Clean yo' self

I come to you from beautiful, sunny, warm, perfect foggy, overcast Southern California to gripe about something.

I would say I travel a lot.   Not even including this trip, I will have at least 3 night stays in over ten hotels between now and April.

Because I am a neat freak, when I travel I do not leave towels on the floor.  I make my bed, I fold my clothes, I have things neatly put away when I check into my room.  No crap all over the place, everything is where it should be.

And because of this, I do not need my room cleaned daily.  I do not even need the house cleaners to come in every other day.  So I put the little "Do Not Disturb" sign on my door and leave it there generally for the entire 3-5 days I am at the hotel.

I do not have a maid at home, why do I need one when I travel?

Am I on vacation from being the clean, OCD individual that I am?  No.  If you can make your bed at home, keep your towels off the floor, and generally not be a slob while you live at home, why must you behave differently while at a hotel?  Just because there is a maid?

Furthermore, at home, I do not clean my bathroom daily nor do I vacuum my floors daily.  I do not change my sheets daily, or my towels.  Why do I need this all done daily while on vacation?

For the few days I am staying at the hotel, I do not want my space invaded just for the room to be perfectly cleaned.  The garbage can be emptied from my gum wrappers and tissues when I leave, thank you.

But apparently this mentality is absurd.  Regardless of whether I am at a Hilton in Houston, the Marriott in Anaheim, or the Hyatt in Albuquerque, I am constantly asked by the cleaning service if I would like my room cleaned.

Just yesterday (8 hours after I had arrived--how messy could I have allowed my room to get WHILE I SLEPT?!) I had a note under my door (on lovely hotel letterhead) instructing me to call housekeeping if I wanted my room cleaned.  I also had a message on my phone--from house keeping seeing if I wanted my room cleaned.  And lastly, as I ducked out of my room in the middle of the day (I had gone back to freshen up) a cleaning woman saw me and literally dashed down the hall shouting after me "scusa me, ma'am, do you no want me to cleana your room??"  I kindly explained that I did not need the room cleaned, I had just arrived last night, yadda yadda.  "No towels?  You don'ta want new bed?"

I smiled, said no, and went back to my meeting.  But I do not understand why I am constantly asked if I need my room cleaned during my short stay.  Do people really not understand that I keep my room clean and do not need fresh towels daily?!

Or that I never remember to travel with cash and therefore cannot tip the maids? (This may or may not be the real reason I do not have my room cleaned while traveling. Hint: it definitely is.)

Back to work I go,
Bubbie