Being a product of the hospitality industry, I was tickled reading AOL.com’s recent article called, “What Do Hotel Guests Leave Behind in Rooms?” because it brought back all sorts of memories of my hotel days. Of course, most recently I found another guest’s toenail (after it jabbed me) during a stay at an Embassy Suites in Birmingham, Ala., last year. And how can I forget the flip-flop, push-up bra and loose change found during a weekend getaway in 2009?
While working in the Everglades we found a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, which apparently is a common leave behind. But that’s not the most unusual thing found in national park rooms. When I worked in the parks during the ’90s, it was no surprise finding marmots in Yellowstone cabins, scorpions in Death Valley hotel rooms and critters in Everglades rooms ranging from bats to insects. I distinctly remember my friend barb, then the front office supervisor, say a guest came to the desk one afternoon and asked for a towel for the pool. Before leaving, he casually asked if it was common to have a snake in the room. Um, no. it’s not.
By the way, be sure to check out barb’s blog, Start the Evolution Without Me, written in collaboration with Karen Kisner and Michael Mason.
As a hotel front desk supervisor in Yellowstone National Park, I think the most mysterious thing found in a hotel room (actually a cabin) was a draft document with Madeleine Albright’s name, then the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, regarding the alleged attempted assassination on George H. Bush by Saddam Hussein in 1993.
The housekeepers brought it to my attention because the cabin was neat as a pin. Nothing was out of place. It looked as though the bed was not slept in and looked as though nothing in the bathroom was used. As for the document, it sat neatly in the center of the desk as if it were waiting for someone to pick it up. I’m not sure what happened to it. Was Albright a guest? Was one of her writers off hiking and left the draft behind? Hmm. I’ll never know.
What’s the most unusual thing you’ve found in a hotel room?
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