
So if paying $200 a night (for a bed and warm shower) for a week straight isn’t bad enough, what about being nickle-and-dimed for everything extra? I have spent the past week in Las Vegas at the Mirage Hotel and have a bone to pick with them…
Don’t get me wrong.
The bed is one of the softest, most comfortable things I have ever slept on and the location is ideal for walking across the street to the Sands Expo Center.
But the other night I had one of those experiences that make you stop and wonder if what just happened is for real. I met up and had dinner with a really good friend from the mission who moved to the Sin City about 3 months ago. I haven’t seen JD Westphal and his wife Ashley since their wedding day about 3 years ago and we had quite a bit to catch up on. So much in fact, that I barely ate any of my dinner and instead chose to ramble about all the latest happenings.
When I got back to my hotel I had a box bulging with Caramel-Glazed Chicken and White Rice from the Grand Luxe. After I realized that there was no plastic silverware, I rode the elevator down to the lobby and popped into all 8 restaurants surrounding the casino asking to borrow a fork. None were willing to donate to the cause so I rode the elevator back to the 7th floor and marched down the mile-long hall to my room while debating if I could use my toothbrush as a shovel/chopstick.
Instead, I decided to call room service and have them deliver a fork. They agreed, but told me there is a $3 delivery fee. Really?! $3 dollars to bring me a fork? Whatever. It is almost bed time and I want dinner.
Ten minutes later, I open the door after almost having it beat down by some seriously hard knocking. A little Oriental guy pushes the door open and me out of the way as he barges in looking around with a plate in his hand and a fork wrapped in a dinner towel.
“Um, excuse me. I didn’t invite you in my room.”
“I know but I deliva yo foke.”
His little eagle eyes scoured my room as if he were a detective looking for crucial evidence. Without even looking at me, he holds out his hand presenting the plate and fork. (It annoyed me that he had no shame to investigate my room – let alone march in without an invitation.) I took them, then signed the receipt for $3 while mumbling under my breath how rediculous it is paying to borrow a fork for my leftovers. Then I ushered him out the door thanking him for stopping by.
“And my tip?! What you pay me?!”
“Your tip?” I ask.
“You have to pay me for deliva yo foke.”
“Wow cowboy. You’re definitely not bashful are you?”
“I don’t understand cowboy baseball.”
“What?”
“Nevamind. You pay tip.”
I was a little taken back. Isn’t he paid to walk down this hall and bring me a fork? Don’t I pay the hotel enough money for a week to include something like a ‘rental fork’? And why is this guy inside my room? Whatever. So I asked him how much money he wanted. He instantly got confused and asked me: “How much I want?”
“Yes, you said that I owe you money, so how much do you want?”
Then he got embarrassed and said somehting to the effect of: “Well you choose how much feel like offer fo my service.”
It was pretty clear that I already offered what I felt was necessary and am now simply paying more to amuse him.
“I don’t know… Uh $10, $20, $50? How much do you want?”
“No no no!” He said to me. “Only pay what your heart feel. $1 is good.”
So when I tipped him $2, he got excited and thanked me for thinking of him and compensating for his hard efforts to serve me.