It would be an error on your part to assume that the wisdom in these posts is always derived from first-hand experience. A life coach does not have to have empirical, personal evidence for every piece of advice. Often it is the careful observation of others that results in a conclusion worth sharing, while other times simple common sense is all that is needed. The following is an example of the latter:
A wink and a nudge at the concierge desk at your Walt Disney World hotel will not result in a professional "escort" appearing at the door of your room any time soon.
I included the preface at the top of this post because, as I have just been to Walt Disney World, I do not wish to give the impression that I spent any of my time there patiently waiting in my room for company to appear. Nor did I see hordes of winking, nudging conventioneers wearing fezzes and blowing noisemakers while slipping the concierges the odd Benjamin to set up a little hankus pankus. Come to think of it, I never even saw any concierges, because I was staying at a value hotel. Maybe that was the problem. If I had been staying at a luxury hotel...
Anyhow, when you see the words common sense, you no doubt immediately wonder about the expression horse sense, which means much the same thing. I offer the following definition, from W. C. Fields: "Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people." As for the etymology of the phrase, you can google that yourself. I'm not here to do your work for you.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Advice from a Life Coach: Towels
If you travel at all, you will have seen the notices in your hotel room proclaiming that the hotel is the platonic ideal of eco-friendliness. They ask you to join them in their green heaven by reusing your towels. They tell you that, if you are the scum of the earth, you can toss your towels on the floor and they will be replaced, but if you are on the path to sainthood, you will dry yourself off as necessary and then hang the towels up and reuse them the next time you need them. And you, feeling environmentally sound, do your best to conform. You take your morning shower, pat yourself dry, and hang your towel up on the hook behind the bathroom door. Green heaven, here you come! And then when you get back to your room at night, your conservatively hanged towel is gone, and there are all new towels in your bathroom.
There is nothing you can do about this. The minute you leave your room, cleaners dash in and replace all your towels. If you come back in the afternoon, wash your face and use one of the tiny towels they put by the sink that are only good for patting your nose, they will replace those tiny towels as soon as you are out of sight, no matter how high up you hang them.
You can, if you wish, make it a challenge for the cleaning staff. You can take your shower in the morning, dry yourself off, and then take your damp towel and hang it in your closet instead of behind the bathroom door. They will find it, and you will have all new towels. You can put that damp towel in your suitcase and zip it closed, and they will find it and replace all your towels. You can lift the mattress on one of the beds, either the one you slept in or the one you tossed all your clothes on because you're too lazy to use the drawers, and hide your damp towel under there, and they will find it and replace all your towels. You can take your damp towel with you sightseeing during the day, and they will find it and replace all your towels.
The point is, hotels are not green, no matter how much they protest to the contrary. It is easier for them to wash all the towels in the room at the first opportunity than for them to try to figure out the used towels from the fresh towels. If you attach a sign to your used towel saying, "I used this one," and other signs to the unused towels saying, "I didn't even look at this one," it will make no difference. You can continue to play their silly game, or you can resign yourself to the inevitable, and spend your time more in your hotel room more profitably by trying to figure out what's in all those other bottles that don't say shampoo on them. What exactly is body wash, for instance? Since the size of the soap they provide wouldn't clean a dormouse, you might be tempted to find out. But you won't have the energy to pursue this potentially interesting line of research if you are exhausted from playing towel hide-and-seek.
The bottom line: enjoy the fresh towels that the hotel is going to give you whether you want them or not. At home, you know you use the same towels for weeks without a second thought. Damp, mildewy towels are your way of life. Use the diligence of the hotel cleaning staffs as a welcome relief from your normal personal habits. After all, you are on vacation. You might as well enjoy it.
There is nothing you can do about this. The minute you leave your room, cleaners dash in and replace all your towels. If you come back in the afternoon, wash your face and use one of the tiny towels they put by the sink that are only good for patting your nose, they will replace those tiny towels as soon as you are out of sight, no matter how high up you hang them.
You can, if you wish, make it a challenge for the cleaning staff. You can take your shower in the morning, dry yourself off, and then take your damp towel and hang it in your closet instead of behind the bathroom door. They will find it, and you will have all new towels. You can put that damp towel in your suitcase and zip it closed, and they will find it and replace all your towels. You can lift the mattress on one of the beds, either the one you slept in or the one you tossed all your clothes on because you're too lazy to use the drawers, and hide your damp towel under there, and they will find it and replace all your towels. You can take your damp towel with you sightseeing during the day, and they will find it and replace all your towels.
The point is, hotels are not green, no matter how much they protest to the contrary. It is easier for them to wash all the towels in the room at the first opportunity than for them to try to figure out the used towels from the fresh towels. If you attach a sign to your used towel saying, "I used this one," and other signs to the unused towels saying, "I didn't even look at this one," it will make no difference. You can continue to play their silly game, or you can resign yourself to the inevitable, and spend your time more in your hotel room more profitably by trying to figure out what's in all those other bottles that don't say shampoo on them. What exactly is body wash, for instance? Since the size of the soap they provide wouldn't clean a dormouse, you might be tempted to find out. But you won't have the energy to pursue this potentially interesting line of research if you are exhausted from playing towel hide-and-seek.
The bottom line: enjoy the fresh towels that the hotel is going to give you whether you want them or not. At home, you know you use the same towels for weeks without a second thought. Damp, mildewy towels are your way of life. Use the diligence of the hotel cleaning staffs as a welcome relief from your normal personal habits. After all, you are on vacation. You might as well enjoy it.
Advice from a Life Coach: Travel
You no doubt have articles of clothing that you do not like. Maybe they were annual polyester sweater vest gifts in the wrong size from your impoverished grandmother who saved up all year to buy just the right one for your birthday. Maybe they were hand-me-down Hello Kitty underwear sets from your weird Uncle Norbert now serving time up in Attica for crimes no one in the family wants to talk about. Maybe it was the classic laurel shirt that looked perfect in the store that somehow managed to morph on the way home into the brightest item of shamrock green ever seen this side of St. Patrick's day. Whatever items like these that you have, they are no doubt stacked somewhere in a corner of your house, because you just can't bring yourself to throw them away without wearing them, while at the same time you know that giving them to a clothing drive so that somebody else could wear them would be pointless, because they don't want them either.
Well, here's what to do. Gather all of them the next time you're heading on vacation and throw them into your suitcase. Problem solved. You've now created the perfect travel wardrobe!
First of all, you're going away, and no one knows you there, so you can wear any damned thing and not have to worry about it.
Second, and here's the beauty of it, after you wear any of this stuff, thus eliminating the guilt of not wearing it, you throw it away at the end of the day. You won't have to do laundry, which is always a drag on vacation, because the cleaners take it out in the trash every morning and you never see it again. (Maybe they'll wear it. Maybe polyester vests are big where you're going.) And finally, you'll be steadily emptying your suitcase, making space you otherwise wouldn't have had for souvenirs. I mean, who can go to Paris and not buy a beret to fit in with all the French people? And you know you want that Eiffel Tower with the barometer in it, if only you had a way to carry it home. Going to the Vatican? A pieta with a barometer to match the one from the Paris trip? Of course you want it, if you only had a way to carry it home. A Big Ben with a barometer where the clock ought to be? A leaning tower of Pisa barometer? Your house needs these decorations, and now you'll have a way to acquire them all.
And finally, by bringing all of your soon-to-be castoffs to foreign shores, you'll be making space in that corner of your home for all the new clothes you will inevitably acquire by misadventure sooner or later, while at the same time always knowing the air pressure, if you can get any of those barometers to work.
Genius, or what?
Well, here's what to do. Gather all of them the next time you're heading on vacation and throw them into your suitcase. Problem solved. You've now created the perfect travel wardrobe!
First of all, you're going away, and no one knows you there, so you can wear any damned thing and not have to worry about it.
Second, and here's the beauty of it, after you wear any of this stuff, thus eliminating the guilt of not wearing it, you throw it away at the end of the day. You won't have to do laundry, which is always a drag on vacation, because the cleaners take it out in the trash every morning and you never see it again. (Maybe they'll wear it. Maybe polyester vests are big where you're going.) And finally, you'll be steadily emptying your suitcase, making space you otherwise wouldn't have had for souvenirs. I mean, who can go to Paris and not buy a beret to fit in with all the French people? And you know you want that Eiffel Tower with the barometer in it, if only you had a way to carry it home. Going to the Vatican? A pieta with a barometer to match the one from the Paris trip? Of course you want it, if you only had a way to carry it home. A Big Ben with a barometer where the clock ought to be? A leaning tower of Pisa barometer? Your house needs these decorations, and now you'll have a way to acquire them all.
And finally, by bringing all of your soon-to-be castoffs to foreign shores, you'll be making space in that corner of your home for all the new clothes you will inevitably acquire by misadventure sooner or later, while at the same time always knowing the air pressure, if you can get any of those barometers to work.
Genius, or what?
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