President Me (6 page)

Okay, so now you know the remote is not the issue. There was no juice flowing to the TV. But the remote is still nothing like the one you, or anyone, has at home. The buttons are confusing and you don't know where the power is, so you just press the biggest button and end up buying
Dolphin Tale 2
. And on this note I'm now declaring that all hotel rooms must possess a DVR. We're ten years into DVRs. Why can't we get them in hotels? I'm constantly watching the news in my room and trying to hit a pause button that isn't there. Plus I'm not spending the whole trip in my room. I'm going to go out and see some sights or do some shows. When I get back to the room I'd like to catch up on my
Real Housewives
like everyone else.

That's if you can find the remote at all. Sometimes it's in the drawer, other times it's Velcroed to the top of the TV. Some of the fancy places store it in an elegant leather book thing, but you think that's the Bible, so you avoid it over the guilt from the copious masturbation you're about to do. Here's my executive order—from now on we put every hotel TV remote on the toilet seat. That way you'll always see it. And while I'm mandating, the maids must change out the batteries on the remote every two weeks.

So you've found your remote, navigated the sea of buttons to turn the TV on, and you're instantly taken to the hotel channel. You know, the station which is just a loop of good-looking people in bathrobes getting massages or having a margarita by the pool with a voice-over telling you to relax, enjoy your stay, and order their world-class room service or an adult movie. Please stop enticing people to fuck on my comforter. I didn't bring my own bed. I'm not sitting in a beanbag in the corner. Plus, you are delivering a mixed message. You've got the TV imploring you to stain my bed, meanwhile in the nightstand next to that bed is a Gideon Bible saying you'll go to hell for it.

Even more annoying is the video loop of all the other hotels in the chain. They're always nicer than the one you're staying in. I was at the Detroit Marriott by the airport sitting on the edge of my bed watching a slide show of all the other exotic locations—white sand beaches on Waikiki, the Sydney Opera House, the Hong Kong skyline. Meanwhile I look out my window and my view is the ass end of the Detroit airport blocked by an air-conditioning condenser covered in snow. From now on, you can only show lesser hotels on this video loop. Which means if I'm at the Detroit Marriott, I should only be seeing the Marriott in Tikrit, Benghazi, or wherever a Blackhawk was down.

I don't need the local magazine either. You know the superglossy, “looks like it's never been read because it hasn't” magazine sitting on the end table with Kathy Ireland on the cover. It's always a D-list celebrity and a bunch of suggestions for shit you're not going to do. I'm not going to go horseback riding or hot-air ballooning. I have plans. Do you think I just woke up in a hotel room in Sacramento and now need to find some romantic day trips? I came here with an agenda. And if I do have time to kill, I'm just going to whip out the iPad and my dick.

A quick story related to this. I was in San Jose doing a show and had some time on my hands and so I thought I'd put my dork
in
my hands. I took out the iPad to let my fingers do the walking and find out what new and innovative porn was coming out of Stuttgart. As I was looking at the smorgasbord of choices on YouPorn I noticed that the pictures were a little blurry. I thought, “Shit, I need my reading glasses.” I can't believe these two things have intersected. I never dreamed I'd be so old that I'd need grandpa bifocals for beating off. If you asked me in high school if I'd still be whacking it after age had wrecked my vision, I would have slapped you. So anyway, I got my reading glasses out, put them on, and went back to work. At a certain point I looked up and caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, pants around my ankles, sporting gray pubes and reading glasses, and thought, “Jesus Christ, Carolla, you have hit rock bottom.”

And on this same note, my government will put an end to all theme hotels. These always seem like a fun idea—“Oh, we're in the Jungle Room”—but this is just for obese middle-aged couples looking to spice up their once-a-year anniversary fuck. So from now on there will be no more Western rooms or Caveman rooms. The only theme at hotels henceforward is “No Stray Pubes.”

On to the hotel coffee. This drives me insane. You always end up making the coffee yourself because they gouge you on the pot you order from room service. That's even more inflated than the in-room porn. A carafe of mediocre black coffee should not cost twenty-three dollars.

So you use the in-room single-cup coffeemaker. The problem is that next to the machine are two little pouches. They're both silver but one has a light ghost of blue lettering that says “decaf.” If you squint and the light hits it just right, you can figure out what the fuck you're about to drink. How many people have been burned by this? The pouch of decaf should be hunting-vest orange.

More accurately, it shouldn't be there at all. I can't stand the lightweight pussy who can't handle a cup of coffee. Why are we at a 50/50 ratio on this? If you had a barbecue, you wouldn't have two ice chests—one full of craft-brew beer and another full of O'Doul's. Starbucks must move less than 10 percent decaf but in the hotel it's 50 percent. There are so many more normal human beings who understand that coffee serves a purpose than these decaf cowards. Need proof? Just go to any self-serve K-cup-style coffeemaker in the hotel lobby kitchenette and notice how the box of regular coffee has, at best, two pods rattling around in it while the decaf dispenser looks like a New York subway car at five o'clock.

There's no federal mandate that says you must provide coffee in the room. This is an added convenience from the hotel. So I am offering a federal mandate:

From now on, my administration demands regular coffee only. If you want decaf, fuck off. Leave the hotel and go to Starbucks. I'm tempted with my fuck-you money to buy a bunch of those empty decaf pouches, fill them with sand and diatomaceous earth, and leave them in hotel rooms. Then when people open them they'll find a note that reads, “Fuck you, pussy.” Coffee serves a purpose. It is a caffeine delivery system. If you drink decaf you don't need coffee. You can get the same effect from a Fresca. It's never like “We're going to be driving all night. I need some decaf” or “Don't mess with me when I first wake up and before I've had my decaf.”

These people are like vegetarians. They don't love decaf, they just want you to know they don't drink caffeine. And to the hotels—why are you limiting me and other regular Joes to one cup of regular joe just to accommodate the handful of babies who can't handle real coffee? From now on you decaf drinkers should not expect the business to accommodate you. If you needed insulin, you wouldn't expect it to be provided. You'd bring it yourself. Are you that delicate? Are you a human being or an inbred poodle?

And while I'm on room service, I'm never sure what to do with the tray. I see it out in the hallway but that feels weird to me. It's not like when you're done eating at a restaurant you throw the plate on the floor. Why is this the practice in a hotel? The Four Seasons in the South of France and the aforementioned Detroit Marriott have the same room-service tray policy. Just slide those half-eaten mashed potatoes out into the hallway. Someone will grab it eventually. In my America, we will bring back the dumbwaiter, a little elevator in the wall in the middle of the hallway where you put your tray and send it down to the Mexicans in the basement.

This “chuck it in the hallway” policy also feels like an invasion of privacy. Against my better instincts I always have to do the math on the guy behind the door when I see his dirty dishes. “Oh, he's an omelet guy. Two glasses—I wonder if he's with his wife or his mistress.” Plus, if I see wasted food I get annoyed. I'm not ashamed to say that I've been more than tempted to grab a couple cold fries or chicken fingers off the spent room-service tray.

And when it comes to room service, why is the tip included? As you might know, I don't like when they add the gratuity at the restaurant if you have the party of six or more. That's just called a tax or a tariff. If you look up “gratuity,” the definition is “a gift or reward, usually of money, for services rendered, given without claim or obligation.” I understand why they think this is necessary, but this isn't the way tipping works. Sometimes you're going to get stiffed, other times Phil Spector is going to come in, order a Shirley Temple, and leave you five hundred bucks. Kimmel tips around 50 percent, my parents are coming in at 9 percent. So it evens out. But why is a tip included in room service? I'm alone in my underpants. That's just one person, not six. And what if you did have six people in your hotel room for a couple of overpriced, underwhelming burgers? Would you waive the tip altogether just to confuse me? Please, let's get our tip shit together.

And when did we sign off on the supercute novelty “Do Not Disturb” signs? It used to just be
DO NOT DISTURB
on one side and
PLEASE MAKE UP ROOM
on the other. Now you see all kinds of silliness. Here are just a few 100 percent real examples—
I NEED A MOMENT
.
MAKE THAT
30 MOMENTS
;
TRANQUILLITY PLEASE
;
BRAINSTORM
:
IT
'
S
REALLY
COMING
DOWN
IN
HERE
.
BETTER
COME
BACK
WHEN
IT
CLEARS
UP
;
IN THE ZONE
.
ONE KNOCK COULD BRING ME OUT OF IT
; and
BUILDING AWESOME PILLOW FORTS
. The only thing I'm doing in my hotel room is napping, shitting, or beating off. That's what they should say:
DO NOT
DISTURB
—
NAPPING
,
SHITTING
,
or
BEATING OFF
on one side and
PLEASE
MAKE
UP
ROOM
—
I
'
M
DONE
NAPPING
,
SHITTING
,
AND
BEATING
OFF
on the other. Also, I know the cleaning crew only speaks Spanish and so do hotel owners, so the cuter you get with the verbiage, the more likely they are to misunderstand the sign and interrupt me during one of those three sacred activities. That said, I'm also doing away with the Spanish version that reads
NO
MOLESTE
. If I'm going to molest someone, or something, in my hotel room, that is my business.

And while we're on the topic of being disturbed, let's do away with the wake-up call, please. These do way more harm than good. There is nothing louder than the phone in a hotel room. You want to be woken up, but you don't want to evacuate your bowels and suffer tinnitus when it startles you from your slumber. And far too often the call doesn't come at the right time. I've had this happen. I was staying in New York last year and my seven
A
.
M
. wake-up call scared me awake promptly at six thirty. You should get a free week's stay at the hotel if that happens. That is an assault. I'd rather have someone kick down my door and rape me awake on time than get called a half hour early.

The only problem with this plan is that fucking alarm clocks in hotels are never positioned the right way. I'm not sleeping on the floor facing the clock, I'm on the bed staring at the fake wood veneer on the side of the clock. This is not helping the anxiety I have about missing my flight if I don't wake up at six
A
.
M
. The same anxiety is keeping me awake, and therefore making the alarm clock necessary.

So you attempt to turn it so you can see it from the bed. But nothing hates turning more than that clock. It's like straightening out an old person. I'm straining harder than Gene Hackman trying to turn that valve in
The Poseidon Adventure
. And sometimes you can get the clock to turn but the cord isn't going along with it. It's hanging on to the back of the nightstand like a villager clinging to a tree in a tsunami. Customer Service 101: in a hotel room, all clocks should be visible from the pillow.

Now let's talk about hotel bathrooms.

I miss the “sanitized for you protection” ribbon on the toilet seat. I'm bringing that back. It made taking a shit feel like a ground-breaking ceremony. I expect to see a guy in a suit with a hard hat and a golden plunger. I always had a dickhead fantasy of sliding the ribbon off, taking a shit, not flushing, and then putting the ribbon back on just to leave a little present for the maid. But I never did it. I just loved the feeling of breaking that ribbon too much. It was like I won some sort of fecal marathon.