**Warning** This post is gross. I used the words puke/vomit/upchuck/spew at least 10 times. This is not for those with a weak stomach. It may make you want to puke. Sorry.**
This week has been crazy. On Tuesday morning, we woke to a super powerful storm. Seriously, it was epic. Avery had crawled into our bed around 1am, as if she KNEW the shyte was about to hit the atmospheric fan. Sometime around 6:30am we both woke to house shaking thunder and wind, which we thought was sort of cool, until 6:45am when Dave ran into the bedroom screaming “GET UP!!! GET UP!!!! I think a tree fell on the house!!” Of course, I said “No, we would have heard that! That noise was just thunder.” And of course I was so very wrong.
A tree fell on our house!
And, Dave was right under it. See the partially obstructed window? That’s the bathroom. Just to the right of it, where the tree hit, is the shower. That’s where Dave was.
We’re all ok, and our house will be fine, and that’s a blessing as there were many in our neighborhood who didn’t fare as well.
We got the tree off the house. Well, we didn’t, our neighbor’s landscapers did. (THANK YOU R. Patenaude Landscape & Materials!!!) Dave tarped off the holes in our roof (and our neighbor’s)
This post isn’t really about the tree, or the storm, or the damage. Maybe I’ll write more about that another day. This post is about how I checked us in to a hotel.
Because….I’m weak. No, really, had it just been Dave and I, I would have toughed it out. But, with a toddler a power outage is a whole new ballgame! She was hot, she was hungry, she wanted a show, she wanted a freeze pop. She was great all day, really. The excitement of having people stop and take pictures of our house, and walking around the ‘hood to see the destruction, oh and having 4 guys throwing hunks of tree off our roof, kept her entertained. But, there is only so much a girl can take.
We thought we’d go stay with my parents, but I thought it might be fun to get a hotel. A hotel with a pool!! We deserved a little staycation!
We checked in to the La Quinta Inn (the only hotel that still had availability) with the rest of our neighbors (seriously, everyone we met at the hotel was from our neighborhood!) and headed right to the pool!
The glorious, glorious pool! We swam, we laughed, we…smelled something.
“It kind of smells like puke over here.”
It smelled like puke.
I looked across the pool, and there, on the deck, was a dad, mopping up his young son’s spew with the pool towels. Seriously, he used every. single. towel. And then…AND THEN! He just threw all those towels in the family bathroom! What if I needed to use the bathroom? I didn’t. but what if I did! It was now a dead zone. I thought they should shut the door and drywall over it. Nobody should be going in there.
After the clean-up, the mom walked out of the pool area, to tell the hotel staff I assumed.
WRONG!!
She went to get a menu for the local pizza place! WHAT?! Your kid just got sick all over the pool deck, and you’re thinking about eating? Pizza of all things?
AND THEN…
THEY GOT BACK IN THE POOL!!!
They. Got. Back. In!
In fact, they basically forced this screaming, just-puked child into the pool. Who does that?!
OK, so at this point, you’re probably thinking “Why the heck are you still in the pool? Why have you not left to take a scalding, shower? Why aren’t you dousing yourself in hand sanitizer?”
Well, because I had been telling Avery for no less than 7 hours, about how we’d get a hotel and if she’d just play nicely or read, or stop whining, she could go SWIMMING! And the puke wasn’t IN the pool, it was just next to it, and I was hoping that the chlorine would kill off anything that the kid brought in the water with him. I said a prayer to the patron saint of gastrointestinal distress, while trying to convince myself that viruses cannot survive in hotel pools (they totally can)
We tried to stay as far away from these people as possible, and near the ladder in case we needed to make a quick escape.
A hotel staff member came in to the pool area with an armload of clean towels. He opened the dirty towel bin and gasped. Puke.
The mom came over and nonchalantly told him what had occurred, “Oh, my son got sick over there, we cleaned it up with all these towels, so….” then went back to her pizza menu, leaving him staring at the most disgusting load of laundry he’d ever encountered.
He left, and few minutes later a group came in to clean up the mess.
There were four of them. Two men and two women, The looked, silently at the contaminated section of pool deck, and then at each other. Whatever they get paid, it is not enough. They were not dressed appropriately for the task of cleaning up vomit. They were wearing SANDALS! They should have been wearing Hazmat suits. That’s what I would wear if I had to clean up spew of a stranger. At least a gas mask of some sort.
They cleaned, though, honestly, I’m not sure they did that great of a job. I didn’t notice any heavy duty, super toxic cleaning supplies. Which is what prefer to use when dealing with clean-up of this nature. The more toxic the better., because I doubt a spritz of lavender and lemon grass is going to get the job done. I want every germ DEAD! I want their germ families DEAD! I want their houses burned to the GROUND! Sorry. I just really hate puke-bugs.
Let me make it clear, we had a WONDERFUL stay at the La Quinta in Coventry RI. The staff was FANTASTIC, the bed was heavenly, the electricity was a godsend. It was a great staycation!
The next morning, Avery and I got up and had breakfast in bed, then we headed back to the pool. We had a great time swimming, and had the pool to ourselves most of the time, and nobody puked.
As we were leaving, another family came in. The daughter hopped in the pool and made a face.
“It kind of smells like puke over here…”