the anti-review

Goddam Bakersfield.

So I got asked suckered into working in god-forsaken Bakersfield again teaching the kids how to walk with a book on their heads.

Maybe I'm becoming numb or stupid or just used to it, but I am not hating it as much as I was at first. Maybe also because it isn't the heat of summer anymore where it "cooled down" to a whopping 105 degrees at 8:12 at night.

So they still pay a bunch extra and put us up in a hotel the night before.  We usually just stay in the same hotel that we teach the classes. Makes it super easy to just roll out of bed and go to work.  Well, a couple of times the company travel agent has put us up in the Padre Hotel.  I don't know if she thinks she is doing us a favor putting us in Bakersfield's attempt at Vegas/posh/hip/boutique hotel, but in reality she is putting us in the worst hotel I have ever stayed in.  Its like they spent all their money on showy things to make it look fancy and then forgot to spend money on the things people actually need in a hotel room, like a comfortable bed.  Their beds feel like you are lying on concrete.  I do not exaggerate.

If that weren't bad enough, in the three times I have been forced to stay there, they have not once been able to accommodate us with two beds. We reserve two, but then conveniently they are always "sold out" and cannot give us two beds. The first time, we got a roll-away, and it was actually pretty comfy.

The second time, they were "so swamped" that they were out of roll-aways and could offer us a "cot." Which a sweaty smelly man brought up and and proceeded to dress with a bottom sheet and a thin cotton blanket.  No top sheet, no comforter, nothing.  Oh, there was a pillow. When I went to try to lie on it, I realized that it was only about 2 inches thick and you could feel all the coils as though you were going to get stabbed by them all night long.

The third time, they brought a roll-away, but there was one small glitch.  It was so sunken in in the middle that you were in the boat pose from yoga if you tried to lie down.

I won't even go into the other details that sucked in the room, which were many, but instead focus on the piece de resistance.  This wanna-be-Vegas hotel has a nightclub on the second floor.  A nightclub that has an outdoor area.  That is in the MIDDLE of the square shaped hotel.  So the sound gets stuck/funnels up to all the rooms surrounding the outdoor nightclub. And if you think they spent no money on beds, they spent even less on soundproofing.  Your luxury curtains and Kohler sink do nothing for me when I am trying to sleep on concrete in what sounds like the middle of a club.

And then after that restful night's sleep, get up and drive 15 minutes to get to work. Which may not seem like much, but when you've already driven an hour and 45 minutes to get to a hotel where you slept like on a rock, you really consider shopping for a gun.