Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Post Card from Hell

This past weekend we went to Louisville for the State Fair. Contrary to all my other thousands of entries about my adventures, this one was a little off the bullseye.

It started off with us stuck in traffic for 40 minutes trying to enter the fair grounds. It was a three block trek, for the love of God! It seems all the traffic control people they hired were trained...wait! they were not trained. It was all I could do not to put the car in park and rush out into the intersection and take over for those poor women. Yes, they were women! Hired purposely for this event. I was not a very good citizen and made my way into a turning lane I CREATED.....Thankfully, many followed behind me!

The fair was fun. Spent most our time in the event arena checking out the cow shows, the bunnies and all of the exhibits. There was the most fantastic amateur photography display. I'm thinking of submitting one next year. Black and white.

We stayed at a motel in another area of town. Joe and his daughter spent the late afternoon in the pool while I finished the book The Lovely Bones. It was a terrific read. It is so wonderful to read in a hotel room. No dishes in the sink calling out to you, no tomato bushes that need to be staked, no nagging guilt that you have not driven across town to visit your parents. Wonderful.

Then to a restaurant, which I have decided not to name, but I would love to! We were told the wait for a table would be a half hour and were given a small disc that lit up when your table was ready. We were there for a long time...Longer than a half hour. We sent Joe's daughter to investigate while I sent Joe to the bar. She came back with the message that we were next. Well, we weren't! Now at least I had a glass of wine to keep me occupied. When it was gone, and we were still sitting, I went over and asked. Seems that we had already been seated! I was ticked off! It appears that our pager number was erroneously given to others and we were overlooked. How long would we have to sit there waiting until they noticed? I am in the people pleasing business and this is not the way to treat your customers. We left.

McDonalds......I'll say no more.

When we returned to the hotel room the bathroom was flooded! Not really really bad, but it was in the wall coming from upstairs and puddling the entire bathroom floor. The maintenance man was there in minutes, assessed the situation and asked us if we wanted to move. That would have been too much effort, so we stayed in the room. He brought us plenty of towles to soak it up!

I was awakened at 6am by Joe head butting me. He said I laid there with both my hands covering my forehead, moaning for five minutes. I hate double beds....they are too small.

Other than all that....it was a good week-end.

 

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

1. I have gotten out and helped direct traffic when my patience dissapeared.  When they saw I was doing a better job of it, they told me to park free anywhere I wanted if I'd just do the traffic thing for 30 minutes.  Parking was $8, so I said sure and parked by the front entrance. 2.  The Lovely Bones was just wonderful.  I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. 3.  If a restaurant has to give me a pager, I won't eat there. They always mess up. Glad it was a good weekend.

Anonymous said...

Well, at least the fair was fun...  As for the rest...how would you be able to enjoy GOOD accomodations if you were never subjected to BAD ones?  That's one way of looking at it, anyway....  Lisa  :-]

Anonymous said...

Oh I hate the state fair. I have not gone for years because I dont wnat to kill anyone. !!!!!!!! Its safer for everyone else LOL Well we had a bad experience it was at the noodle grill (I renamed it LOL ) Well we wont eat there again. No appetizers and few side dishes and well not much of a menu. The bread was free thank God becuse $48 for Hubby and me with no appetizers just one drink and one main dish and hub had a small side salad added on to his was way too pricey for a resturant of this type. I am telling you Rachael and I had just eaten at Olive Garden in Lexington for $36 for the two of us and I had two drinks. Mine was a sicillian splash and It was so refreshing. Sprite, white grape juice and orange syrup. YUM YUM> Gotta have one of those. yes siree. Anyway the salad as most know is free there and tons of it as well as the bread sticks. We had dessert too. The dessert at the other place was a small sampler of three kinds. Dried out choclate cake with little flavor, and Tiramsu which was bitter as coffee grinds out the pot from last night. Nothing like Tiramsu I have eaten many places. The other dessert was a small piece of lemon cheese cake. I do have to say it was a nicelemony flavor but the cake pieces were like 1 inch by 2 inchs. IN fact the girls tried the left overs and this was the first time they ever trashed them and did not finish them. SOunds like a bad time for resturants. Though I do have to give them this. They said a 45 min wait it was more like 15 but we went in and could  not figure out why there was any wait!!!!!!!!  there were empty tables all over the place and it was noisy inside boy was it noisy!!!!!!  SO sounds like we had a similar experience. Not to mention my day yesterday I posted about UGH Just a  bad week in general. Did you go to any conerts at the fair??????

Anonymous said...

oh my! Funny, in my old life a kingsize bed was not big enough to get away from the X.... in my new life with Virginia, I love a double bed. So glad you survived!!!

Anonymous said...

You are such a rebel!  Your own turning lane...I believe it!  Always the leader!

Anonymous said...

((((MARY))))

It sounds like National Lampoon was stalking you. LOL. We stayed at a five star hotel once in Santa Barbara and one night we came back to an infestation of ants. I mean ANTS it looked like a Stephen King situation. Vacations...you just never know what will happen. At least the exhibits were fun.

Take care, Always Carly :)

Anonymous said...

I felt like I was at the fair on a rollercoaster reading that entry.  I understand the feeling, I would not had wanted to move either.  Good for you getting a good read in, it is always so nice.  Double beds are too small.

Anonymous said...

Sorry your hotel got flooded. But ya know what you said about reading the book in the room. I can't begin to tell you how many times I have had that fantasy. Running away to local hotel alone..just to sit and read quietly.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like Murphy's law. What can I say! Hope you didn't tip anyone.

Anonymous said...

Well, it sounds like it was more or less a fun weekend, even with the mishaps.
I read that book The Lovely Bones and really liked it.

Anonymous said...

I figure any time the high point of your day is looking at cows, things have not gone well. I have a friend who stopped drinking after he got out of his car and started directing traffic at a busy traffic circle...naked.

Anonymous said...

Other than that.....Awww
V

Anonymous said...

Sounds like fun.  I hate double beds too!

Anonymous said...

Well at least you got to read a good book. By the way, the AOL story boards can be found by typing in keyword Novel. Welcome back!

Anonymous said...

Bet you're glad to be home!

E

Anonymous said...

We came into the fairgrounds the back way, but it was still a good 40 minutes after we got in until we parked.  The 12-year olds that were doing the parking...I'll say no more.  Then we didn't leave until after 10 p.m. and we had parked on the other side of the South Wing...which closes at 10...and we had to walk all the way around all that construction...why are they doing construction during the State Fair, anyway?

I'm glad to hear it was a good weekend other than, well, everything, it seems!  I'm dying to know which restaurant it was...

Anonymous said...

I hope that you at least got that wine on the house after that happened to you!  I've had something like that happen to us and I've sworn I'd never go back to that resturant as we waited what felt like an eternity.  It was well over a half hour and we had been told 15 minutes.  I went to check up several times to be told we would be called in just a couple of minutes.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Monica

Anonymous said...

No rain for me at the Cincinnatti game! Thanks a ton!  The Card's lost though :(  Remind me to watch out for you on the road! jk  
-Your Library friend, John

StlouisCardinals.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

    In the words of Onslow, from BBCA's  "Keeping Up Appearances,"
"I know the feeling."

Anonymous said...

hey there Mary, i have missed you a lot.  i've been totally consumed with political activity, and now school has started, so i'm back to teaching into the bargain.  i enjoyed this post, and read back through your most recent others.  i love when you talk about your trips, even this one.  state fairs are da bomb, aren't they?  i missed ours this year, but the animals are always my favorite things.  especially the pigs, for some reason.

Anonymous said...

Once in a nonsmoking hotel suite in Williamsburg we (my dad, stepmother, stepsisters and me) had a problem with multiple backed up sinks due to a large quantity of cigarette ashes in one of them.  The hotel had to bring in a plumber, who had to go out on a Friday night and buy a bigger snake. The hotel never explained how all that black gunk got into that sink, but it seems likely that someone on the housekeeping staff had come up with a few unauthorized procedures of her own.

Longest ever wait for a table by John and me: Outback Steakhouse, about an hour and a half.  John was so angry by then he refused to eat. (Usually he won't wait ten minutes for a table.) - Karen

Anonymous said...

"He said I laid there with both my hands covering my forehead, moaning for five minutes."

That must have been SOME dream! I'm surprised he didn't get jealous.
:-) ---Robbie