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"geg6's Not So Excellent Adventure"
geg6 14941 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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06-07-04, 12:16 PM (EST)
 
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"geg6's Not So Excellent Adventure" |
So....BF and I went to Chicago this past weekend for his niece's high school graduation celebration. She's a great kid and this was a big deal since she got a full academic ride to Loyola and, as a student aid officer, I can truly appreciate that. So we went to give her props as she deserved.At the last minute, BF's parents (who are quite elderly, infirm, and crotchety--especially with me, the harlot who has lived with their precious son without the benefit of a good Catholic marriage for the last 18 years) decide they want to go. No problem ticketwise, since BF's brother works for United. We get hotel reservations, get on the plane Friday, and arrive no problem. Mom and Dad are too tired to be a problem. Saturday arrives, we go to help put the party together and head to the party. Everything seems good. Mom hangs on me a bit too much for my pleasure, but so what? Dad insists on taking several walks through the park despite his recent mini-stroke, complications due to diabetes, and ramifications of 3 brain surgeries over the last 15 or so years. BF and I think this is good--they'll be good and tired early and we can put them to bed and get back to really begin partying. Lo and behold, by 6pm they are ready to get back to hotel. We take them back and notice there are some difficulties with electricity (some outlets not working, but nothing serious). We put them in bed, make sure they have snacks and OJ, turn on TV and head back to party. We have a great time with niece and two nephews for several more hours and head back to hotel ourselves as we must be at the airport by 9:30am Sunday. We go into our room without checking on Mom and Dad since they were surely asleep and, if they had a problem, we both had our cells on and hadn't received any calls. When we got to our room, we noticed that the electricity was still problematic--no TV or bathroom lights. Okay, no problem we had main room lights, emergency lights, outside lights. BF talked to front desk, they said problem would be solved within an hour or so. I went outside to have a quick smoke and while there, a police officer saw me come out of our room and chased me outside. He asked if I was related to BF's parents. Puzzled and not about the explain the not-married situation, I said that they were my in-laws. He said that they were relieved to finally find us and that Mom and Dad were at a local hospital, something about a drug interaction or something. Well, needless to say I went into on-the-road crisis mode and quickly grabbed BF from room. We asked the cop why no one contacted us by cell phone and how to get to hospital. He said that Mom forgot our cell numbers (although programmed into her cell and her a former emergency room nurse!) and that they had gotten the local son and daughter-in-law to come to the hotel to take us. Well, only DIL shows up with niece and we all head to hospital. The story finally turns out to be that Dad, pissed and stomping around due to lack of TV (due to electrical problems) and Mom's nagging him to death about his meds, grabs his meds case and downs his next two doses of one of his meds without even looking or thinking about it. Mom is in too much of a tizzy (did I mention she was an ER head nurse?) to even check which med (diabetes med--not so much a problem; brain meds--big problem). After several hours of monitoring and BF and I counting out his many meds, we determine it was diabetes meds and that he can be monitored by us and probably controlled through diet. We troop back to hotel (it's now about 12:30am), request a room move for Mom and Dad that has more lighting, move Mom and Dad, and fall into bed. The next thing I know BF is waking me up from a dead sleep. It is pitch dark. He says that all electricity in hotel is out, even emergency lighting. That means no fire alarms or sprinkler systems. He has gone to front desk to get the story and is royally POd that hotel has not been evacuated (door keys were not working, no lights in hallways, no telephone service). He has insisted that they transfer our reservations to another hotel in chain nearer to O'Hare and we are going to pack up and drive to that hotel. Problem is, we have no idea how to get there, the directions they gave us sucked, and we had to get Mom and Dad up and packed, and it is now 2am. By 2:30 we are on the road and promptly get lost. We are driving around blindly until 3:30am when brother gets up for work. We call him for directions and go on our way. Turns out, he was thinking of the wrong hotel. We finally found the right one at 5am. Mom and Dad got into bed ASAP while we took care of getting their stuff ready for the morning...oops, it already was. We got into bed for another hour or so, then got up so that Mom and Dad could have breakfast. None for me and BF as we had to pack things up and make arrangements for wheelchairs at airport, etc. I won't even go into the airport trauma and getting Mom and Dad another meal we didn't partake in and getting them home and settled in, but suffice it to say that we left Chicago at 11:10am, arrived in Pittsburgh at 1:40pm, and by the time we got to our house (about 30 min. from the airport), it was 5:30pm. It was truly a relief to get back to work today. I have made two resolutions due to this misadventure. First, I will be contacting the corporate headquarters of the hotel to let them know exactly what I think of their management, who thought that the electrical situation was something that could be overlooked in a hotel full of elderly people and people with babies and small children (it's near a major amusement park). A fire at that point could have been a disaster. Second, I have told BF that there will be no more travel with his parents. They (and he) need to be realistic about their physical, mental, and emotional limitations and my ability and willingness to be patient and cope with those limitations. Before my parents died, they would have been mortified to have subjected us to that kind of hassle and they were never as helpless or frail (well, my mom was physically frail but certainly not mentally or emotionally). Am I wrong on either count? I don't know and don't care at this point. All I know is that we go on OUR vacation in two weeks and I erased my cell number from Mom's cell. She can call BF's sister (who incidentally lives across the street from Mom and Dad) and let her deal with the emergencies for once. 
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seahorse 14337 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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06-07-04, 12:27 PM (EST)
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1. "RE: geg6's Not So Excellent Adventure" |
What an excruciating weekend you had to go through, sort of like a vacation from hell.
ŠSlice & Dice Chop Shop 2004
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Schnookie Palookie 16822 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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06-07-04, 12:29 PM (EST)
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2. "RE: geg6's Not So Excellent Adventure" |
First of all, congrats to your niece on her graduation and scholarship.Secondly, I would definitely write a letter to the hotel headquarters. They need to hear about it. You deserve a medal. What a terrible experience. I do feel bad for everyone involved. I have absolutely no patience so I can't say that I would want to go through something like that. I am chuckling though that you erased your cell # from her phone  
An IceCat Classic
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