I was looking up hotels in Boston because…oh, yeah—I
decided to make the daughter of one of the minor characters in my novel work
for a while at a Boston hotel.
Then I got to wondering if I could remember the name
of the hotel where a Boston native once told me all the high-class hookers
worked. It was Copley something—not the Marriott, because I’ve stayed there and, well, I just know that whatever it was that was the name of this hotel
that was supposed to be Very Old Boston, it wasn’t where I was staying.
But the short end of this story is that, having
trawled around various four- and five-star Boston hotel sites, I hit on that of
the Copley Square Hotel. Not
that I’m saying it was the one in whose lobby the high-class hookers might or
might not have plied their trade, but because it appears to be a high-end hotel
where my minor character’s daughter might have spent a couple of years working.
(Remember? Back in paragraph one?)
I mean—it’s A Boston Boutique Hotel at its Best,
right? Why not?
So I was rooting around the site and came across
the amenities page. Where I just stopped dead in my trawling tracks.
It wasn’t just the free Wi-Fi (usually you only get
free Internet at the low-end hotels), or the free local/800 calls and postage. Nor was it the complimentary seasonal afternoon beverages (would that
be lemonade in the summer or G&T?), or even the overnight shoe shine.
(I do wonder at the “Wine Down Hour”—what does that
even mean? And it seems a little on the parsimonious side to have it only for
one hour and only at a time before a lot of their presumptive business
travelers get out of work.)
No—it’s the “Intuition Specialist services”.
Seriously?
Now, I’m just spitballing here, based on what I get
from an Internet search on “intuition specialist”; but I’m finding it hard to
feature your average guest at a New England hotel calling down to Reception to
book an appointment with an intuitionist. “Listen, I need my auras read ASAP”,
or “I have a bad feeling about tomorrow’s business meeting—get me your psychic,
please.”
I could see something like that at a hotel in LA, or
pretty much anywhere in the Bay Area. But finding it at this establishment just
cracked me up.
Although, looking back at it, I note that here’s one
of the three photos they use on the amenities page:
No—actually, you don’t need any intuition specialist
to know what’s going on there, do you?
I think that photo seals the deal on which hotel was referred to 20 years ago. If you are looking for hotels that might allow for interesting plot points:
ReplyDelete1. a hotel that used to be a county jail
2. a hotel that you can get to via water taxi from the airport
3. a hotel on the waterfront near several well known tourist destinations