My first business trip is coming up next week. I’m going to NC.
I’m also on a diet, so I have special needs. My nutritionist suggested I call the hotel and ask if they have a fridge in the room. I complained that it would be full of alcohol and snacks, but she said I could ask them to remove all that stuff. I didn’t know you could do that!
So I call the hotel and get a girl with the sweetest Southern lilt in her voice–couldn’t have been more than 18 or 19.
I go, “Do you have refrigerators in the rooms?”
She goes, “Yes sir. Refrigerators in every room.”
“Do the refrigerators have booze and snacks in them?”
She goes, “Sir, no. We don’t have nothing like that around here. No, sir.”
This is exactly the answer I wanted, but she says it in a way that makes me think she thinks I wanted booze and snacks in my refrigerator. Maybe it’s that lilt in her voice, but I start to feel a little self-conscious, a little guilty. I start to feel like maybe I should explain about my diet, the nutritionist, the fact that this is my very first business trip and that my wife usually deals with snacks. Instead I just say, “Great!”
Then this sweet (surely) innocent girl repeats, “No sir. Not around here.”
Now I’m starting to wonder if my colleague has booked us rooms at the Jerry Falwell Hotel. I should have asked for a fifth of Jack, a gallon of cheap wine, and a big bag or Doritos just to see what she would say.
Is NC part of the Bible Belt? Do I have to be on my best behavior here? Why is there no mini-bar? I thought mini-bars were sort of standard equipment for most hotels.