighboring casino and follow the signs in the elevator to the pool which was open another hour - THANK YOU!

Run now to the other casino nearly half a mile away in this labyrinth.

Sign on the door read “closed for high winds.”

Well shucks. 

Back to room - munched snacks - called and asked for a late checkout as between the room and the pool my plan had been effectively dashed - they were fine with that and I grabbed some pool time (and met another couple of new Burner friends in the process) before showering and checking out. 

RNO. Like 1 in 3 folks here just trailing dust like PigPen from Peanuts. 

Through security - they loved my hat - and onto departures. 

Ensue repeating warnings for a flight to LA which apparently had several folks who either…idk overslept? Over-partied? Bunch of fucking sparkling ponies really - and one by one they came running down the departure hall all frazzled and crispy from a week in the sun. 

“The doors for the flight to LA will be CLOSING and will NOT be reopened!”

I’m still in Reno til midnight and it’s quarter of 6 now. 

God help us. Each and every one.