Some Old-fashioned American Hospitality

If I could chronicle my entire stay at 'Homestead Suites, Richardson' into the form of a movie, it would be a runaway box office hit. The movie would be a comedy where in the beginning, everything goes wrong but turns out fine in the end.

Ahem. I'm still waiting for the end though.

But here's how the movie would go:

A very beautiful, petite woman travels halfway across the world to the US of A. 'Would there be any aana motta growing on the trees?' Mocha wonders as she makes her way to the hotel.

Scene changes to where she enters the hotel room. She gasps in delight as she looks at the plush surroundings. 'Very nice' she murmurs to her room mate Kat. Who wouldn't be? Take a look at the pics yourself.

'Don't get yourself too comfy', Kat says. 'The hotel service is terrible'. Mocha rolls her eyes in response.

As the days go by, Mocha finds that Kat is right. The front desk 'help' are hostile people who take offense at everything. The manager is even more incompetent albeit slightly less impolite. As a result, Mocha and Kat suffer through weird hotel room rates, clogged bathtubs and ghostly smoke alarms (it sounds a bit like 'wheeeeeee') which go off only when Mocha and Kat are in the room and strangely goes quiet when a third person enters the scene. Regular weekly cleaning service? Yes, if you could redefine the term 'week'. Simple requests such as 'please, give me a detailed bill in only my name' processed? No way, Jose!

The climax is when Kat leaves for India. Mocha is living alone for a few days. But after one tiring day at work, she finds herself locked out of her own room. Wait a minute. She has already paid the bill. But none of the keys, including the masterkey, work.

'I'm sorry ma'am,' the night personnel informs her, after some investigation. 'You're going to have to spend the night in another room. The technician will be over only tomorrow morning.'

Oh boy, Mocha thinks. But she makes her way to the new room at 1 am in the night, after some office-related chores. She hopes to get a good night's sleep. Enter the NEW ghostly smoke alarm. This one goes a loud beeeep after every 180 seconds. Yes. She actually times it. This is while she tosses and turns in bed. Result: no sleep. And we're talking about a heroine who can sleep through the sounds of a bomb or with the sun right next to her pillow.

The next day morning, the technician arrives and works on the electronic lock. After a few new batteries and some reprogramming later, the door magically opens. But wait a second. The room hasn't been cleaned. And it was supposed to be cleaned on Monday-postponed-courtesy-the-lousy-staff-to-Thursday.

Mocha wearily makes her way to work.

What more surprises await our heroine, you- the audience- ask?

I'm sorry. You're going to have to wait like the rest of em.

Though I'm seriously worried about my - err, I mean - HER plight.

:)