The Decline of Civilization

The desk clerk tried to hand back my parking slip, but I made no move to accept it.

“We are unable to validate” she said. “It’s twenty dollars. You pay at the cashier’s window.”

“As I explained, I’m the hotel doctor. They let me park.”

“Unfortunately, the hotel doesn’t own our parking service, so we have no control over the charges.”

“That’s true for most hotels, but they let me park.”

“Let me speak to my manager.”

It was a stretch to call myself that hotel’s doctor. The Mondrian was not a regular although I’d been there a dozen times over the years with no problem. Several minutes passed before the clerk returned.

“Regretfully, my manager says we’re unable to validate. The hotel doesn’t own our parking service, so we have no control over the charges.”

Not willing to hassle hotel staff, I took the slip. I’m not poor, but paying twenty dollars at a fraction of my hotel visits per year, say a hundred, is serious money. This is happening more often.

A Difficult Hotel

The J.W. Marriott is not a regular, but its doctor is not a friend, so I don’t turn down its calls which arrive now and then.

Driving downtown, I had no worries about the patient but recalled that visiting the J.W. Marriott was often an unpleasant experience. Sure enough, the valet ignored a request to hold my car, gave me a parking slip, and drove the car deep into the bowels of the hotel.

The elevator required a room key. I waited for a guest, but apparently new technology makes it impossible to piggy-back on another’s key. I walked to the front desk and asked to use the elevator. This struck the clerk as a suspicious request.

An elderly man in a suit, carrying a doctor’s bag, and claiming to be a doctor might or might not be telling the truth. She politely quizzed me on my motives, phoned the room to confirm, and then asked me to wait while she summoned a security officer.

The officer remained at my side until the guest opened the door. After the visit, I returned to the lobby and handed over the parking slip. The desk clerk stared at it as if she had never seen one and then excused herself to consult the manager.

I waited several minutes until she returned to hand back the slip and explain that the hotel “was unable” to validate parking.

Downtown hotel parking is brutally expensive, and I remembered the same difficulty during earlier visits. Everyone hates hotel parking, so its cashiers are immune to arguments. I scribbled “hotel doctor” on the slip, shoved it through the window, and hurried away to stand at the curb. No one ran after me, and after a few minutes my car appeared. I don’t do that often, but so far it’s always worked.