David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Nov. 29, 2005

The first seven minutes are the best

I love hotel rooms.

I should qualify that statement. I love hotel rooms when I first walk in them. It starts going downhill after about seven minutes. Oh, but those seven minutes are utter bliss.

I enjoy every feature of a hotel room in those first seven minutes, but I have a few favorites.
First, there's the smell. Some people like new-car smell. I like new-room smell. It's very comforting, almost like the entire room is wrapped in a gigantic paper "sanitized for your protection" toilet seal.

I've noticed, sadly, that you don't always get that new-room smell at every hotel. The cheaper hotels don't have it. They don't want to blow their profit margins on disinfectants and cleaners. You might sense some other, shall we say, distinguishing odors in a cheap hotel, but I guarantee they haven't been "sanitized for your protection."

But it's not just the cheap hotels that lack new-room smell. The expensive hotels don't have it either. It's as though they take great pains and expense to hide that particular scent. Usually you catch a whiff of potpourri or lilac or lavender or something froufrou like that. They try to impress, but when I walk into a hotel room I want to feel as though a nine-person cleaning crew was there just a few moments ago. If the room smells like potpourri, it's like I'm staying at someone's home. I don't want that. I want a cold, impersonal, professional transaction. I pay my bill, they clean the room, and we break ties from there, no questions asked.

I know a clean smell doesn't necessarily mean the room is actually clean. Hotel rooms, even the most expensive ones, are shared by hundreds and hundreds of people every year, and some of those people - and there's no delicate way to say this -- are pigs. I rest easier with a clean smell. Sure I'm diluting myself a bit, but a clean-smelling room is a good start.
Another feature of hotel rooms I love is discovering what little goodies they've left for me. Sometimes you get a bag of snacks. Sometimes a warm cookie. That's nice. Even if I don't like any of the food in the snack bag, at least it shows the hotel is making an effort to please me.

I've never been a coffee achiever, but I like the rooms that have coffee machines. Again, it shows me that the hotel is trying. If I were a coffee drinker, I'd be thrilled beyond repair. Who wants to shuffle down to the "continental breakfast" buffet just for a mug of coffee? Your hair is tussled, you still have gunk in your eyes, you haven't even brushed your teeth yet. I've been to those "continental breakfasts" in the early-morning hours, and I can say one thing with certainty: There are some people in this world who I do not want to see before they've tidied up themselves a bit, and I'm including myself in that group. Believe me, you don't need to see me first thing in the morning. Thankfully, there is but one morning each day. 'Tis a far better thing to percolate in the privacy of one's own room.

Then there's the TV. I love the TV. Even if you're staying at a hotel in your hometown, the channels are different. It's like there's a special cable company just for hotels, or perhaps the hotel manager randomizes the channel numbers at the end of each shift. Either way, it's fun to hunt around for a show. Usually I find two channels I like and use the remote's "previous" button to flip back and forth all night. If a show's not on one of those two channels, I miss it. That's OK. It's part of my hotel experience, and I revel in it.

But as I said, the enjoyment of a hotel room is short-lived. After about seven minutes, the thrill is gone and I find myself staying in yet another hotel room. After those seven minutes, the hotel room is no longer new to me. In the eighth minute, it's mine. I've made my mark. By then I've turned down the bed that was so crisply made that it would impress a Marine drill sergeant. I've wadded up the three pillows at the headboard into a TV perch. I've sullied a hand towel that was so sparkling white the bleach stung my eyes when I dried my face.

And it only gets worse. Before check-out time comes, the towels will be a soggy wad in the corner of the bathroom, the sink will be mortared with toothpaste, a pizza box or two will be stacked atop the tiny trash can, and the super-thermal comforter that felt so suffocatingly hot at 3 a.m. will be stepped on, spilled on and crammed into that little space that doesn't quite go all the way under the bed. The TV remote? Who knows? I lost it before I went to sleep. It's probably intertwined in the comforter. In the morning I change channels manually.

In those first seven minutes, I'm like Martha Stewart enjoying the subtle amenities, relishing the nuances, appreciating the delicate touches. For every minute thereafter, I'm more like a spoiled rock drummer who trashes his hotel just because he read somewhere that Keith Moon used to do it.

I wonder if Keith used to lose his remote, too.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@tds.net