WARNING: This is a Mouthfull of Piss and Vinegar and It's Not At All Politically Correct.................whatever that is

I am becoming one of those "OLD" people. You know, when you were a kid, there was always that token adult that didn't begin a statement without first saying, "I remember when.......the world was a better place." Being a child of the Seventies (1970's) that's hard to say with a straight face HOWEVER........ "I remember when..............
* Donna Reed re-runs were still on TV, Mrs. Brady ruled, and Beaver Cleaver (in re-runs) was considered ornery. While I'm all for freedom of the arts, and I have a fond appreciation for the entertainment value of Charlie Sheen, and secretly worry that Angus T. Jones will grow up to be like him, or worse, someday - reality TV has ruined all social civility for an entire generation. If you mimic, or aspire to be a Jersey Shore whore, "house wive" of Beverly Hills, Atlanta, Jersey, Basketball, or Mob, a Bachelor or Bachelorette - raise your standards for yourself and quit expecting the rest of us to tolerate the trailer trash standards you've set for yourself. It's EXHAUSTING and YOU'RE NOT WORTH IT but you could be worth so much more if only you would raise your own bar. And if you think being an asshole in the workplace makes you Donald Trump - you're a FUCKING IDIOT!! And the asshole you are behaving like on solidifies that. It's bad enough that those of us who have struggled gain and perfect all of the legitimate skills on our resumes while working another full time sideshow at they gym to keep up with the Barbie Doll expectations we've set for ourselves (yes. I admit it. I am flawed beyond all common sense) have had to put up with cock-suckers like Monica Lewinski who tried to take a low class short cut to success. Fire Me! I don't give a damn! You won't be the first! I showed up for work one day wearing a black "You're Fired" T-shirt just because I knew it was coming. It did! Now ten years later those losers are still stuck in the same gray cubicles and I'm surviving just fine NOT in that damn little caged in excuse for a life. Speaking of which...........

* "I remember when"............. we took long, mindless road trips with no destination in mind and no itenerary. We would stay and little "mom and pop motels" along the road that were generally hotels built near the highway in rural areas by people who had worked their lives on a farm or in some field of agriculture, as a retirement plan. They were tiny, clean, and often times the most memorable part of road trips across America because they were operated by the people who built them and spent their lives in the areas tourists like us, "road trippers" had spent their summer vacation to come and see: to Yellowstone National Park, the faces of Mt. Rushmore, the pipe stone quarries of Minnesota, the indian reservations of New Mexico and Arizona, the Texas Hill Country, the Smoky Mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains, all the up to the Catskills and Niagra Falls. In the last 20 or so years, they've been gradually taken over by "foreigners" who bring their own standards for the hospitality industry. I actually had one of these hotel owners tell me one time that a ROOM WITH A LOCK ON THE DOOR would be "$20 extra" - (The Rose Motel - Venice Beach, CA). More than I can begin to count have brought with them a sideline of prostitution. I've actually heard negotiating of room rates by the hour and half hour, and watched people come and go without anyone resembling housekeeping make an appearance in between. But then again, if you're renting rooms by the half hour increments and fucking professionals you probably don't care much about housekeeping. "Mom and Pop" wouldn't have......and that's my point! On that note....

* "I remember when"...... jobs were not offered on the basis of a company getting tax deductions for hiring minorities and parolees. I've given up on the job market. Fuck it! They can have it! I make more money on my own and I don't have to be politically correct about it either. However, I'm traveling A LOT this summer and I'm really FUCKING FED UP with staying in hotels that are run by muther' fuckin' foreigners who know NOTHING about the hospitality industry. If this offends you, I don't give a shit!! Hotel rates of quadrupled in the last ten years and hospitality has disintegrated into oblivion. I travel with my two kitties. I'm not hiding them. I couldn't if I wanted to and I don't want to. They sit on the dash of my car and they're going spend most of their time in the window of any given hotel. I don't leave them in hotels when I am working (right now I wholesale jewelry to retail stores). They go with me. They're on a leash. They get a bath every week. They are incredibly well behaved and they have been welcomed in some very high end boutiques coast to coast. They sit on the floor, never on furniture (unless we are at home) or merchandise - and they do this all by themselves. Why? Because like good little children they want to be included and my rules for them are the same as my mother's were for me when I was 3 years old. "If you would like to join us you are welcome but you will not be ASKED to behave like a grown up. It's expected of you." So imagine my rage when I book reservations in a "pet friendly" motel, drive for hours and hours to get there, only to find that their idea of "pet friendly" is expecting my kitties to be caged for the duration of their stay. HELL FUCKING GODDAMMIT NO!! How would you like it if you had to sit in a cage just slightly bigger than your body for five minutes let alone "the duration of your stay" (Motel 6 - Kerrville, TX). And on that note, what if when we issued your Visa and invited you in, we had issued you a kennel and told you to sit in it for the duration of your stay. Come to think of it - we probably should. The peculiar thing is, when this has come up with hotel owners or managers, they've consistently been foreigners. I've had a few (a much smaller number however) Americans tell us we weren't welcome to rent a room but all of the ones who took my reservation, took my money, and THEN attempted to impose monetary fines or ridiculously inhumane rules, were ALL FOREIGNERS. Go figure!

And if the "pet friendly" issue isn't enough to make my blood boil, there are the name brand hotel chains that have decided it's better to hire an employee that offers a tax benefit to the hotel than one that might actually do a great job and bring in more revenue for doing so, ultimately being more profitable than the tax deduction slackers - parolees....minorities....

Motel 6 - Huntsville, TX: We've stayed in this hotel, in this location, for 20 years now. It's never been a vacation spot but if you're traveling for work and/or on a budget it's always been extremely clean, well maintained, and under great management. 20 years ago, Motel 6's were pretty consistently managed by "mom and pop" couples that were semi-retired, hospitality driven, and of pretty high moral character. Clean, sanitized, no hookers. This location was no exception. Now they seem to have turned their expectations for profits toward tax deductable employees rather than hospitality driven ones and here's what you get....

A nastily stinking room but it was so late the desk clerk wouldn't come back to the window or answer the phone when we tried to get another one. Luckily, or not, I know by now not to travel without Lysol

so after spending an hour and an entire can of disinfectant cleaning the room, I put on my clean pajamas and sat on the bed only to feel something wet soaking up through the mattress, the sheet, the blanket, and the comforter. URINE! The entire mattress was soaked in so much pee it could have only come from an elephant.

You can call the Motel 6 complaint line but they close at 5 pm - ironically before most people check-in. So I called the city police and finally got a reservations agent to get me through to a reservations manager only AFTER I had an argument with the hotel "security guard" who tried to prevent me from speaking with the police officer, who after 4 more hours, got the desk clerk to issue me another room. It was almost 6 am before I got it - check out is noon. But she didn't re-issue another room willingly. She said, "you need to go UPSTAIRS where people like you belong". If by "people like me" she meant what she implied: white, working class, with some level of self respect, what a nice thing to be discriminated against for. Oh!, and that "security guard" - turns out he wasn't employed by the chain at all......or maybe he was, but he's not a security guard - he's a pimp. Big surprise.

If you're blind as a bat, I'm guessing you didn't miss the roach on my toothbrush in that Lysol photo. Same chain - different city. Here's the close up:

If I'm not an all out cheapskate, I am conservative when it comes to expenses when we're on these road trip adventures. As a general rule of thumb, I opt for the less expensive hotels for overnight stays and save up the more expensive hotels for longer stays. If I'm only going to sleep a few hours, shower, and go...I don't see the point in paying extra for all the extras. But when, and WHY did "extras" become clean sheets, toilets that flush, light bulbs that work, and locks on the door?

Part of the sell for Motel 6 is that they're in the process of upgrading and re-designing all of their rooms, and their hotel directory is explicit on which hotels are "new" or "refreshed". Originally we opted only for these. They appear at first to be quite nice for an affordable hotel option - bamboo floors, modern fixtures, flat screen televisions, wifi, and an environmentally friendly philosophy. The televisions are awesome!.......with the exception of turning it on to two dudes having anal sex (Temple, TX). In fairness to that location, they haven't had the upgrade yet so the show was on the old box tv. The two people who woke us up in the middle of the night having sex on the balcony outside our door, that was a bonus live feature. SERIOUSLY! As for 'environmentally friendly', that means their toilets don't flush (Amarillo, TX; Abilene, TX, Victoria, TX, to name only a very few) and many locations claim not to own a plunger for guest use. Sadly, I don't travel with a plunger but in Amarillo, TX the managers husband did bring one to us 4 days after we requested it and just two hours before we checked out after a stay of several days. He knocked on the door and handed it to me with a smile and instructions to "take care of that before you go".

As for the wifi - it's generally another $3 bucks a day. And at the location in Corpus Christi, TX - if we stayed a week (which we did), housekeeping service is $20. We were told upon checking in that they would not provide clean towels or linens, toilet paper, or any housekeeping services at all if we stayed a week without a separate $20 fee. Oh, and.........they failed to mention that the pool is permanantly locked except for the use of the manager and his/her family or friends. Something we also found in Abilene, TX on multiple visits over a period of months. Generally speaking, if the pool looked sanitary enough to actually stick a toe in, it was locked, closed for maintenance, or some other petty excuse. Most of them are filthier than their non-flushing toilets.

So after one more attempt of staying with them in Amarillo, TX and finding a WHOLE LOT OF HAIR in my bed that wasn't mine, we had a conversation with ourselves about priorities and money and expenses, and decided that we could make more money and would quit short changing ourselves to save a buck. Travelling with two kitties, pet friendly (not "pet tolerant") is a MUST!....so we opted for La Quinta. La Quinta has generally been our duration stay hotel choice. They are lovely hotels - well landscaped, super clean, and offer lots of ammenities like sparkling clean pools, waffles for breakfast, newspaper at your door, Beauty Rest mattresses, wifi that is not an up-charge, and if you forgot anything they can generally provide it without a fee or a smart ass remark. Even better, they really love pets!! Minus the fact that they also seem to indulge in the tax deductible employee hiring option which doesn't always serve hotel guests so well (Huntsville, TX - slacker night clerk closed the pool 3 hours early because it easier for him, didn't want to give us a receipt for the cash we paid for the room, and didn't want to give us change for the $100 bill until the next day) - those have been minor aggravations in comparison to the multiple issues we've had with Motel 6.

* Oh! And this is just icing on my cake: I remember when cursive and handwriting were part of the public school curriculum. What next?? Drooling and nose picking as secondary school electives? Add butt picking to the list and your kid might qualify as management with Wal-Mart.

* Dear Fucktards, whoever you are, that are running this country and systematically lowering all the standards with which you do it. For profit, or for what - I don't know. Those of us who live here, who were born here, who have family roots that go back so many generations we would have to be multi-millionaires to leave this fucking mess of a country you are making for us. WE HAVE NOT LOWERED OUR STANDARDS FOR OURSELVES!!! If you want to live with these low standards go find a place where they exist and move yourself there but for God's sake, for our sake, don't keep shoveling that shit our way!!