They say that “art imitates life”. Well “they” must follow me around. This is the second time I have had a Holiday Inn commercial which has totally depicted my stay at…you guessed it..a Holiday Inn. Here’s the story.
I drove over to my second home (Indiana) very early yesterday morning to put in a full days work with the Exec’s at Corporate. It was a good day, but I was looking forward to crashing at the local Courtyard hotel, which is my hotel of choice. When I got there, for the second visit in a row, they said “sorry…no confirmation”. Last time they were able to hook me up, but this time there was “no room in the inn”. I returned to my car and headed for another local hotel that gives us a corporate rate. Good news, they had two rooms. Bad news…they were both smoking. Onto the next stop.
I ended my search for reasonable lodgings at the local Holiday Inn. They had plenty of rooms. I even got to pick which floor I preferred. I said “first” and within moments had my card key and was on my way to room 127. As I walked down the hall, I noted 2 very long tables with your typical hotel food service platters on them. I also noted that they were DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM MY ROOM. I figured they were leftovers from a days worth of meetings and did my best to not snag a few cookies on my way by. That’s where I was wrong. The fun was just getting started! It would appear that there was some kind of Amway/Pyramid Scheme rah-rah session kicking off that evening. RIGHT ACROSS FROM MY ROOM.
It wasn’t all that bad, but it was a bit embarrassing when I had to make my way through the crowd in the hallway to find the Bennigan’s Restaurant which was attached to said hotel. Luckily, I wasn’t looking for the pool, but I did feel like this guy.
AARON CONRAD 