Hooks and Ledges

Mister Patel and Mrs. Katel did a lot of traveling in those days, and stayed in more than their fair share of hotel rooms. One of the first things they noticed upon entering a room was the presence or absence of hooks, on which to hang certain things -- coats, jackets, shirts, towels, toiletry kits and laundry bags, to name a few -- and ledges, upon which to place just about everything else -- books, maps, brochures, magazines, newspapers, eyeglasses, watches, cameras, phones, writing utensils, half-eaten bags of chips, lip balm, bottled water and laptop computers. It seemed that the user-friendliness of a room was directly proportional to the number of hooks and ledges it provided.

At first, in Mr. Patel's view, there wasn't much that could be done about a dearth of ledges, or any flat surfaces upon which you could plunk your stuff. Hooks were a different story. If a room suffered from a lack of hooks, Mr. Patel brought his tool kit in from the car and went straight to work tapping the walls to locate studs or two by fours that could support hooks. Once found, he marked the locations with a pencil, grabbed his battery-powered power drill and made holes for the screws that would hold up any number of the impressive assortment of hooks that filled his tool kit. In some cases a screwdriver alone would suffice to get the job done. In cases where there were no studs or two-by-fours to be found, he would use anchors to provide the needed support.

In those early days Mrs. Katel limited her role to helping choose the locations for hooks as well as aesthetic input on which hooks went best with the design and decor of any given room. The assortment of hooks ranged from the utilitarian to the artisanal.

This arrangement went on for several years and at first both partners were reasonably satisfied. They demanded no compensation from the management for these "improvements". For the most part the management barely noticed them, and if they did they assumed they had done the work themselves, so in keeping with the character of the room were the hooks that Mr. Patel and Mrs. Katel installed.

In time, Mr. Patel addressed the issue of ledges. He developed the habit of bringing an assortment of folding tables on his road trips. They were easy enough to set up and take down, and more importantly, they were necessary. Some hotels and motels didn't even provide a decent table. He thought, where the Holy Hell is a person supposed to play Scrabble -- for example -- should the desire hit, and should the management not provide a proper table?

Mrs. Katel thought that these folding tables were a start, but ultimately amounted to "window dressing" and "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic", as the saying goes. A hotel room needs flat surfaces, she declared.

Being a woman of action, she lost no time in packing an impressive array of lumber and power tools on their road trips that she would have Mr. Patel haul into their rooms along with the luggage. Then, after taking a long swig of water, she would typically go straight for the sledge hammer or wood saw and built as many tables, shelves and ledges as the room seemed to require. In a reversal of roles, Mr. Patel  would provide aesthetic input and help with the measurements.

The very last thing they did before settling into a room, to ensure that it was habitable, was to check that the toilet paper roll was hanging properly. In the vast majority of cases -- maybe 99% -- the hotels got it right, dispensing the paper from the front. How else would the "courtesy fold" be possible, should the hotel choose to take that route? But should someone have demonically switched the roll around -- well in those rare cases Mr. Patel and Mrs. Katel would turn the roll back to its proper position. Once that was done, and all the hooks and ledges were all in place, they could get on with the business of living their lives.

- Copyright 2015 by P.T. Gachot