Hyatt! How're you doing?

When you travel across country to the West Coast (which I have managed to do in the last 24 hours), there are some things that can make you dread the business trip. Planes with little legroom, baggage checks that take you to the breaking point of panic before your suitcase calmly slides out of the chute, and rental cars that are parked as far as possible from the bus drop-off as possible, to name a few. (My theory on that last one is that airport snack paks of peanuts are secretly eleventy billion calories (not to mention a sleep tranquilizer), and the airport decides you need to work off that extra energy by dropping you off at the terminal and your vehicle is parked in…Barstow.

(I actually have no idea where Barstow is.)

But if the airport is the ying of that delicate karmatic balance that is business travel, the hotel does it’s best to bring the yang. All the stresses should theoretically be as useful as an old boarding pass, and once you park that infernal rental in the garage, you should be able to relax before a long week of meetings, conferences, trainings, and the dreaded training conferences for meetings. You slide the fancy keycard in the door, and you’re home. Kind of.

Most major hotel rooms try to make it feel like home by providing many of the guest services that you should be privy to back across the country. They have a bed to sleep on. An alarm clock for you to despise. A TV that even comes with a few extra channels you aren’t accustomed to (I swear, HBO showed “National Treasure” at least three times since I’ve been here. Who do they think they are? TBS?) These are basic services, and I come to expect them when I reserve a hotel room.

Then comes the guesswork.

The hospitality management industry has very little to do with Big Brother. Marriott hasn’t bugged your phone, Hyatt isn’t watching what you buy at the supermarket, and Sheraton doesn’t have a hidden video camera in your smoke detector. Nay, they have no idea what you, the customer, keeps and uses in the comforts of your own residence. Instead, these hoteliers had to get together at some point to determine what else to put in your hotel room so that you can forget this isn’t your bed. And as I look around my 5th floor room at the LaJolla Hyatt, I’ve just got to laugh. They’re not even close.

Sure, there’s a mini-bar with 3 dollar Snickers and 16 dollar Gulliver-bottles of liquor. I could wax comedic on those, but Mitch Hedberg’s material would trump my own, so I’ll explore new territory: The Hotel Bathroom.

A quick inventory of this spacious and strangle place has yielded the following haul of, yes, FREE STUFF!

- No less than SIX various bars of soap. And this doesn’t even include the trusty Irish Spring I packed. The soap can be a traveling dilemma. Let’s say you bring a fresh bar for a three-day trip. Not even Howard Hughes can utilize that much soap in three days. So you are left with soap so specific you need a roadmap. Facial soap. Hand soap. Everyday soap. There’s even a bar with small golf-ball dimples that is packaged as “Massage soap.” With so many, I guarantee by the end of my trip one of these should be re-titled “Lost Track of So I Slipped on It and Broke my Neck” Soap.

- Three liquid soaps that fall in the shampoo family. Hotel shampoo is hilarious to me. Name brands need not apply. They always come from companies that sound like they came up with their name so that they can be part of a Spa. Examples would be things like “Gingeresque” or “Portico” or “Solubility” or “This Came from a Spa.”

- A shower cap. Why? Just to reinforce the fact that Condon has a giant head. No dice.

- Not one, but TWO toilet roll paper dispensers. No comment.

- 1 soft cotton shoe cloth. I guess it’s for hippies who would rather wear fabric on their feet than a good pair of loafers.

- A Shower faucet powered by an airplane turbine. Holy hell, that almost did the job of that latter soap I mentioned. The best part is that the thing is labeled “Oxygenic Skin Care Shower.” That’s like calling an Abrams Tank a “Friend of Fluffy Bunnies.”

Oh, and apparently the hoteliers’ idea of a business traveler is no taller than 5’9”.