Free skibs: Rockin' it out bare-butt in Scranton

This is supposed to be a fine hotel. It's the Marriott for christ's sake, and it runs about $150 a night, including the corporate discount. I would think that for that amount of money, I wouldn't be forced to deal directly with some stranger's dirty tighty whities. Do the maids even vacuum under the beds here? I think they need to deploy a fleet of these:


Industrial strength, heavy duty underwear-sucking Roombas to go room to room snagging errant skivvies and other detritus from under the beds.

Here's what happened: I was so tired when I got back to my room that I fell face first on the bed and slept straight through what was supposed to be "going to the gym." Feeling guilty about that, I decided to do a few pushups after I ate dinner. Somewhere around push-up number twenty, I noticed a flash of white. There was something sticking out from under the coverlet on the bed. I thought it was one of my socks, so after I finished the push-ups, I reached down and grabbed it. I had it in my hand before I realized that:

1. It wasn't a sock
2. It was, in fact, a pair of someone else's dirty underwear and,
3. They were HUGE.

Granted, I didn't spend a lot of time examining them once I realized what they were, but whoever the guy was who left them here had to go at least three times my size. I can almost guarantee that he did not lose them doing anything resembling pushups. More likely, he dropped them by mistake and the act of just thinking about the exertion required to bend down and pick them up caused him to break a sweat, so he just gave them a quick shove under the bed with his foot.

There was no convenient time stamp or expiration date on them, so it was hard to judge just how long they had been there. I figured they were really too big for me and probably way past their prime, so I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances: I opened the door and kicked them into the hallway, half on top of my empty room service tray. Let the room services people make of that what they may.

The next thing I did was tentatively check under the other bed. I was cautiously optimistic that I would find nothing even more disgusting, and in this I got lucky. I half expected used snake skins, but the worst of it was an empty jolly rancher candy wrapper. So maybe the underwear Roomba isn't strictly necessary, but I feel it would still be really useful in a situation like this, just so I didn't have to actually touch them.

"Roomba! To the underwear!"

The housekeepers could send them in like one of those bomb-defusing robots or something. Encapsulate the undies and then run them to a safe place before detonating.

So I learned something new this trip. Check under the beds in addition to behind the bathroom door for other peoples clothing. You might score some decent britches. My friend got some lingerie for his wife that way. No such luck for my wife, dammit.

This reminds me of my last trip to Chicago. On that fateful journey, I learned another important and disgusting lesson.

Lesson: No matter how expensive the hotel, they do not wash the top bedspreads.

Always, always, always peel them off by one corner and let them fall to the floor. I cannot stress this enough. Last time I was there, I pulled down my covers and the inside of the top one had boot-knockin' skidmarks on it. Clearly, someone was in a major hurry. And this hotel ran close to three bills a night.

I kicked that into the hallway too. Then I slept in the tub.