Gratitude Monday: Hotel accommodation

While I was in D.C. last week, I stayed at a “historic” inn. I was only able to get a room there for the two nights because of their contract with the organization I was interviewing with. Apparently they have a three-night minimum stay during their “high” season, so when I checked online their sits showed no availability. Only after I called their group sales office was I able to book a room.

When I arrived, around 1930 on Wednesday, the room they had for me was obviously for handicapped guests. Bars all around the bathroom walls, and a roll-in, no-barrier shower were the major indicators.

Shower-only was not my preference, but when I asked for a room with a bath tub, the one they showed me was dark, poky and littered with a previous guest’s rubbish. It technically had a tub, but—like the room—it was tiny, and frankly I didn’t even want my feet to touch it, much less my butt. So I asked for the first room back, and was grateful to have something with enough light that I could actually put on my makeup.

(I have a feeling that if I’d booked for three nights, my choice of available rooms would have been wider, but there you go.)

The shower was problematic—the adjustable shower head only ranged from shooting water way over my head to hitting me square in the face; its spray only went horizontally, and I couldn’t change the angle. Also, no place to hold soap; are you meant to put that on the floor? In your lap? Not use it at all? And the temperature barely made it to tepid; I don’t know if that’s a restriction for the disabled or common to the entire hotel, but I like a hot shower.

The room itself was large, albeit with only one actual chair, at the desk. And I had to hop up onto the bed, so I don’t know how someone confined to a wheelchair would have managed without a launching system. But they’d have enjoyed it when they got there, what with the wonderful squishy mattress topping thingie and the 1000-thread count sheets.

But it got me thinking. I have a couple of friends with Multiple Sclerosis, and the extent to which that bastard has constricted their worlds like a cosmic python makes me weep. For two nights, I gave up a very few amenities that I am free to indulge in because my mobility is not restricted by anything worse than stiff joints and sore muscles, and I experienced what my friends would consider a real treat—a first-class hotel room that accommodated their reality.

So I give thanks for the Americans with Disabilities Act that mandates such accommodations in hotels, for the way this place executed on that mandate and for the opportunity to have my perspective recalibrated. All of these are good reasons for my gratitude today.