Don’t Dare Ask For a Washcloth
The Westbury Hotel near Earl’s Court, London.
My girlfriend hadn’t traveled much internationally, and the Westbury was the default option in a package trip we were buying. I tried to tell her it wouldn’t be anywhere near as nice as the average U.S. hotel, but she didn’t believe me.
The common areas of the hotel were fine, if a bit tatty and rundown.
We got to the room, however, and it was a nightmare. There wasn’t a bed: the mattress was actually on the floor. It looked like the carpets hadn’t been vacuumed in a couple weeks, and there were crumbs and crumbled up straw wrappers on the floor. The TV looked like it was from 1994 (this was 2004). There was a small balcony, but someone had removed the doorknob; the ever-resourceful people who owned the place had stuffed paper towels in the holes to keep the cold air out.
The “shower” was a tiny corner of the bathroom. There wasn’t a door or even a “lip” around the shower area – it was just a corner of the room where they’d installed a shower head, drain and curved curtain rod.
The shower curtain was covered in mildew, so you didn’t want to touch it, but that was impossible, even for my 5’2 girlfriend — the shower was that small. This was especially puzzling because the bathroom itself was quite large — almost as large as the bedroom. But here was this 18″ shower that flooded the whole bathroom when you used it.
I think my favorite thing was this exchange between my girlfriend and the front desk girl after we noticed that there wasn’t a washcloth in the room:
Girlfriend: Excuse me, could I get a washcloth? There doesn’t seem to be one in our room.
Front Desk: YOU AMERICANS! EVERY TIME YOU COME YOU ASK FOR WASHCLOTH! WHAT ARE WE, WASHCLOTH FACTORY? PEOPLE ASK ME 50 TIMES A WEEK, ‘YOU HAVE WASHCLOTH?’ I TELL YOU WHAT I TELL THEM — NO! NO WASHCLOTH HERE!
GF: But if you get asked for a washcloth ’50 times a week’, don’t you think that’s a sign you should maybe order some?
Story credit: Reddit / tunaman808