In order to be a Hotel Dad, or specifically the kind of Hotel Dad I am/was/will hopefully only be for a few days, you really gotta separate the weight from the chaff. When you think you are going to stay in the AirBnb for two weeks but there’s no power and you end up in a hotel, away go two weeks of clothes and most of the the kid’s toys. So long guitar. Bye bye several hundred page biography of Éric Rohmer for research. It’s just what you need.
But even then, the crib isn’t going to fit in the car, especially since you’re only bringing one.
So you drop the family off at the hotel, and you drive back, take the crib apart (for the third time), put it in the car. As you drive, Hotel Dad, you debate whether to park in the loading dock or just drive right downstairs to a parking spot. You opt for the loading dock.
This will be your undoing.
Sort of.
You get upstairs, you build the crib. The baby settles in, your daughter is playing, and you decide you need a cocktail after enduring the challenges of a failed AirBnb and finding a hotel room very quickly that morning and loading/unloading the car for the 3rd time.
So you go and get a whiskey (blurry photo above) and you sip it and it loosens you up. You come back upstairs, plead with your daughter to go to bed, continue your rewatch of Perry Mason season 1 (typical) before passing out. Good work, Hotel Dad. You did it.
An hour later you wake up, go the bathroom, and as you settle back into bed, you think about your car and where you parked it.
You shoot up because you realize you never moved it from the loading dock.
McClane style, you rush out of the room, pulling on you sick new New Balance kicks (typical, Hotel Dad) with no socks (this should tell you how desperate the situation is. The fear of getting sweat on my shoes without socks is really intense for me). You rush to the elevator, cursing yourself, cursing your maker, convinced your grey Honda CRV (TYPICAL!) is sitting in a towed lot somewhere, and the rest of your night will be spent getting it out.
But, wait, there’s a parking permit on the car. With room number. Wouldn’t they call?
This calms you as as you race through the lobby, where there’s a few people still at the bar and a few folks picking at cold dinners. They see you, moving like light speed, the fastest you’ve ever read, looking for any sign of your grey Honda CRV.
And there she is. Untouched. Left alone. No sign of having been moved. Just sitting there. For 4+ hours.
Who is managing this hotel?!
But you’re grateful, Hotel Dad. Nobody noticed. Or they didn’t care. And that’s beautiful. Yay for apathy, in this specific situation. It saved you.
More soon, including asking the age old question of how to entertain a overtired 5 month old in a hotel room.