Hotel Gossip

Now that I've been staying at the Hampton Inn by the site in Virginia for 7 weeks now, I've gotten to know the staff on a first-name basis and I'm treated like a guest rather than a customer-- it's what makes me keep coming back to the same place- a home away from home.

When I was checking out a few weeks ago, the manager said, "ok, I've got to ask because I'm dying to know: what is that thing that you have set up in your hotel room each time you stay?" Of course I knew what she was referring to because my hatbox spinning wheel has come with me on each trip, is a conversation piece at every airport that I've been to with it, and I've gotten used to the curiosity it attracts. So I showed her what it was all about and she was fascinated, but I think more relieved than fascinated to have her curiosity satisfied.

Today I came in early to check in and a maid gave me a very strange look as she said, "hello." Odd reaction especially since my hatbox was still in the car. But I had a hunch she knew I belonged to it. Two minutes later the manager, upon greeting me, said that she had a very worried maid ask her last week what my contraption was, and why did I have "a dog" laying in a pile on the chair. Luckily the manager knew what it was all about by then and could explain to the poor woman that I didn't have a dead dog in my room, and that it was merely wool for spinning yarn on the contraption ( I hope she explained that no sheep were harmed in the gathering of the wool) :-)