Days and Night of Life in Hotels

I've been home for two weeks now, dealing with a family emergency that resulted in an almost two week stay in hotels.

Hotels are cool places, sometimes, when you are on vacation. They are not so cool when situations render you unable to get back into your house.

Since this was an unexpected trip and there were a lot of phone calls to make and endless details to take care of, I did not do much shopping. I did take note of the origins of things in our various hotel rooms however.

1) Down comforters-made in China (I forgot to see where the pillows were made)

2) Alarm clock, telephone, hair dryer- all made in China

3) USA Today-a rather crappy paper, but delivered outside your door each day, made in America

4) Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies at the front desk each night (except when someone foolishly put peanut butter cookies out instead)-made in America

5) Daily fresh, hot breakfast-made in America

6) Television-I never did turn it around to see where it was made. Luke and I don't watch t.v., but my mom does, which, by default of a small hotel room, meant I watched it as well. I was too mesmerized by the pretty moving pictures to care where it was made.

Okay, so this list makes hotel life sound pretty sweet and in retrospect, it wasn't so bad. This was due in large part, to the great staff at the Holiday Inn Express in Easton, PA. I highly recommend this hotel, even if they do buy their incredibly comfortable bedding from China.

When we had to check out of the Holiday Inn and went to a motel down the shore, I was too excited to be by the ocean and too sick with a cold or something to care where things were made, unless of course, it was my next meal.

My mom and I did spend several hours accumulating points on the boardwalk, where I feel it is safe to speculate that most of the prizes there were made in China.

My friend Tracey cashed her points in for a wall hanging of a buoy with a scene of tropical fish swimming in the center. It has an optical illusion or something, so the fish appear to be swimming. She plans to hang it in her boat.

It was made in China.

I meant to look for a laser pointer for our cats, but I forgot.

Instead, I relocated two authentic wooden ski balls to my coat pockets since they were not available to "win" with my tickets. If you've never played ski ball, you might not understand the importance of the history behind these balls, which are now being made in plastic to look like wood.

The new balls suck.

They don't have the same feel in your hands.

I could not continue to live a peaceful life knowing I had passed up the chance to own a piece of history. I have no idea where the wooden balls were made, but I'll tell myself they were made in New Jersey.