Hotels

Unless you have a relative, friend, or a hookup on a free condo close by, traveling will likely result in a hotel (or motel) stay. There isn't a bigger gamble involved in traveling than exchanging money for keys to a hotel room, especially if you blindly booked the room over the phone or internet, and double especially if you know nothing about the area you're visiting. Even with a chain you trust, you're rolling the dice on a 50/50 chance of a pleasant stay or a scene from Psycho.

Pleasant or not, the idea of thousands upon thousands of people taking turns sleeping in the same bed is extremely weird to me, and to a point uncomfortable. We don't know these (literal) strange bedfellows, nor do we know the history of that bed. And, like the ingredients of a hotdog, those mysteries are probably best left unsolved. We instead just close our eyes and hold tight, horizontal between those Egyptian-cotton bed sheets, to the extraordinarily minute likelihood that perhaps the laundry detergent the hotel used eradicated every microbial bit of evidence of any previous human contact with those sheets.

The best part about staying in a hotel room is, outside of holding a rock star after-party, you are virtually free of any normal, humane responsibilities. Included in the outrageous price of the room (which somehow tends to rate about ¼ of a monthly mortgage payment per night) are limitless laziness and irresponsibility. Leaving the room looking like a train wreck is not only acceptable, it's expected. Not that I am encouraging anyone to depart from a hotel with their room resembling an al-Qaeda hideout, but the option is basically there. You just can't beat hotel housekeeping.

Now, that said, I personally try my very hardest to upkeep my room while visiting. Besides the fact that I prefer not to voluntarily subject myself or my living quarters to filth, even if only temporarily, I have immense empathy for people who are subjugated to housekeeping duties for 40 hours a week, cleaning up the mess and debris of others while trying to maintain their own self-respect, so I always put forth some effort in not coming across as a total slob.

I wonder how clean housekeeping employees' hotel rooms are when they're on vacation. It would make my day to know they unapologetically wreak havoc, strewing towels, bedspreads, and toiletries across the room in a free-spirited, rebellious rage.

Free Food

Already I bet you're alert and interested in reading because of the subject matter alone. Perhaps you're thinking about the last situation in which you encountered a smorgasbord of free food, or how freaking sweet it would be if you turned your head 90 degrees right now and saw a mountain of whatever your culinary vice mysteriously piled upon a plate with a small sign on top that simply read, "Free." Perhaps you're even salivating right now. Wait, what's that? Was that a stomach grumble I just heard electronically through the computer monitor despite the fact that that's impossible and also you're not reading this in real time as I write? Amazing.

If any of the above applied to you right now -- without so much as seeing a picture of anything edible -- you have just witnessed the power of food. Especially when the word "food" is preceded by the single qualifier "free."

So powerful is free food that it entices you to do, say, or attend things you normally wouldn't. I can't say with scientific certainty this is true, but I would guess there is more scientific truth to that claim than anything you tried proving with your grade school baking-soda-and-vinegar volcano.

Mmm... baking soda and vinegar. With rainbow sprinkles? For free?

Think for a moment about the last wedding you attended that you really didn't want to but did anyway because the food and beverages at the reception were both catered and free. Or how about that banquet or conference to which you begrudgingly showed up only because your taste buds talked you into it. Or that date you went on with that not-a-snowball's-chance-in-hell creepy dude because you knew you were getting a free gourmet dinner out of him (whatever "gourmet" means).

The folks at Klondike nailed it. They knew that human beings would do darn near anything for free food, primarily a chocolate-covered handheld square of ice cream. I mean, what would you do for a Klondike bar? Wrestle a grizzly bear? Call up an ex you detest just to say hi? Bungee jump into a swamp of alligators while wearing only the harness? Hmm... how many Klondike bars again?

Free food also just brings people together. It unites. I mean, how many conversations have you had in your life with people you honestly couldn't care less about but, hey, there was free food involved so... if having to listen to their family vacation story again meant an opportunity to enjoy some red velvet cake, you suddenly encouraged more wacky tales of that baby cousin's first attempt at putt-putt? Again, it just unites.

You could probably end a war if you posted flyers advertising "Free Peace Treaty Potluck" around war trenches or heavy combat zones. Maybe even advertise a "Free Enemy Mixer/Ice Cream Social." Military conflict resolved.

Coffee

To those whose offers for a freshly brewed cup of coffee I've denied -- nay, scoffed -- over the decades of my existence, I have good news: I'm slowly putting on my big boy pants and adapting a taste for coffee. I've been around its influence and propaganda for years, but its scent, its aromatic fumes I enjoy, is finally finding a soft spot in my gustatory system. This doesn't mean, though, that I'm seeing any further logic in the consumption of this dark bean juice.

Let's start there: bean juice. That's what it is. The ground extraction of a bean in a liquid format, supplemented with water. I guess that's okay. I mean, I like both chocolate and vanilla beans and their extractions. But, I don't know. Willingly drinking the juice of a pulp-free product just doesn't sound right to me. Makes me wonder when lima bean smoothies and pinto bean shakes will catch on.

Additionally, I partially fear materializing manila-folder-yellow teeth that so many coffee drinkers acquire over time. But probably not as much as I fear developing a permanent case of that horrendous halitosis yielded after downing a cup. You know these people (perhaps you even share an office space with them): they're carrying -- and cheerfully sharing -- coffee breath every minute of that 24-hour day, and they don't mind speaking closely enough for you to know it. I mean, how could a scent once so delectable, so inviting produce a "back the F away!" odor in a matter of minutes?

Now seems like a good time to interject a quick remark regarding the smell of urine excreted directly after drinking a cup of coffee. It's just... bad. No need to search for a grander adjective; "bad" pretty much sums it up. It's quite honestly disturbing. Let's be fair, I've not stood over a toilet of urine that I wanted to bottle as a fragrance (repulsive visual, my apologies), but I'm mortified by coffee's version. Again, simply bad.

Yet somehow this coffee stuff is growing on me. Gradually. Maybe it's the caffeine.

So, yes, I will take you up on your cup of coffee offer. The one I rejected back in the fall of '98.

Cream and sugar, please.