Musings

One more thing about my recent trip to Kansas: I booked our hotel on Hotwire.com. I'd never done that before; something about their "You can't know the hotel until after we have your money" policy bugs me. But it was SO much cheaper than booking directly with Super 8, and Tanner is a teenager who can sleep in a pile of cheeto-covered sweatsocks if it means avoiding housework -- so I figured we could stand whatever sort of dump they stuck us in. Turns out it was a fairly nice place, with a big room and a full kitchen, so I'm happy we took the risk.

The weird thing was that the hotel door wasn't open when we arrived. It was after 10pm, so that in itself isn't surprising, but when I picked up the foyer telephone to alert the night clerk to come let us check in, there was no answer. I let it ring a long time, but nobody showed up. Puzzled, I finally hung up and looked around a bit more. Huh, whaddaya know about that? There's a big sign with instructions for check-in hanging on the wall. Of course, it wasn't near the door or the phone or the much more obvious sign telling you to call for assistance -- but it was big. I'm sure I'd have noticed it sooner if it hadn't been so many hours past my bedtime.

The sign said "Find the lock box with your first name on it, and punch the letter buttons to spell your last name to unlock it. Your key is inside." Sure enough, there's was a yellow sticky note that said "Terry" on it, and the box beneath the note did indeed respond to my punching. The key cards let us in, and all was well.

[Side thought: Whoever thought to put Domino's ads on the back of hotel keycards was a genius. It's SO obvious in hindsight, but I bet those cards remained blank for years before anybody finally figured out what to do with that empty space. Tanner thinks it's just another sign of corporate greed and the decadence of American society, but he's an idiot. I think it's a sign of the American passion for helping hungry people connect with the providers of sustenance. It's definitely a win-win thing, and that's what this country is all about, right?]

I'm not sure if I like the idea of a completely self-service hotel. We had no problems, though, and there probably is a small extra sense of security knowing that the doors are never open to the general public. But sometimes you just like the comfort of knowing that there's a fellow behind the counter you can complain to if your toilet is running or your TV is stuck on CNN.

We left before the morning Housekeeping rounds, but I assume there were actual employees roaming the halls later in the day to change the sheets and stuff. I suppose the vacuuming could be done by an army of Roombas, but I don't know if bedmaking robots are commercially available yet. I'll let you know if I find out about that question.

OK, so here's another question, totally unrelated to anything. Over the last couple of days, I've heard multiple references to the Pied Piper. I'll defer the discussion of the appropriateness of putting creepy characters like that into fairy tales told to children (which would also lead to a discussion of why PETA doesn't try to ban animal mutilation songs like "Three Blind Mice", etc., and I just don't want to go there today), but I will express my curiousity about the word "Pied". It's one of those words that is never ever used except to describe this one particular pervert piper. Why should we keep a word active in the language if it's only used in one context?

It's like "petard", which is only used with hoisting references (or by people who mispronounce the names of bald Starship captains.)

The dictionary defines "pied" as meaning "multicolored", but nobody ever uses it that way. And I suspect that the piper was called pied because he wore multicolored clothing, in which case, he should've been called "The Piper with Pied Clothing"...and let's face it, that's just awkward. The only folks I can think of who could properly be called pied people would be these fellows:



But again, that's a pretty limited use of the word, and I don't see it popping up in our daily lexicon with any regularity. I'm thinking that the only proper use of the word today should be as the past tense of a verb. So if you want to talk about someone being pied, talk about this guy:



Yeah, I know; all of my English major friends are going to have a cow over the verb-ization of nouns. But I say it's time for them to re-paradigm themselves. Wouldn't you agreementize with me on this?

That's all I have to say about the topic. Have a great day, my friends! And if you see any pipers (or stooges for that matter), please consider pieing them.