Why I Hate to Travel
by Debi Orton
If you pick up any book on astrological signs, the one thing you're sure to find in all of them is that people born under the sign of Sagittarius — as I am — love to travel. I do enjoy getting away every once in a while, but it has to be on my terms...and my terms are not compatible with passes for public transportation these days.
In January, I received an e-mail from someone at a PR firm, congratulating me on winning the grand prize in a contest that I'd entered. I nearly deleted it, thinking it was spam. But something made me take a closer look, and after several exchanges with the person assigned to this contest, began to think that this was the real deal.
The grand prize included a some-expenses-paid trip for two to the Grammy awards in Los Angeles. I asked a friend from work to accompany me, and we breathlessly counted down the days until our departure. We coordinated outfits, discussed other logistics, and finally, the day of departure was upon us.
I won't bore you with the details of our trip. The weather was fine and we eventually got into L. A. on time. We made the mistake of grabbing a taxi from the airport to the hotel, which cost us (with tip) $60.00. Unfortunately, the hotel couldn't find our reservations, which were supposed to be made in our names. However, they still had available rooms, so I offered up one of my credit cards, and we had a room.
I'd been getting periodic phone calls since we landed in L. A. from a man named Ryan who said he had our Grammy tickets. Ryan showed up at our hotel room door, and after checking my ID to be sure I was the right person, handed us a packet which included our tickets. I made a sarcastic comment to the effect that at least that part of the prize came through as advertised. He asked what happened, and I told him about the taxi from the airport and the mix-up over the reservations.
Ryan left and promised he'd try to straighten it out. Half an hour later, I got a call from someone named Ramon who apologized. Fulfillment of the trip had been subcontracted to their company, and he had made our reservations in his name so that he could get the points. With his confirmation number in hand, I went down to the registration desk and straightened it out.
It was nearly 7:00 p.m. We'd gone through the whole day without anything more substantial that the "boxed lunch" Southwestern supplied somewhere between Nashville and L. A. It was humid in Los Angeles, and very warm. My friend and I had investigated the hotel's web site and had our hearts set on going to the steakhouse/restaurant at the top of the hotel. My friend called to ask if reservations were required. The earliest available reservation was for 10:30. We knew we wouldn't make it that long, so we left the room to see what the hotel's other restaurants had to offer. We found a very nice Chinese restaurant, ordered and enjoyed our meals.
After dinner, my friend went outside to smoke a cigarette, while I went straight to our room to take a shower. I walked up to our room, and swiped my card-key. Nothing happened. I went back down to the registration desk to ask what was wrong.
"Did you have your cell phone with you?" the desk clerk asked.
I nodded.
"Did it ring?"
I nodded again. We'd asked Ryan if we could take cameras to the Grammys, and he promised to find out for us. He called to say cameras, even cell phone cameras, were prohibited. My friend and I were very disappointed
"Your cell phone wiped out the mag stripe on the back of your card. I'll have to reprogram it."
I looked around the lobby. Nearly everyone held a cell phone to their ear, and the few who didn't wore Bluetooth headsets. I wondered how many times a night these guys had to reprogram card keys.
One of my friend's sisters lives in L.A., so she met up with her Sunday morning to go to church together. I had time for a leisurely room service breakfast of Eggs Benedict, after which I ran downstairs to have the concierge print out our boarding passes and arrange for a shuttle to the airport on Monday morning. I was lounging around the room, reading a book when I heard a knock at the door. My friend's keycard had also failed.
We spent most of Sunday afternoon sitting in a dark auditorium watching them give out the "early Grammys." It was a nice ceremony, that went at a very fast pace: 97 awards given out in two and a half hours. At least 60% of the winners were not in attendance, so that helped enormously.
When that ceremony ended, we were ushered out of the Los Angeles Convention Center and into the Staples Center via "the VIP entrance." The organizers weren't fooling anyone. They just didn't want us cluttering up their red carpet. I had been sure that our tickets would be for nosebleed seats, but to my surprise, we were approximately 50' from the stage, in the second tier of seats with a clear view of all the celebrities and mayhem on the floor of the Staples Center.
The show was awesome, and we had invitations to the official after party. It was quickly apparent that this was the party for the industry functionaries, not for the artists themselves. Again, a huge room chock full of people, all of whom were plugged into some kind of telecommunication device. There were clusters of people, all of whom were talking on their telephones. It was really very bizarre. To be truthful, there were a few tables where people were actually talking to other people, face-to-face, no communication devices required.
Between the various promotional booths, a Chinese marching band and dragon dancers celebrating the Chinese New Year, 'flashdanders' bumping and grinding on platforms atop all the bars, and other street theater sorts of performances (e.g., men dressed as women leading other young men dressed in only a speedo and sunglasses mocking bondage and discipline games...we had all the L.A. we wanted. Of course, all the streets around the venue were cordoned off, so there was no hope of a taxi. My friend and I ended up taking off our girl shoes and walking eight blocks through the streets of L. A. to return to our hotel.
But the best part of the whole trip was that when we returned to our rooms late Sunday night ... the keycard worked.