Generation Exhausted: Home is where the heat is

Had I been live blogging the last couple of days, it might have looked something like this:

Late Thurs afternoon: Piled stuff in car and hit the highway to take grown up daughter to big city for summer internship interview. Discover that it is possible to defy all known laws of modern-day culture and NOT see a Tim Hortons exactly when we wanted one.

Thurs evening: Have been off of freeway and in big city exactly 90 seconds before first panhandler approached car.

Later Thurs evening: Heat in over-priced national chain hotel room does not appear to be working. The front desk is sending "someone" up to look at the thermostat.

Ten minutes later: "Someone" has gotten thing on wall to blow cold air into the room. "Someone" says don't touch the controls and that it will warm up soon.

Twenty minutes later: Have ordered pizza from national chain pizza place, which will take "more than an hour." Pizza place has refused to take cell phone number and insists on hotel's phone number.

Thirty minutes later: Over-priced hotel hot tub is not hot, but tepid. Apparently hot tub is not even supposed to be re-opening until tomorrow, after its annual refurbishment, ergo, it has not "warmed up" yet. The halls are cold too.

Thirty-five minutes later: Room has not "warmed up" yet either. Go down to desk to express displeasure. Am offered new room. Am not offered assistance in moving, but front desk helpfully informs me that our pizza has come early and gone away, since we were not in our room.

Move bags to new room, with door that requires a "shove" to close. Call pizza place with new room number. Pizza arrives. We eat accompanying salad with our fingers.

Go outside for "air". Am instantly approached by two more panhandlers.

Three hours later: The Apocalypse, in the form of major snow storm, is due to arrive in town soon. Peek out window to see if snow has started. Window blind falls on head.

Five hours later: Wake up feeling as though I am being interrogated. Turn heat down.

Heat does not go down.

Friday morning: It's the Day After Tomorrow outside. As a sensible person, I am now stuck in Big City another night. Over-priced hotel is now booked solid for Friday night. This is not a bad thing.

Thankfully, the rest of the trip was reasonably uneventful, except for the fact that the snow discouraged us from doing any urban exploration. The interview went well, dinner was enjoyable, and the second hotel (just down the street from the first) was worth every penny. Their hot tub was hot, their breakfast was free. And Oldest and I didn't bicker at. all.

But gosh, it's good to be home.